Welcome Post

Dear Moderator,

I have completed all the tasks in this process myself including my preliminary task (a school magazine) as well as my music magazine for which I have made a front cover, contents page and double page spread. I have completed all these using Photoshop and I completed my evaluation using Prezi. In my blog I have included the different things which I used to help me throughout this process and I hope you enjoy looking through it all.

From Remi Martinelli
Candidate Number: 9122

Evaluation

double page spread explanation

In one of my previous blogs, I looked at We Love Pop magazine's double page spread for ideas on how to go about mine. I said that I wanted to use a couple of ideas from the analysis that I did of that magazine.
Firstly, I used the idea of the questions being put in a different colour to the answers so that the reader could differentiate between the two. For my interview, I put the questions in pink and the answers in black so that they were different. Secondly, I also used the quote idea but I made it a lot smaller than the one of the We Love Pop magazine. I used two quotes, rather than one big one because I wanted it to be slightly different to the magazine I looked at.
I did use one large image on the right hand side but I also had text around it because I felt like one page would just be wasted otherwise.
Although I said I liked the idea that the singers name wasn't in bold, large font, on the We Love Pop magazine, I wanted my bands name to be seen because I think the audience would rather see that this is whose interview they will be reading.

Double page spread final

I made a few changes to the double page spread. Firstly, I re cropped the left top photo and the photo on the right hand side to make the edges smoother. I also moved the final interview question over to the right a bit more and added another quote from the interview in a large bold font. The first quote I had wasn't bold enough to stand out so I used 'perpetua titling mt' font as it was already in capitals and easy to read. At the bottom on the right hand side, there was a white area where I had previously cropped the brick wall background (not very neatly), so I got the original image of the brick wall and cropped a long piece to fit in at the bottom to cover the white. Over the top of this, I added the wesbite link for 'behind the scenes extras' so that the reader knows they can find out more information on the interview. It is also promoting the wesbite.

cropping photo 2

cropping

 

 

 

Double page spread practises

This was the first attempt at the double page spread, but not completed. While doing it I found that I couldn't place all the images where I wanted along with the amount of text I had so before I finished, I decided to make some changes:

Firstly, I added page numbers into the corners of the pages. Also, I removed the bottom right image because I felt it didn't really have a place within the double page spread, so I enlarged the top right image to make it stand out more, and more obvious that they were the focus of this article, rather than have 4 small images. I also changed the font of the interview because it is easier to read.

I am going to re crop the photos from the left hand side to make them more sharp because once the page is printed, those mistakes may look obvious.

contents explanation

On one of my previous blogs on Clash magazine contents page, I said I liked the idea that it was simple but held enough information. However, I didn't really go along with this idea because as I was making my contents page, I realised that I wanted it to be similar in style to my front cover. This was the reason I used a brick wall as my background because it looked like it fitted in with the front cover, so I didn't go along with the 'plain' and 'simple' style.
I did, however, use the page number idea but as I only had one image of a band that was to be contained in my magazine, I only did this once, and rather than using a circle, I used a rectangle shape.
Clash magazine used a lot of images which I did not do. I only used one image of a band, then an image of the editor because I wanted to fit other information in too.
The 'free download' part was kind of used, but instead of making it a main part, I listed it in the contents list but put 'free download' in a different colour to stand out from the rest of the text.

Contents page complete

Here is the final draft of the contents page. I changed the page numbers of the contents because the numbers I had before weren't enough for a monthly magazine. I've added a slogan above the 'contents' because it adds a more quirky style to it, which is how I want my magazine to seem. Also, because the background is a brick wall, the slogan 'the writing on the wall' links in with that. The font of the website and what the website contains, is in the style I used for the 'Liberty' title on the front cover. It is again bringing across the country feel of the magazine. The red colour makes it look like it's almost been 'graffitied' or spray painted onto the wall.

contents page changes

I added a few more pages to the contents list, as advised, because it is a monthly magazine and 26 pages was not enough content for a monthly magazine.

Contents Page Music Magazine

 

This is my final design for my contents page of my music magazine. From my previous blogs, you can see how I have completely changed it from the original idea, only keeping one or two things the same. I decided that the plain background didn't really work very well and it didn't really carry on the theme of 'country' from my front cover. I decided that to look like it was from the same magazine, I would want a brick wall background so it was more effective. I took the picture of the brick wall in school then, using photoshop put a brightened effect on it to match the front cover.
I looked at some Clash magazine contents pages to get an idea of the sort of look I wanted and I noticed that, as their backgrounds are usually plain white, they just had the 'contents' text on the background. But because my background was patterned, I decided that I needed a box around the 'contents' piece of text. So I decided to use the custom tool and used the speech bubble shape because it gave it a more quirky look which is what I was aiming for.
The one thing I did keep the same was the editor image and editors words in the bottom left hand corner.
Although I still used the 'Skinny Genes' image, I placed it up higher on the right hand side to allow room for information on subscriptions because the subscription idea is something that is likely to attract readers to read more. I placed a scan code in with the subscription box so it is easy for readers to be able to go straight to the website just by a simple scan of their phone. It keeps the magazine up to date with its readers.

front cover explanation

In a previous blog, I analysed and looked at Nylon magazine for ideas on my front cover. In a similar way to Nylon magazine, I also used my image as the main focus of the front cover because I liked the way it looked. I think it looked more effective than using a few images dotted around. I also wanted to make sure that there was not a lot in the background of the main image because I wanted the focus to be on the two girls, with no distraction from anything behind them. This was the reason I liked the brick wall idea because it was not really distracting anyone from the main image.
I also put any text around the edges of the image, again so as not to distract from the photo but at the same time be noticed by the reader. This was the reason I also used bright colours for the text, like the different shades of pink and purple, because although the image was more noticeable, the text would also be because of the colours used.
The only difference with Nylon magazine and my magazine is that the barcode is in a different place. Nylon magazine has it in the right hand corner, but mine was placed in the left hand corner.

Front Cover Music Magazine

 

This is my final design for the front cover of my music magazine using photoshop. I used this image because I wanted it to be seen straight away: the part of the magazine you would initially look at. I also felt that the brick wall background was effective because it gives the magazine more of an edgy look and the country/indie look I was aiming for. As my magazine is aimed at girls aged 12-17, I used the pink and purple colours for the different texts because itwould attract my target audience. I had originally used a maroon colour for all of the text on the front page but, although it looked effective, I felt it did not really come across to the target audience.
I made sure to put the barcode in the right third so that if it were to be on a shelf, that could be seen along with the price above it.

The font that I used for the 'LIBERTY' logo was called rosewood, and I felt that this was the font that really represented my country theme. Not only that but it stood out more than others I had tried as it was quite bold.