LO1: House Style Mood Boards

This is a mood board showing mastheads from different indie music magazines. There are some features that occur a lot, such as bold text, large size, striking colours, capital letters and complementary colours. What I like about these mastheads is that they all look unique, exciting and they would make me want pick up the magazine and have a flick through. This is something that I would be going for when I make my masthead.

Above are 5 fonts from www.dafont.com. I like these fonts because they look like they would be good for an indie rock/dance music magazine - striking and interesting for the target audience of young males.

Above are three potential mastheads that I could use for my magazine - I made them in Photoshop. At the moment, I like the bottom one best, as the yellow and black colours connote electricity and energy, while the large, dotted text connotes disco lights and technology. These are all key themes in the indie dance music magazine that I want to create.

House Style Ideas - Colour Schemes

Above are five possible colours for my magazine. These are the reasons why I chose each colour:

Yellow: has connotations of electricity and energy. HEADINGS.

Black: contrasts well with the electric yellow and creates a "hazardous" and cool look. BACKGROUNDS.

Red: red is used on many pages in dance music magazines and creates a sharp, striking look. PHOTOS, HEADINGS, BACKGROUNDS.

Light Blue: similar to yellow, it has an electric kind of feel. It also has connotations of disco lights, which relates to the target audience in the way that they would go out to gigs often. HEADINGS, SUB-HEADINGS.

Purple: a deep purple colour feels quite moody and regal, which gives a good feel to articles about certain artists. PHOTOS.

House Style: Photography

Front Cover 

• The model will be my brother, Josh Shirt.
• Jeans and a t-shirt, casual clothing. Will be with his guitar and laser drum kit.
• The location of the shoot will be in his studio in his garden. 
• Medium close-up shot, has to be for the front cover. Attracts readers through eye contact.
• Eye-level angle so it is clear to see who the person is and what he is doing.
• Representations - cool and casual image. Enjoyment and passion.

Contents

• Model - my brother, Josh Shirt.
• Clothing won't be so relevant as just hands and technology will be seen - laptop, guitar, lasers... if clothing is needed, it will be casual.
• Location - the studio or in the house.
• Close-up to capture the detail on the instruments and technology, getting the reader's attention.
• Low- and high-angle shots, to keep the photos interesting through variety. I will also use side-angles.
• The images in the contents will represent the reader's creative and musical hobbies, so it will be easy for them to find something that they are interested in reading.

Double Page Spreads

• Model - my brother, Josh Shirt.
• Casual clothing, jeans and a t-shirt, as seen on the cover. This is because the double-page spread will be the article for what is shown on the cover. He will have his guitar around his neck as he plays the laser drum kit.
• The shots for the double page spread, and any others for the full article, will be taken in his studio, where all of his equipment is set up.
• Medium long-shot, so you can see his facial expression as well as his arms and hands playing the laser drum kit.
• Almost side-on, slightly towards his front. The shot will also be slightly low-angle, connoting his control and precision movements on the laser drum kit.
• Similar to the cover image, the shot will represent a real passion for what he does. Since this photo will be larger, it hopefully will give a real sense of fun and enjoyment to the reader, too. They will be able to relate to this feeling about their hobbies.

LO1: Examples of Existing Magazines

Front Pages / Covers

What I like about them / what I could pastiche:

• The vibrant, contrasting colours of the bottom EXPOSED magazine make the magazine look striking and exciting.
• The clean, easy-to-read look of the WIRED magazine.
• The atmosphere created by the dull greys and reds of the DAMN NOISY KIDS magazine.

Contents Pages

What I like about them / what I could pastiche:

• The complementary reds, whites and blacks of three of the above magazines.
• The clearly separated columns of the second magazine.
• The large contents images and anchored numbers of the Q contents page.

Double Page Spreads

What I like about them / what I could pastiche:

• The style of the lettering in the "people think I'm an attention seeker" double page spread.
• The deep black and bright red create a moody feel for the Eminem article.
• The orange colours and filter used on the final double page spread gives the reader a traditional, warm and personal feeling.

