1. How does your media project represent particular social groups?As i am doing a pop magazine for children, the photos and language needs to suit this particular age group. The typical children's pop magazine always has the most up to date famous pop stars on the front cover and throughout the magazine to suit this age group. Pop stars are mostly always shown to be happy and very smiley because this is what their music is like most of the time, for example a hip hop/rap magazine would
have images showing rappers with their facial expressions completely different to pop stars because their music is about more serious things, so their expressions would be aggressive and angry. Doing this helps the magazine to sell more as the age group it is aimed at, knows who all the people are in the photos and picks the magazine up. Here is an example of using very famous people of the front cover to draw the reader in and also how their facial expressions are compared to the example of a hip hop/rap magazine. As you can see facial expressions on the front cover image are very important and influential to who buys the magazine. The hip hop magazine wouldn't be suitable to my target audience because they wouldn't want to buy a magazine if the person on the front cover doesn't look friendly.The pop stars all look straight into the camera which is also a way of drawing the audience in and picking up the magazine because the buyer feels like the stars are looking at them and connecting them, this is what draws the audience in, especially with a younger audience. The pop stars also always have lots of make up on and their hair is done to the fashion of the time so that this appeals to the audience that its aimed at, they are made to look perfect and attractive so that children can aspire to be like these pop stars. The famous people especially on the front cover are always very smiley and look very friendly, this is suited to the age group that it is aimed at because children are drawn to friendly faces and happy emotions, the fact that the audience will know who is in the photos helps because it makes them feel that the star is friendly and the reader will want to read about them.I used language that was exciting and humorous because it needed to suit my target audience, without the language being fun, easy to read and exciting the reader would get bored and not want to read on. I also used language that would appeal more to girls because in the research i did, more girls than boys read this kind of magazine, so by using language that would appeal to girls more i am making the magazine suit my target audience again.
2. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Places that might sell my media product would be supermarkets because parents may pick up a copy when they are doing their shopping. When parents take their children to the supermarket the children might ask their parents to buy it for them if they like the front cover and it appeals to them. Supermarkets are one of the best places to sell magazine because of how many different types of people go there because they have to buy food, but if it was a different shop such as, 'Superdrug' for example a smaller amount of different people shop there and they may not be the right target audience for your magazine. You have a much better chance of selling your magazine at a big chain company like supermarkets. A place such as a Shops that sell toys such as, 'Toys R us' may sell my media product because the products that they sell in these shops appeal to this type of audience and this target audience may go to these places and find a copy and want to get it. Anywhere that sells products that appeal to the particular type of target audience is a place that would defiantly want to sell my media product because they would get more sales.
Publishers such as 'Paton' would publish my media product because it has been publishing 'POP!' magazine for several years this is a young person's pop magazine and falls into the target audience category that my magazine does, although they are based in Canada.
Another publisher that might consider publishing my media product is 'Panini' because it is the second largest publisher for teenage and children magazines and my magazine fits into this publisher's criteria.
Another publisher that might consider publishing my media product is 'Panini' because it is the second largest publisher for teenage and children magazines and my magazine fits into this publisher's criteria.
3. Who would be the audience for your media product?
The target audience for my magazine are young girls around the age of 12/15 years of age. In the research i have done into the magazine 'Top of the Pops' i found that these kind of children's pop magazines are mostly read by classes C2DE. The age group that it showed on the statistics was that girls aged 15-44 read 'Top of the Pops' magazine but this is a very large age gap and personally i think that girls in the younger stage of that statistic read this particular magazine more than much older women. My media product would be aimed more at mainstreamers because there is nothing in the magazine that is out of the ordinary and particulaly different to any other pop magazine, it includes the usual fashion, gossip and tips that my target audience would like. Even though this magazine is aimed more at mainsteamers, i wanted to make sure that the images, font and colours would stand out from the rest of the magazines so that it would sell more.
