Log

The following is a log of the progress made on my Main Task, what task I had completed and the date that it was completed on.

11/10/17-have begun work on the Main task of creating a music magazine cover, contents and double page spread. The first post for the main task was a brief anaylsis of 2 different companies known for creating Magazines.

17/10/16- Following on from last time I analysed examples of other music magazines to help me find inspiration for mine. Additionally, I created a survey to find out what people would wish to see in a music magazine.

31/10/16- Now I know who my target audience was, I decided created a readership profile explaining who I created my magazine for and how I planned to use the information I had learnt from the survey to influence the design. I created a calendar to track the progress that had been made on the design. This can be found on the top titled Survey and results.

15/11/16- To help with the planning, I made a mood board with some of the designs I plan to use on my magazine.

28/11/16- I prepared a photo-shoot for the images I planned to use on the cover. Once the photos were taken, I began work on the first cover mock up. 

30/11/16-16/1/17- During this session, I worked on the mock ups for three covers, content pages and double page spreads. 

18/1/17- With my final design chosen, I made changes and improvements to any issues that had been noted.

31/1/17- With Everything completed and posted on the blog, I evaluated the final design and discussed what went well as any changes I would make if were to repeat the task.

1/2/17- After completing the main task, I brought it and the prelim task together on to one page so that they can be viewed together.



10/11/17- I looked through my blog, to see what needed to be improved and what was missing that must be added.



5/12/17- I sought the advice of my media teacher to see what she thought of my blog as well as giving me tasks to do in order to advance it's quality.



7/12/17- I discussed with my friends if they would pose for photos which would be used in my magazine.



10/12/17- I expanded the information on the theorists I had research as well as how I will it within my magazine.


31/1/18- I decided to update my Magazine and have the theme of it be a celebration of the music by the Radiophonic Workshop.


12/3/18- I researched photos of people who worked for the Radiophonic Workshop, the ones I like the most, I would recreate using my friends.


13/3/18- I began building my new Magazine, step by step.
18/3/18- I decided that my double page would be an interview with Ron Grainer, the man who wrote the Doctor Who theme. I looked up previous interviews that he had had done to figure out what sort of questions he would've been asked.


27/3/18- I began to building the contents page.


17/4/18- I began building the double page spread.


18/4/18- I completed my final design for the contents page.


22/04/18- I completed my final cover design.


23/04/18- I completed the final design of the double page spread. I updated the evaluation and compared it to my previous magazine. I went through it with my teacher to make sure of any last minute changes that needed to be made before it could be sent off to be marked.

Evaluation (old)

                                           Evaluation

The following is a look back through the work I have do on my main task throughout the last few weeks. I shall go over the skills I have learnt and evaluate my designs and see how I can improve this type of work in the future. This shall be done by reviewing what ways does my media product use as well as develop the different types of forms and conventions of real media products?

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My media product develops the traditional conventions of similar products through is by using the same format that they use in their designs, but doing it in my own style. For my design I looked through a pre-existing magazine and used that particular layout for mine but made changes to make it more original. examples of these changes would be changing the themes and dialogue presented in the magazine to a topic which suited the pre-existing style but was not copying what I had read. additionally, I originally planned to take photos for the magazine, with the models posing in a similar fashion to the ones seen in the magazine, this was later changed as I decided that adding my own unique style of photos would help to give my product its own style, which is why my final photos seen in the complete product do not match the photos seen in the original template.

• How does my media product represent particular social groups?

My magazine represents the particular social group I had chosen for my product as being well read and sophisticated. This is shown to be true when viewing the simple but classical design of magazine though out it, showing that its readers are of high intelligence. therefore, my media product represents the particular social group, I chose for my magazine, is positive.

 • What kind of media institution might distribute my media product and why?

For my Magazine, I believe that the most likely media institution would be my local theatre, the Hexagon. this is because a lot of the information and events in my magazine, tie in with the events occurring at the Hexagon, it would be used as a form of promotion to attract more people to their establishment.

• Who would be the audience for my media product?

For this particular magazine, the target audience would range from young adults to middle age who are fans of classical music. I came to this conclusion when choosing my template for my magazine and found a posh magazine design and decided to adapt it.

• How did you attract/address my audience?

I was able to address my audience through the use of a survey. this was used to ask my target customers what they would want in a Music Magazine. With this information, I was able to design my magazine based off of the results of the survey. A link to my survey is available on my blog.

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

This experience of constructing my magazine has allowed me to advance my skills when it comes to the use of editing technologies. Before starting my Main Task, I was aware of Photoshop and I did have previous experience creating 

covers and my own original artwork using these particular photo editing tools.

Having prior knowledge to use these tools has helped me during this task as it gave me a head start when it came to creating my magazine. It has also allowed me to advance my skills, introducing me to tools like lasso and crop, which has greatly improved my projects i am currently working on out side of school.   

• Looking back at my preliminary task, what do I feel I have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Too find out what progress I had made between my Preliminary task and my Main Task, I decided to place my final product for the both Tasks and compare 

them, seeing what has improved and what needs to be worked on.

