Evaluation Question 7

This is a recording of me answering question 7, which is:

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

Evaluation Question 6

Question 6 on Prezi

Evaluation questions 4 and 5

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

Double Page Spread

For my double page spread, i wanted to focus on the Isle of Wight festival, so automatically i knew how i was giong to do the title. I used the same layout for it as the cover and the contents, and changed the words. I had 'I.O.W' vertically up the side, and 'festival' diagonally across. I used some colour in the title this time to change it up and make it look different. for the text vertically, i block coloured it in in the peach/pink colour used in the vertical column in the contents page. The 'festival' i made black but the way the font is, it has cracks in it and i made this the peach colour so it looks more interesting.

I had a fair few pictures i wanted to include in my double page spread, so i imported them all in to Indesign, and then thought about where i would place them. I wanted to use the running house-style so i used the red horizontally as in the contents page, and i used the peach/pink colour and created two colums in my double page spread. I had the two columns next to eachother in the middle of the pages, and had two red boxes at the bottom of the pages next to the columns. I placed 4 pictures down each column, and one picture on each of the red boxes. I put the title at the top of the left page, to the left of the column.

I printed out what i had down so far and analysed it. I then decided that i though the layout didnt really work as just cut off where the text would potentailly go. The columns in the middle just made the page look unprofesional and slightly tacky! I then annotated the sheet and made a wrote over it what i could do to change it. I went back to the double page spread on Indesign and started to make these alterations.

I decided upon moving the columns each to the outside edge of the page and by doing this the red horizontal coloured boxes went through the middle of the page at the bottom. This layout meant that the text would have a better flow as it could take up the rest of the middle of the double page spread. I re-placed the relevant pictures and with this started to adjust them. As with the contents page, i added a white box behind each picture to give it a border, and then rotated them slightly. The pictures on the left page, i rotated to the left, and the pictures on the right page i rotated tot he right. The two larger pictures in the red boxes at the bottom of each page, i didnt rotate, but they still have white boxes behind them to give them a border. I then added drop shadows to each picture, the ones on the left page have a shadow to the left, and the pictures on the right page have a shadow to the right.

I moved the title to the right of the column, but so it is still on the left page. I then started to write up the text in the set columns.

Contents Page

For my contents page, i started with the title. I decided i was going to use the same title as my front cover, but change the words to 'In the contents'. After doing this i started on planning on how i was going to lay out the information of the contents. I looked back at my preliminary task, the college magazine, and remembered how if i has more time i would make the background more interestng. From this, i wanted to make my contents better and much more excting and appealing.
I decided that i wanted to have more than one picture, so i scanned through all my pictures and picked out three that i wanted to include on my contents page, and imported them into Indesign.
I wanted to use some colour in my contents page, but not block colour the whole page (like i did for the college magazine). I decided upon using two colours, one that was red, because of the housestyle of the cover, and a lighter, slightly pink colour to soften out the harshness of the red. I used the red horizontally along the page, and the pink colour vertically up the page. I thought this would be a good place to put the pictures on. When i had put the pictures up the side of the page, onto the column, it looked to harsh, so i then put the pictures onto a white box. I then decided upon rotating the pictures to make it look more appealing. I also added a drop shadow because that made the pictures look better and less 'flat' as it came off the column of colour and onto the white in the top left corners.
I then added in the content of what the magazine would include into the white area underneath the title. I used the same technique as i did on the cover of my magazine and put some of the words in red with a thin balck outline, and chanegd the size of the font. For the page numbers i used a font that made it noticable and slightly slanted. After i had done this, the white background looked bland with having the text on it and it needed something else. I thought if i used thin lines, or dashes inbetween each content page, it would make it more intesting.
In the red box i wrote an editors note because it makes it more professional looking. Also at the top of the pictures, on the pink coloumn, i added the month of issue because i felt the top needed something there. So i added this and attached a drop shadown to it aswell, as it looked out of place because all the picutres in the column have the drop shadow.

Front Cover

I added my title to the main image, and then started on what i will include and put on my magazine cover. To start with i just added all the text i would need on my cover, and then positioned it and started to change the colours and fonts and making certain words bigger. I chose to use the red for making some words bolder because that is the colour of the dress the artist is wearing in the picture, so i decided to use the colour as my house-style. I decided to make words bigger because it makes it more interesting and eye-catching, so if the audience took a glance on a magazine shelf, it would be quick and easy to make conclusions on what the magazine would be about and if it would appeal to them. By looking at my magazine you would be able to see that it is a music magazine and also includes information on the Isle of Wight festival.
Lastly, i added in and positioned the date, price, and barcode at the bottom of the page.

Cover Title

I have chosen the name for my title, and i have finished manipulating my picture for my cover. So now i did the rough designs for my title. I played around with different ideas. My first idea was to have 'In the' diagonally over the left top side of a horizontal 'Spotlight', but it didnt look right. So then i played around until i manged to find a good, intesting title that would stand out.
I finally settled on having 'In the' vertically up the left side on the black background but with white font, and have 'Spotlight' diagonally on a white background with black font. I kept the colours simple because using colours with the background image wouldn't look right and there would be too much going on.

Main Image

After using photoshop to make my picturre brighter and make the artist stand out more, and make the background less dark; i used photoshop again to manipulate my cover image further. For my title i chose 'In the spotlight', so i thought it would be better to have two spotlights shining onto the artist.