I wanted my magazine to be aimed at a slightly younger target audience so i changed how i used language, images and font in the magazine to suit my target audience. I changed the language so that it was easier to read and was about things that a slightly younger target audience would know about and understand, the images i used were very happy and the subjects in the images were smiling and making eye contact. As my magazine is aimed at the classes C2DE i needed to make my magazine affordable to that target audience as these classes are in lower paid jobs. The parents would possibly buy the magazine for this age group so making the magazine affordable is important as the parents would be the ones with the lower paid jobs and this would effect how much for example, pocket money would be given to their children.That is why i made the magazine 99p. Another reason i made the magazine 99p and not one pound was because 99p sounds cheaper and would then make the shopper want to buy it more.
4. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
To make my media product suit my target audience i needed to research other pop magazines, the main magazine i looked at to get ideas from was 'Top of the Pops' magazine, this was really helpful because i got an idea of how to set out my magazine successfully and to get the images and font right to suit my audience. This font is from the older version of 'Mizz' magazine, this font for the masthead is bold, big and very noticeable which is what you want for the masthead of a magazine, it lets the audience know what magazine it is and also makes it stand out the most so that more people buy it. Because the magazine is aimed at younger people the font it easy to read and uses sans serif font which is very popular in magazines aimed at younger people.
The font that i used for my media product is quite similar to the font that 'Mizz' magazine used because i have used sans serif font and it is very easy to read. I used bold colours to stand out and did two colours alternating to make it even more eye catching and to make it appealing to my audience. To get my idea for using this sort of font i looked up these sorts of magazines and found that all of the mastheads were very easy to read and very bold which is why i chose this one.
The main image on the front cover of my magazine i had to think about because i wanted it to be big and eye catching but didn't quite know how i would do that with three people in the photo. I looked at other pop magazines and found that all the front cover images were very big and close up to the face to make eye contact even greater, so i thought that by using a guitar in the image with three other subject would make the magazine stand out from the rest as i haven't seen many pop magazines that use instruments in their front cover images.
This image is from the cover of 'Top of the Pops' magazine.
By looking at this example from 'Top of the Pops' magazine and my front cover image you can see that they are similar in some ways and not in others. The 'Top of the Pops' example is a lot closer up to the subject so you can see his facial expressions better and eye contact is better. But with my front cover image, i think it is more eye catching because the whole page is taken up by the image behind the writing. Both of the images use eye contact to make the audience feel like they are looking at them. I also wanted to make sure that the front cover image would stand out so that it is noticed more than the other magazines so i used three subjects in my image, this makes it look bolder as the whole page is taken up.
I looked at this double page spread from 'Bliss' magazine and got the idea for my layout from this for my double page spread. I liked the idea of having the main page image on one side and then having all of the text from the article together so that it's easy to read for the target audience. Not everything is similar like the smaller side images. In my double page spread i wanted to do something that would appeal to my audience and get them involved more so i chose to do a competition so that one reader could win a signed photo from one of the band members. There is my double page spread below.
As you can see there are some similarities to the 'Bliss' magazine double page spread but not that many, i wanted my pages to suit my target audience completely and to do this i tried to involve them more by doing competitions and giving information about how they can get more from the band because if the reader is reading the page then they are most probably going to like the band. This means by informing the reader they get more out of the magazine, which will then make them want to buy it more and buy it again after that.
Overall looking at my media product and other media products in the shops that aimed at my target audience as well, i think that i have got good ideas from different magazines and made them my own so that they stand out from the rest.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
For my double page spread i had to think about how to write my article to attract my target audience, to do this i had to plan what the article was going to be about and how to use language that would make my audience want to carry on reading. I decided to do an interview with a well known band that had split up for a few years and are now back making music, the band i chose to do this was a band that would have been like the spice girls as this band suited my target audience. Here is an example of how i used language to attract my audience.
I used mostly present tense so that it makes the audience more involved and it seems as though we are talking specifically to that reader which makes them feel like they are being spoken to. I used language that is easy to read for my target audience and there are no long complicated words that they won't understand, this will make them feel more confident in reading the rest and not get bored because they don't understand properly. I tried to make it exciting by saying ' Pop Rocks are the first to interview them', this makes the audience feel special because they think they are going to be the first to read about the band. By doing that it makes the magazine stand out because the audience thinks that no other magazine on the shelf has this information about the band. Addressing the audience by saying 'get all the answers you wanted to know' means that the reader thinks that the magazine is taking interest in who reads the magazine, this would make the reader want to buy other issues because the magazine listens to the reader. It also makes the reader think that their question has been answered which will make them read on in the article. By opening the article this way it gives the audience an idea of what it is going to be about and makes them decided whether they want to read on or not, this is why it is very important to make it sound as exciting and interesting as possible especially if the target audience is young.