When viewing the different tasks, it is clear that I have made progress when it comes to editing photos. An example of this would be using and editing my own photos rather than using pre-edited images, which doesn't help when it comes to advancing my editing skills. additionally the prelim task appears to have a more childish design, while the main task is more sophisticated.

Photos/Contact Sheet

Below is where I shall post all the unedited photos that were taken at my photo shoot which may be used in my magazine. Then, I will decide which ones I will be using for the final designs. the original photos with my models were lost so I was forced to retake them.

Final Contents and Double Page Spread (old)

For the most part, I was happy with the design of my contents and double page spread. However, I did make the addition of changing the images I had originally chosen as well as reshaping my double page spread.    

Final Cover Redesign (Old)

For my final design, I chose to use a different photo for my cover so I removed the original image. the one I chose to replace it with was another image taken from my photo shoot, one that I know think, suits  the layout of my magazine more than the previous image.

Cover without image:

Cover with new Image:

Final Design

For my final design for my magazine, I have chosen to use the second design to work from and up date, this being the classical style magazine design.

 I have chosen this design as I believe it to be the strongest of the 3 designs because it is the one that I based on a existing design starting from a template, while the other two were made from scratch and therefore do not look as impressive.

Double Page Spread mock up 3

For my final Double Page spread, I chose this following design using Pages template which I felt best went with my cover and contents for this particular mock up design.

Original Template:

                                Stage 1: I began with removing the text from the original template.

 Stage 2: Next, I replaced it with the information from my previous double page spreads. I began to change the images to one that would best suit the topic of the interview.

Stage 3: I removed the text below and move the guitar in to a position where i wouldn't block the writing.

Double Page Spread Mock up 2

This article continues with the classic design from the contents and cover. the theme of the article being an interview with the fictional character, I created for this magazine. It is the same interview from the first design but is staged differently to match this new style.

Template:

Stages 1-3: Once I had chosen my layout, I began by replacing the words and pictures for the second page of my spread.  

Stage 4- I reshaped the page and split in two and rejoined them as double page spread.  

  

Contents Mock up 3

Stage 1: For this design I chose my background as this close up image of a microphone on a stage.

Stage 2: I added the title, having the letter "T" be in the spotlight.

Stage 3-4: With the title being difficult to see, I changed it to white so it could be seen clearer. However this led to the T being made obscure, so I changed that particular letter back to black so it would stand out more.

Stage 5: Following on from this I added the text and page numbers.

Stage 6: having difficulty seeing the text, I decided to change the font colour.

 Stage 7-8: To give the contents a more quirky look, i move the pieces of text to different parts of the page, first by placing the text in the centre of the page.

 Stage 9: I placed these squares on the page to help me know where to put my images.

Stage 10: I began to add my images.

Contents Mock up 2

Template: Here is the original design that I decided to base this more sophisticated magazine design.

 Stage 1-3: I began by changing the main image to a photo of my local theatre, then I changed the text which is more relevant for a music magazine. keeping with the design of a photo of a theatre, I took a photos of my local theatre, the Hexagon, which is where my fictional character is set to perform at. I originally had taken shots with a model in the theatre, however due to technical issues, they were lost and only this one, which was a test photo, had been saved

Contents mock up 1

Continuing the theme of the graffiti artist cover, I chose chosen to give the contents page a similar design with text being sprayed on to the wall, while each page number being presented as a poster.

stage 1: I began by taking a photo of a blank street wall being the background.

Stage 2: I started adding the details like a copyright and a website to the bottom and the top of the contents in order to make it appear to be more authentic. 

Stage 3: Next I began to add text to the contents page.

Stage 4: Like with the cover, I altered the text to make it look like it was spray painted on to the wall.

Stage 5: following on from this I added a small spray paint can in the corner just to help sell the imagery.

Stage 6: With my (fictional) musician character, who is seen on the cover, being a guitarist, I decided to place a guitar next to the briefcase.

Stage 7: Again, like before, I added some stains left over from the spray paint to give it more authenticity.

Stage 8: Above the title, I place three squares which are to become the posters advertising each page of the magazine.

Stage 9: To make the posters seem more realistic, I slightly changed their shape and added small pins on to them.

Stage 10: Once in the right shape I began to add detail on to the posters, starting with the text. Additionally, since the briefcase is supposed to belong to my character, I decided to write the topic and page number relating to him on it, in a font that looks like it was written in pen, complete with stains of ink underneath.

Cover Mock up 3

For my final cover design, I used this template,below, to help me create a simple cover design which would be for a magazine created as publicity for an up and coming music festival.

Original Template: 

Stage 1: Changing the title, with the theme of my magazine being a festival, I simply changed the title from Movies to Music.

Stage 2: The original template was very basically so I began to add pieces of information on to the cover, this text would be to help possible readers now what to expect to find in the magazine.

Stage 3: I placed the barcode on the bottom right hand corner of the cover 

Stage 4-6: At the bottom of the cover, I started to place small pieces of information to add to the detail like the price and the date of the concert.

Stage 7: I removed the template image and replaced it with my photo.