LO1: Reader Profile

LO1: Mind-map of Ideas

It is beneficial to plan ideas for a magazine before making it because:
-it allows you to make the magazine quickly (saves time)
-you know exactly what you are doing at all times
-you know what your house style is and how your magazine will be designed beforehand.

LO1: Preliminary Task for a College Magazine

This is a college magazine which I am going to pastiche, since it uses common conventions such as:
-a medium close-up main cover image, with a direct gaze
-only two colours
-cover lines
-a masthead

This was a flat plan for a college magazine that I produced using Pages (word processor). It was important to do this because:
-It gave me practice and experience using the magazine cover conventions for when I come to make my real magazine.
-I will be able to look back on it in the future and see what I have learned and how I have improved my skills.

This is a screenshot of a dialog box on Photoshop - it shows the preset that we will use for creating a magazine cover. The width of 21cm and the height of 29.5cm are used because they are the standard dimensions for a magazine cover. In addition, the resolution of 300 ppi (pixels per inch) is used because it is high-quality and this is needed for a magazine cover. It would be no good if the resolution was only suitable for an internet image, for example.

This is the front cover of a college magazine that I made in Photoshop. It is an adaptation of the early version that I made using Pages. As you can see, the two main colours that I used for my magazine cover were yellow and blue, following cover convention of only using 2 or 3 colours. Below are the steps that I took to make it:

Here, I was adding and editing the text of my masthead, "UTC Uncovered". I was colouring it using the three shades of blue of the UTC logo. The red text in the image was still to be coloured correctly.

Here, I had just finished using the quick selection tool in Photoshop (as seen in the picture above) to crop out the brick wall behind Matthew. This allowed me to change the background colour for my magazine cover.

Here, you can see me changing the background colour of the cover from white to the grey that I wanted it to be. This could only be done thanks to the use of the quick selection tool, as seen above.

Finally, after I had changed the background colour of the cover, I added a shape using the Shape tool. This tool can be seen on the toolbar on the right, two buttons underneath the 'T' icon, and I used it to add the striking-looking star that the "FREE!" text is inside. Also, inside the dialogue box to the right of the cover, I am changing the colour of the "FREE!" text to yellow. This is because it complements the other colour on my cover, blue.

EVALUATION
During this introduction to magazines and while I have been making my own practice college magazine, I have learned about:
-"double page spreads" - these are single pieces of content which are spread over two pages. I will need to create two of these to go in my final Unit 14 magazine.
-the conventions of professional magazine covers, such as cover lines, mastheads and the use of only 2 or 3 colours.
-how to use multiple features of Photoshop, such as adding text, changing colours, adding shapes and adding effects.

LO1: InDesign Introduction

Contents page from DJ Mag

3 things that I like about this contents page:

-It is clean and simplistic.

-The colours go well together.

-It is easy to find what you want to read, the text is easy-to-read.

Key Terms

Desktop Publishing Program - a program used to lay out print-based products.

Dialog Box - a box that appears and gives the user options and extra functions.

Gutter  - space in between the columns.

Contents Page Conventions

• Title which says "contents". This is always positioned at the top of the page.
• A masthead (name of the magazine) which is always next to the "contents" title. This is because it reinforces the brand of the magazine.
• Sub-headings to represent sections of a magazine. Common sub-headings: features, cover story (creates synergy), regulars (common in local magazines), news. They are usually colourful, in bold, and stand out. This is so it is easy for the reader to go to the section that they want to read.
• Page numbers to make the magazine easy to navigate and get to where you want to go - similar to an index, except at the front. They are always in ascending order.
• Images which are always anchored to text.
• Editor's section to provide a summary of what is going to be in the magazine that month/week. It always signed at the end.
• Colours which match the house style of the magazine. This reinforces the brand, genre and house style.
• Columns are always used to separate the text and different headings.

This is a dialog box from InDesign, showing how the contents page was set up. It was important to set up the page correctly so that:

-The dimensions for the page are correct.

-The spacing between columns (gutter) is correct.

-The document type and your intent (e.g. print, web) match up to what you want.

LO1: Analysis of a Magazine

In today's lesson, we learned about the conventions of a magazine cover which companies use to make their magazines attractive to people. It was important to do this because it allows us to use similar conventions when making our own magazines.