I used white sans serif font so that its again easy to read and to make the page not look too boring, white font makes it look different and slightly more interesting.
This example from the front cover uses language so that it invites the audience in. I wanted this main flash to be eye catching and to make the reader want to read the rest of the magazine. By saying 'All your favourite pop stars' means that a larger range of people may look at the magazine because it isn't saying one particular pop star but many, this means that more people might buy the magazine. Another way i wanted to make the audience want to read more was by saying ' reveal their new years resolutions', by saying this it makes the audience feel like they want to know what it is because how it has been said it quite mysterious and doesn't give much away. Again i used white font to stand out from the rest on the front cover as it is the main flash.
The images i used were very important in making my magazine appeal to my target audience because the audience is young and would look at the images more than the text at first. The most important image is front cover image that relates to your main flash. I used three subjects in my image and they all represent very famous pop stars, this would immediately appeal to my target audience because they are famous people that they will know. I used three subjects because i thought that if i used most of the front cover up with the main image then it would be much more eye catching to my audience which would then make them want to pick up my magazine rather than the others on the shelf. I included an instrument for one of the subjects to hold, again to make it more eye catching and to make it stand out, as what i have researched i haven't seen many instruments being used on the front cover. Here is my front cover image.
As you can see all of the subjects are making eye contact with the camera and making a link with the audience. The two other images on the front cover are smaller and not as important as the main flash image. I wanted to make the image with 'The Queuetee's' exciting and be more appealing to girls as it is a girl band, by using a pink background it carries the theme of a girl band throughout the magazine so that the reader can link them together. I thought that the subjects in the image would look better if they were looking at each other instead of the camera because it shows the audience that they are back together as a band, i also thought it would be better to have this image so that they arn't looking at the reader so that it isn't all the same and looks more interesting.
The bottom image with the artist, 'Cameron Williams' has a different compostiton and i think this works well with what the main sell is about. It shows that he is doing a 'shhh' gesture which my target audience would understand and make them intrigued into what the story is about. The blue background is bright and eye catching but is also a male colour.
The font that i used for this main sell i thought would be good to use because it is modern and clear to read which is good for my young target audience. Out of all the research i did for my magazine i saw that many magazines like mine used this sort of unusual font to make it look more interesting and modern so that it appeals to the audience. I made the colour of the font pink to show the connection for the band 'The Queuetee's' and to make it again appeal to girls as more girls read these sorts of magazines than boys. The font that i used is called 'pussycat' which i got from www.dafont.com.
I wanted to use lots of colour to appeal to my audience so i used bold, bright colours that linked with certain things such as 'The Queuetee's' band. This is my contents page which shows that i used colour a lot in my magazine.
I wanted to use a bright bold background so that when the reader flicks through the magazine they will stop at this page because the colours are bright and will be interesting. I think that the contents page is one of the most important pages in a magazine because it tells you what will be in the rest of the magazine and so i wanted it to be eye catching.
I used other very bright colours to use in the boxes with the images so that the colours kind of clash with the background but i think this works well because it is more interesting to look at and links to the way pop is, as pop is bright and colourful and aims its music mostly at younger people i wanted to show this in my magazine.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
To make this magazine work i used Indesign software which helped me do a lot of things that i wouldn't be able to do without it. Indesign allows you to have the freedom of putting text boxes where ever you want on the page which is very good if you are making a magazine because in magazines the text boxes are sometimes put in places that arn't even to everything else of the page, other software won't let you do this as easily.
Arranging your images is a very important thing in a magazine because sometimes you want the image behind the writing or possibly in front. Indesign lets you do this just by clicking on 'arrange' and you can then choose where you want the image to go, for example if you wanted the image behind the text then you would click on 'send to back'. Most magazines use this technique on the front covers of magazines to make the image stand out but also so that you can see the writing and see what will be in the rest of the magazine.