In the picture, you can see that i have added another spotlight. I did this in photoshop, i copied the first spotlight and then placed in the second one lower down and a to the left. I made sure that where i placed the second spotlight wouldn't affect the shadowing of where the origonal spotlight was making.

Front cover image

The title of my magazine is going to be 'In The Spotlight' this is going to correspond with my image on the cover. I have 34 pictures that i have taken, that could be chosen to be in my magazine.

I have chosen a specific picture that i think will look really good on the front cover. I put this picture into photoshop because it is quite dark. I went to 'image', 'adjustments' and then selected the 'leveler'.

I used the leveler to make the picture more brighter. where the spotlight is on the picture, it has become much more brighter and the artist is more on show. This is easier to notice when the pictures are set next to eachother as in the print screen below. 

Mind Map for titles for my main cover

I created a mind map using 'Inspiration' to help me think of words that i could potentially use as my title.

From my mind-map i have decided that i like 4 of the words: 'Turning Point' 'Spotlight' 'Embellish' and 'Admire'.

I am going to use 'spotlight' for my title. I think it is suitable as it can be associated with both music, and fashion.  

Music Magazine Research task

     

      

Positives and Negatives of the cover page and contents page

I feel that the postitives of the magazine title page and the contents page would be that they both carry out the same housestyle. I also like that on the title page, how the image has been cut around and put onto the gradient blue background goes well.

I do prefer the title page as the contents page is quite blank in the background and if i had more time, i would adjust this and use a gradient or put the image somewhere in the background as a whole. I think the title is quite strong, as in the black back colour,  on both the contents page and the main cover, because i think it is quite harsh against the rest of the colour themes and this is something i would take into consideration next time by either changing the background, the seasonal theme of the background colour or change the background colour of the title. The reason i chose black was because the yellow and pink went well in contrast to it and made it stand out.

Contents Page

For my contents page i used the same theme as the front cover. I used the blue background and the title has the same colours and font styles. The font i used for what would actually be in the magazine is the same as the pink coloured style in the title. Also the colours i used for the actual contents is the same as the title; to carry on the housestyle. I also used another picture of the model in the corner, i cropped this down to size and slotted in the corner to make the page less bland.

Front Cover

I took the a selection of photos and chose this one to use as the background of my front cover. I wanted to make it blank background and to do this, i put the picture into photoshop and used a tool to go around the outside of the model which cut the background out.

I changed the colour of the background to match the season that the magazine would be issued (December). I chose a blue background and made it have a gradient so the top left corner started off white and the bottom right corner blue.













I added in my title and then made several text boxes where i put what the some of the contents of the magazine would be. The colours i used match the title and would mean i have a consistent housestyle. I used blue for the price of the magazine to match the background colour and the season.

Initial Ideas for the Title

To start off, i just used the main word 'Magazines' to look through and select a wide variety of different fonts and see how they look against each other. From this i then selected a few fonts that i like, and created a new document and put them into it. I then thought about what name i should call this magazine. I came up with a few when i wrote the preliminary exercise ideas, so i decided to call it 'Trend'. I thought that this went well for a new fashion magazine plus it was a name that has not actually been used for a published magazine that is out today, such as 'Mode' or 'Vogue'.

After i had opted to use 'Trend' as my title, i went back to the three fonts i had selected and put my title name in those fonts. I decided i liked the top font the best so i then started to play around with colours. I tested a six different colours in which that last two i changed the colour of the 'T' to see how it looked and if it would make the title stand out. I decided that i didn't really like it that much, so i resorted back to a black colour font and played around with the background colour. I used the same six colours that i used for the words. I thought that this look quite good, but it could be better. Finally i thought that if i put the font on a black background it would stand out quite nicely. I changed the colour of the font and i decided that i really liked how i had done this, the only problem was choosing a font colour to go on the black background.

Using the black background, i decided to use different font colours to see how well it stands out. I had decided i was going to put 'College fashion magazine' underneath the main title, in different colour. So from this, all i now had to do was mix and match different colours and see which ones go best and which one i like the most.

I have decided that the best title that would be appropriate for the new college fashion magazine, and that would stand out would be the the main word 'Trend' in yellow, and the words 'College fashion magazine' in a pink/purple colour.

 

Preliminary exercise ideas

I have written down some ideas for what i could possibly use for my college magazine. I have chosen to aim it at female students as my main idea is fashion for females. I made a  list of titles that i could use and i selected a few fonts that look appealing. I have given a rough insight into what image i would like to use and how frequently it will be published, and finally what the dimension could be.

Indroduction to InDesign

The first time we used InDesign we learnt where the different typing tools were. We used the text boxes and used the 'type tool' in which we added text. We then learnt how to make different a number of columns in which the text could automatically flow through. Then we used different tools to change the font, size and colour to make it less bland and boring. With this, we also used a tool that is able to add shadowing to the back of the writing and this could be made lighter or darker and the shadowing colour can be changed for more vibrancy. We then found some images on the internet and dragged them onto the desktop and inserted them into the document in which the text can then flow around the image. Also the images can also be rotated and adjusted to the specific column area.

We then learnt how to use the pen tools where we were able to draw different shapes. The tools were able to let us use different angles from a set 45 degrees to 90 degrees which could be helpful to make media products more precise. we learnt how to use different shapes such as circles, squares, rectangles and hexagons. After creating the shapes, we were then able to fill them in with different block colours.