Experimenting with Fonts

By experimenting with different fonts, i was able to see which font suited the young and up market target audience of my magazine. the font at the bottom of the image above was to one i finally decided to use due to the fact that it is bold and easy to read as well as giving a contemporary feel,

Double Page Spread: Ideas and Inspiration

These 3 double page spreads are interesting due to their simple colour schemes, in which despite the simplicity, they are extremely effective. I want to incorporate some of the ideas presented in all of these magazines in my final media product, such as the Black and White pictures from the 3rd Feature article on the All American Rejects. I feel that these pictures help to balance out the article really well and that it gives the whole of the article a more artistic impression. They also Highlight the main image as this is in colour and they make the colours in the main image more vibrant. When it comes to formatting my text, i like the idea of wrapping the text around the main or secondary image as it makes it look professional. However, the way that has been done in "I Spent £20,000 To Look Like Bardot" makes it look quite messy as i feel the text has been wrapped around the images a little too much. This is something i will come to consider when constructing my feature article. Contrary to this, i think that by having clear columns of text, like in NME's article on Lilly Allen (top) it makes the text really clear and easy to read. By having one page dedicated to the main image, it makes the article look eye catching, due to the size and subjective gaze of the main image. I have an idea of doing a main image in this way, but having the image in black and white to make it look more artistic.

Finalised Ideas: decibel (with breakdown of cast, settings and props)

Final Idea- Front cover

Final Idea- Contents page

My Feature article (handwritten)

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the construction of my Magazine, I used many pieces of technology in order to make my product to the highest quality standard that I could.

This is a picture of my Nikon AF-S DX which I used to take all of the photographs used in the magazine. It gave me high quality images that made my magazine look professional because it is an SLR camera, but a downfall of it was that you couldn't see what you were taking on the digital screen until after it had been taken, so i had to take several shots in order to find the right ones. When using my camera, i learnt more about the settings, for example how the flash and quality will differ depending on whether it is taken on a macro setting.

My USB portable storage device was extremely helpful when it came to transferring work i had done on the computers at college, to my home computer and vice-versa. This meant that i was able to spend a lot more time on my coursework than what i would have done if I didn't have my USB drive, meaning that it was finished to a higher quality standard. However, about half way through my construction, i found that i had reached the mass storage limit so i had to delete some of the files from there, so maybe a USB with a larger capacity would have been better.

I used Mozilla Firefox as my main Internet browsing provider because i found it very fast and i liked the fact that when i left my browsing session, Firefox would save the tabs i had open in my previous session and open them again at the beginning of the next. This was extremely useful for me as i would have open and ready to go: my Blog, Flickr account, the coursework outline and whatever i was researching in the previous session so i could just pick back up from where i left off. I also found the automatic spell check on programmes such as Flickr extremely useful.

Prior to this coursework module, I had never used Blogger
before, so my media teacher gave me quite a lot of help in setting up my account and showing me what to do, however i must say that i found Blogger extremely easy to use and i really like the way it is set out. I learnt about creating, deleting and organising posts and designing my blog to make it look presentable and i think that i may continue to use Blogger in my free time.

I had no idea about using photoshop when i first started this module and i have learnt so many things, like photo editing, layering, using rulers, text warping, and many other skills. By using photoshop, it let me consider camera angle and how i could create different effects with tinting images to warmer colours (reds and oranges) or cooler colours (blue, white). I do like photoshop as there is such a wide range of skills you can incorporate, however i think that i could of done my magazine better if i had a wider knowledge of photoshop and knew all of the effects it had to offer.

Other Products i used were:

Contents Page: Ideas and Inspiration

I took inspiration from these 3 magazine contents pages as I liked the look of the sharp lines and the linear format. I took inspiration from these 3 magazines because they struck me as being very easy to read and as if a lot of effort had been put in to them. When I get round to constructing my magazine I want to maintain this effect, so I could probably use the formatting idea of having each of the individual photographs boxed off with a distinct and clear white square boarder. This gives each of the photographs on the page significant emphasis, and by not having any of them overlap, or out of line, it makes the magazine look very professional and high class, even Kerrang Magazine, which is actually targeted at a more working class audience. I also like the fact that NME reinforces the brand on the contents page by having the title printed on here as well as on the front cover, as well as keeping it up to date by putting on the text “THIS WEEK” which lets you know that the magazine that you have bought is the current issue, so the reader gets the feel of being in the know. This is an element that I would like to include when making my media product. The way I will format what is included in my magazine will be the same way in which Icons formats its: with the Features header encasing a page number then the title of the article with a small description beneath.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Age: 16- 25

Gender: 65% female, 35% male

Rationality: Small Cities

Marital Status: Single

Social Status: ABC1

Psychographic Profile: Mainstreamers

Lifestyle Subset: Yuppies

Shops: H&M, New Look, Zara, Topshop

Restaurants: Pizza Hut, Bella Italia

Drinks: Starbucks Coffee

Products: Converse, Nikon, iPod/iTunes

Hobbies: Photography, Going to the Gym, Socialising

Music: Katy Perry, Basement Jaxx, B.O.B.

Transport: Bus, Train, Taxi

T.V: Skins, Misfits, Hollyoaks, Mock the Week

This is a picture of the person I would imagine to buy my magazine. She is young (approximately 17) and looks as if she is in education, due to the fact she is wearing a shirt and a nice looking cardigan, something that I would imagine her to wear at college. Her look is relaxed and casual, yet right on trend so she obviously pays a lot of attention to what’s going on in the fashion industry, so shops at high street stores such as H&M and New Look. My target audience is middle class, so she would belong to the ABC1 categories of social standing, meaning that she would have the money to spend on clothes and going out and socialising. As they are the mainstream population, they like the feeling of security as well as the feeling of professionalism, so my magazine is targeted at them due to the clean outlines of the titles and text on my magazine, as well as the simple, yet effective colour scheme. Companies that may advertise in my magazine would be affordable products, such as Costa, WHSmith, Waterstones and shopping centres, places where students would go out, however the adverts would not be promoting bars/clubs due to the fact that some of the readers would be underage so this would be a bad influence and may tarnish the magazines reputation before it had even established one.

Looking back at your preliminary task (the college magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Click on eack image to see my flickr analysis of how i have developed my skills from my college magazine; e-mag, to my final product; decibel.