By using 'fitting' you can make the image you want to use fit to how ever you want it to. If you want your image to fit the box in proportion then you can by clicking on 'fitting' and then choose fit to content, by doing this it gives you the freedom to have your image how ever you want.
A really easy and helpful thing that i found was that you could download a font that you chose from www.dafont.com which has a very good variety of fonts which can make your magazine suit your target audience. If you download the font then it goes into your font library and you can choose to use it when ever you want. I found that this was one of the most helpful things that Indesign let you do.
To make your magazine look more interesting and eye catching to your audience it is very easy to choose a colour for your font. All you had to do was highlight the font and then click on 'swatches' and choose the colour you wanted. You could also save in 'swatches' a particular colour that you have chosen and it will be saved for when ever you want to use it, instead of having to find the exact colour again when you next go on it.
One more thing that was really helpful in making your magazine look professional was not having to use text boxes that are visible. By using these text boxes you can write things and place the text where ever you want without seeing the text box lines which gives mainly the front cover a professional look.
Using photoshop to change your images is a very helpful way to make you images suit your target audience, for example i used photoshop to cut out the subjects in the images and then put a coloured background behind them so that the images are more bright and eye catching. I did this to most of my images, to do this i just used the magnetic lasso tool to cut the subjects out with a neat finish and then highlighted the background with the magic wand tool and then i was able to colour the background in a bright colour without going over the subjects in the image.
I had to use photoshop to crop things such as the examples of fonts that i was going to use in the magazine (blog 5). I did this so that i didn't have to use the whole page that i print screened and it just focused on what i was talking about.
For a magazine people use the dodge tool to airbrush out blemishes on the models in the photos a lot. I used this on one of the subjects in one of my images as he had a cut near his eye and this wouldn't look good on a pop magazine front cover. Using this tool is a very good way to make the subject's look 'perfect' especially in a fashion kind of magazine, although they do use this a lot in pop magazines.
There weren't many things that i couldn't make Indesign and photoshop do but there were some things that i found quite difficult getting used to. At first i found getting the images to be sized down proportionally and not become distorted but after doing it a few times i got used to it and found it quite easy. Finding out how to do things such as getting the text boxes without the lines and getting the background to have a colour were quite difficult at first. I found out how to do this after a while but it was hard to find. I knew how to use most of photoshop before i started this project so i didn't find it that difficult and i didn't use many techniques that were hard as i didn't need to for my media product.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back on my preliminary task i think i have improved on planning my work thoroughly and i have realised how long the process of making a magazine takes. To make a magazine you have to plan what the genre of the magazine is, what the masthead is going to be, what is going to be in the magazine, plan the images, how your going to write the article, what fonts your going to use. All these things have to be planned before you even start making your media product.
I have improved on using Indesign a lot and how to make the magazine suit my target audience. With my preliminary task i didn't consider target audience as much as this task and didn't plan it very well but by using Indesign more i have learnt new skills by practising. When i did the preliminary task i didn't have to use Indesign as intensely as the main task and so elements such as how to layout things effectivley have improved by using text boxes and placing images, these were the main two things i used throughout making my magazine.
I have learnt how to use language when writing the article in an effective way that will suit my target audience, to do this i learnt that using exciting and humorous language that is said in the present tense involves the audience a lot more and keeps them wanting to read especially for my particular target audience. Unlike the preliminary task when i didn't consider how to use language effectively this time i planned what i was going to say.
Finally the images i used were planned well, i had to consider if they would suit my target audience, if the images linked to the story and if what they were wearing would be suitable. In the preliminary task i didn't consider any of this and probably didn't suit my target audience.
By looking at what i had done in the preliminary task and what i have achieved now i can confidently say that i have improved on my Indesign and Photoshop skills and i have done a lot better of a job than i did with the preliminary task.
Front Cover of my magazine.
I wanted my magazine to be aimed at a slightly younger target audience so i changed how i used language, images and font in the magazine to suit my target audience. I changed the language so that it was easier to read and was about things that a slightly younger target audience would know about and understand, the images i used were very happy and the subjects in the images were smiling and making eye contact. As my magazine is aimed at the classes C2DE i needed to make my magazine affordable to that target audience as these classes are in lower paid jobs. The parents would possibly buy the magazine for this age group so making the magazine affordable is important as the parents would be the ones with the lower paid jobs and this would effect how much for example, pocket money would be given to their children.That is why i made the magazine 99p. Another reason i made the magazine 99p and not one pound was because 99p sounds cheaper and would then make the shopper want to buy it more.
4. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
To make my media product suit my target audience i needed to research other pop magazines, the main magazine i looked at to get ideas from was 'Top of the Pops' magazine, this was really helpful because i got an idea of how to set out my magazine successfully and to get the images and font right to suit my audience. This font is from the older version of 'Mizz' magazine, this font for the masthead is bold, big and very noticeable which is what you want for the masthead of a magazine, it lets the audience know what magazine it is and also makes it stand out the most so that more people buy it. Because the magazine is aimed at younger people the font it easy to read and uses sans serif font which is very popular in magazines aimed at younger people.
The font that i used for my media product is quite similar to the font that 'Mizz' magazine used because i have used sans serif font and it is very easy to read. I used bold colours to stand out and did two colours alternating to make it even more eye catching and to make it appealing to my audience. To get my idea for using this sort of font i looked up these sorts of magazines and found that all of the mastheads were very easy to read and very bold which is why i chose this one.
The main image on the front cover of my magazine i had to think about because i wanted it to be big and eye catching but didn't quite know how i would do that with three people in the photo. I looked at other pop magazines and found that all the front cover images were very big and close up to the face to make eye contact even greater, so i thought that by using a guitar in the image with three other subject would make the magazine stand out from the rest as i haven't seen many pop magazines that use instruments in their front cover images.
This image is from the cover of 'Top of the Pops' magazine.
By looking at this example from 'Top of the Pops' magazine and my front cover image you can see that they are similar in some ways and not in others. The 'Top of the Pops' example is a lot closer up to the subject so you can see his facial expressions better and eye contact is better. But with my front cover image, i think it is more eye catching because the whole page is taken up by the image behind the writing. Both of the images use eye contact to make the audience feel like they are looking at them. I also wanted to make sure that the front cover image would stand out so that it is noticed more than the other magazines so i used three subjects in my image, this makes it look bolder as the whole page is taken up.
I looked at this double page spread from 'Bliss' magazine and got the idea for my layout from this for my double page spread. I liked the idea of having the main page image on one side and then having all of the text from the article together so that it's easy to read for the target audience. Not everything is similar like the smaller side images. In my double page spread i wanted to do something that would appeal to my audience and get them involved more so i chose to do a competition so that one reader could win a signed photo from one of the band members. There is my double page spread below.As you can see there are some similarities to the 'Bliss' magazine double page spread but not that many, i wanted my pages to suit my target audience completely and to do this i tried to involve them more by doing competitions and giving information about how they can get more from the band because if the reader is reading the page then they are most probably going to like the band. This means by informing the reader they get more out of the magazine, which will then make them want to buy it more and buy it again after that.
Overall looking at my media product and other media products in the shops that aimed at my target audience as well, i think that i have got good ideas from different magazines and made them my own so that they stand out from the rest.5. How did you attract/address your audience?
For my double page spread i had to think about how to write my article to attract my target audience, to do this i had to plan what the article was going to be about and how to use language that would make my audience want to carry on reading. I decided to do an interview with a well known band that had split up for a few years and are now back making music, the band i chose to do this was a band that would have been like the spice girls as this band suited my target audience. Here is an example of how i used language to attract my audience.
I used mostly present tense so that it makes the audience more involved and it seems as though we are talking specifically to that reader which makes them feel like they are being spoken to. I used language that is easy to read for my target audience and there are no long complicated words that they won't understand, this will make them feel more confident in reading the rest and not get bored because they don't understand properly. I tried to make it exciting by saying ' Pop Rocks are the first to interview them', this makes the audience feel special because they think they are going to be the first to read about the band. By doing that it makes the magazine stand out because the audience thinks that no other magazine on the shelf has this information about the band. Addressing the audience by saying 'get all the answers you wanted to know' means that the reader thinks that the magazine is taking interest in who reads the magazine, this would make the reader want to buy other issues because the magazine listens to the reader. It also makes the reader think that their question has been answered which will make them read on in the article. By opening the article this way it gives the audience an idea of what it is going to be about and makes them decided whether they want to read on or not, this is why it is very important to make it sound as exciting and interesting as possible especially if the target audience is young.I used white sans serif font so that its again easy to read and to make the page not look too boring, white font makes it look different and slightly more interesting.
