Friday, 19 February 2016
Thursday, 18 February 2016
Wednesday, 17 February 2016
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?
My
photography has developed since the preliminary task because I took images from
a range of different lengths; I originally wanted to use a long shot for the
main image on my front cover, but after looking through my contact sheet
several times I preferred one of my medium shots. Also, I decided to use the
medium shot because the model was using a direct mode of address, whereas in
the long shots he was looking at the guitar. I have found that front covers
using a direct mode of address make the reader feel more involved in the
magazine.
When
making my college magazine I wasn’t very precise with the position of the
coverlines around the main image. After looking at it again I thought it
would’ve been a better idea to frame the image with the text, and also align
them neatly using rulers because this adds quality to the overall look of a
front cover. I made sure I did this when constructing my final front cover
because I didn’t want any of the coverlines to get lost over the image, and I
wanted the main image to be distinct and not overpowered by anything else.
I
don’t think my college magazine appeals to a particular target audience because
I didn’t consider many fonts or colours; I simply used the colours of the
model’s clothing. However, when designing the front cover for my music magazine
I made sure that all elements of it apply to my target demographic of 15-19
year olds. For example, the model on the front cover is within this age range,
and I added some gig shots in the top right hand corner which apply to a
younger audience because there are also younger people in these images. Also,
you can see some of the audience in the right hand shot, and they look as
though they are jumping around which could suggest that they are younger.
When
constructing my front cover I used a lot of strokes in order to give some of
the elements a coloured border. I began by doing this to the masthead because I
thought it looked a lot bolder with the black outline. I then did this later on
with the main coverline and puff in the top right hand corner because by this
stage I had made the main image black and white, and I thought the cover needed
some more colour. I took the colour for these outlines from the masthead
because I wanted to create a consistent and bold colour scheme. I also did this
with the dateline and price because the black text wasn’t very visible against
the guitar.
I experimented by taking small
areas of some of the images on my contact sheet and blending them with the
background layers of my final products. I used the threshold tool to add
contrast and black areas to them before I imported them onto my double page
spread. I did this because the background looked very plain and there was some
negative space and I thought that sections taken from guitars would look
appropriate and effective in the background. I used the overlay blending mode
to blend the guitars with the grey background layer because the other assets on
the page became lost because the guitars were very bold. By using the overlay
blending mode the guitars now look a lot more transparent, but they are still
very obvious and recognisable.
I used the ruler tool in
Photoshop in order to be as precise as possible with things such as spacing and
text size and position. When constructing my front cover I used rulers to
ensure that my cover lines were aligned at the left and right edges of the
page. I made sure that I left a small gap between the end of the cover lines
and the edge of the page because when printing in Photoshop the software
sometimes clips the document. I also used the ruler tool a lot when composing
the body text in my double page spread. I used 2 rulers to create my desired
column size, then I filled this space with a text box. After filling it with my
article, I copied and pasted the text boxes so that the sizes were equal. I
then used rulers again to make sure that the gutters were the same size.
In the process of constructing
my contents page. I used the rulers in order to make sure that the rows of text
in the bottom half of the page were all aligned perfectly, as well as the
column down the right hand side. I wanted all of the text in the column on the
right to be centred because I had taken inspiration from the review section on
the contents page of Q magazine, and I thought that the centred text looked
effective. At first I made the band names different sizes in order to all fit
on one line, but this didn’t look neat at all so I used the rulers in order to
fit the text on multiple lines so that it was all centred. I then added page
numbers to this section, and had to fit the band names round the page numbers.
Again I used the rulers to do this.
I used both the quick selection and magic wand
tools in order to remove the backgrounds of my images. I began by using the
magic wand tool, but I found that a lot of dots and random green areas weren’t
being picked up by the tool. I then decided to remove as much of the green
screen as I could using the magic wand tool, then I went back with the quick
selection tool and got rid of the rest with that. These tools were extremely
helpful because they quickened the process of removing the background.
I
did a lot of research into Q magazine because I wanted to focus on a range of
different music genres in my magazine, and this is something that Q magazine
does successfully. As well as looking at how they cover multiple genres in the
magazine, I took some of the layout concepts from one of the contents pages.
For example, I thought the review column down the right hand side looked very
effective so I used this idea but added my own font choices, images and
colours. I thought this would apply to my target audience of late teenagers
because I added mostly live reviews to this section, and a lot of teenagers
often to gigs and live events.
I
paid a lot of attention to detail, specifically within the main task because I wanted
the finish to be as high quality as possible. I used rulers in order to ensure
that everything was positioned correctly, and I made sure that the font sizes
were consistent within different areas of the text. I also used the colour
picker to ensure that the colour schemes on each product were consistent and so
that there weren’t too many different colours present.
Tuesday, 9 February 2016
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