This example from the front cover uses language so that it invites the audience in. I wanted this main flash to be eye catching and to make the reader want to read the rest of the magazine. By saying 'All your favourite pop stars' means that a larger range of people may look at the magazine because it isn't saying one particular pop star but many, this means that more people might buy the magazine. Another way i wanted to make the audience want to read more was by saying ' reveal their new years resolutions', by saying this it makes the audience feel like they want to know what it is because how it has been said it quite mysterious and doesn't give much away. Again i used white font to stand out from the rest on the front cover as it is the main flash.The images i used were very important in making my magazine appeal to my target audience because the audience is young and would look at the images more than the text at first. The most important image is front cover image that relates to your main flash. I used three subjects in my image and they all represent very famous pop stars, this would immediately appeal to my target audience because they are famous people that they will know. I used three subjects because i thought that if i used most of the front cover up with the main image then it would be much more eye catching to my audience which would then make them want to pick up my magazine rather than the others on the shelf. I included an instrument for one of the subjects to hold, again to make it more eye catching and to make it stand out, as what i have researched i haven't seen many instruments being used on the front cover. Here is my front cover image.
As you can see all of the subjects are making eye contact with the camera and making a link with the audience. The two other images on the front cover are smaller and not as important as the main flash image. I wanted to make the image with 'The Queuetee's' exciting and be more appealing to girls as it is a girl band, by using a pink background it carries the theme of a girl band throughout the magazine so that the reader can link them together. I thought that the subjects in the image would look better if they were looking at each other instead of the camera because it shows the audience that they are back together as a band, i also thought it would be better to have this image so that they arn't looking at the reader so that it isn't all the same and looks more interesting.The bottom image with the artist, 'Cameron Williams' has a different compostiton and i think this works well with what the main sell is about. It shows that he is doing a 'shhh' gesture which my target audience would understand and make them intrigued into what the story is about. The blue background is bright and eye catching but is also a male colour.
The font that i used for this main sell i thought would be good to use because it is modern and clear to read which is good for my young target audience. Out of all the research i did for my magazine i saw that many magazines like mine used this sort of unusual font to make it look more interesting and modern so that it appeals to the audience. I made the colour of the font pink to show the connection for the band 'The Queuetee's' and to make it again appeal to girls as more girls read these sorts of magazines than boys. The font that i used is called 'pussycat' which i got from www.dafont.com.I wanted to use lots of colour to appeal to my audience so i used bold, bright colours that linked with certain things such as 'The Queuetee's' band. This is my contents page which shows that i used colour a lot in my magazine.
I wanted to use a bright bold background so that when the reader flicks through the magazine they will stop at this page because the colours are bright and will be interesting. I think that the contents page is one of the most important pages in a magazine because it tells you what will be in the rest of the magazine and so i wanted it to be eye catching.I used other very bright colours to use in the boxes with the images so that the colours kind of clash with the background but i think this works well because it is more interesting to look at and links to the way pop is, as pop is bright and colourful and aims its music mostly at younger people i wanted to show this in my magazine.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
To make this magazine work i used Indesign software which helped me do a lot of things that i wouldn't be able to do without it. Indesign allows you to have the freedom of putting text boxes where ever you want on the page which is very good if you are making a magazine because in magazines the text boxes are sometimes put in places that arn't even to everything else of the page, other software won't let you do this as easily.
Arranging your images is a very important thing in a magazine because sometimes you want the image behind the writing or possibly in front. Indesign lets you do this just by clicking on 'arrange' and you can then choose where you want the image to go, for example if you wanted the image behind the text then you would click on 'send to back'. Most magazines use this technique on the front covers of magazines to make the image stand out but also so that you can see the writing and see what will be in the rest of the magazine.
By using 'fitting' you can make the image you want to use fit to how ever you want it to. If you want your image to fit the box in proportion then you can by clicking on 'fitting' and then choose fit to content, by doing this it gives you the freedom to have your image how ever you want.
A really easy and helpful thing that i found was that you could download a font that you chose from www.dafont.com which has a very good variety of fonts which can make your magazine suit your target audience. If you download the font then it goes into your font library and you can choose to use it when ever you want. I found that this was one of the most helpful things that Indesign let you do.
To make your magazine look more interesting and eye catching to your audience it is very easy to choose a colour for your font. All you had to do was highlight the font and then click on 'swatches' and choose the colour you wanted. You could also save in 'swatches' a particular colour that you have chosen and it will be saved for when ever you want to use it, instead of having to find the exact colour again when you next go on it.
One more thing that was really helpful in making your magazine look professional was not having to use text boxes that are visible. By using these text boxes you can write things and place the text where ever you want without seeing the text box lines which gives mainly the front cover a professional look.
Using photoshop to change your images is a very helpful way to make you images suit your target audience, for example i used photoshop to cut out the subjects in the images and then put a coloured background behind them so that the images are more bright and eye catching. I did this to most of my images, to do this i just used the magnetic lasso tool to cut the subjects out with a neat finish and then highlighted the background with the magic wand tool and then i was able to colour the background in a bright colour without going over the subjects in the image.
I had to use photoshop to crop things such as the examples of fonts that i was going to use in the magazine (blog 5). I did this so that i didn't have to use the whole page that i print screened and it just focused on what i was talking about.
For a magazine people use the dodge tool to airbrush out blemishes on the models in the photos a lot. I used this on one of the subjects in one of my images as he had a cut near his eye and this wouldn't look good on a pop magazine front cover. Using this tool is a very good way to make the subject's look 'perfect' especially in a fashion kind of magazine, although they do use this a lot in pop magazines.
There weren't many things that i couldn't make Indesign and photoshop do but there were some things that i found quite difficult getting used to. At first i found getting the images to be sized down proportionally and not become distorted but after doing it a few times i got used to it and found it quite easy. Finding out how to do things such as getting the text boxes without the lines and getting the background to have a colour were quite difficult at first. I found out how to do this after a while but it was hard to find. I knew how to use most of photoshop before i started this project so i didn't find it that difficult and i didn't use many techniques that were hard as i didn't need to for my media product.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back on my preliminary task i think i have improved on planning my work thoroughly and i have realised how long the process of making a magazine takes. To make a magazine you have to plan what the genre of the magazine is, what the masthead is going to be, what is going to be in the magazine, plan the images, how your going to write the article, what fonts your going to use. All these things have to be planned before you even start making your media product.
I have improved on using Indesign a lot and how to make the magazine suit my target audience. With my preliminary task i didn't consider target audience as much as this task and didn't plan it very well but by using Indesign more i have learnt new skills by practising. When i did the preliminary task i didn't have to use Indesign as intensely as the main task and so elements such as how to layout things effectivley have improved by using text boxes and placing images, these were the main two things i used throughout making my magazine.
I have learnt how to use language when writing the article in an effective way that will suit my target audience, to do this i learnt that using exciting and humorous language that is said in the present tense involves the audience a lot more and keeps them wanting to read especially for my particular target audience. Unlike the preliminary task when i didn't consider how to use language effectively this time i planned what i was going to say.
Finally the images i used were planned well, i had to consider if they would suit my target audience, if the images linked to the story and if what they were wearing would be suitable. In the preliminary task i didn't consider any of this and probably didn't suit my target audience.
By looking at what i had done in the preliminary task and what i have achieved now i can confidently say that i have improved on my Indesign and Photoshop skills and i have done a lot better of a job than i did with the preliminary task.
Front Cover of my magazine.
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BxX0LAwPDMMWMGNlNjgwYzUtMDE1MS00Mzg4LWI3ODYtODI0NTM1ZTU1YWU1&hl=en
Contents Page of my magazine.
Contents Page of my magazine.
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BxX0LAwPDMMWN2E3OTA5ZGMtNTdiOS00NWVhLTg1MDMtMTc1MWYzYzYzODIx&hl=en
Double page spread of my magazine.
Double page spread of my magazine.
