Q6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I’ve learnt a lot about technology whilst making my music magazine from the camera down to the tools in Photoshop.

With the camera I used which was a Fujifilm 10 megapixel digital camera. This produced my bright and good quality pictures used in my music magazine. I learnt about the different lighting you should be aware of when taking photo’s for example making sure the image is taken outside because of the natural light you’d receive from doing that and if you chose to do inside photo’s be aware of the shadow’s you get behind the model on the walls and so on. Not only that but I’ve learnt about the angles of shots, I didn’t just take my pictures in portrait and landscape, I wanted to be more creative and take it from a diagonal angle thinking about whether or not I take it from a high/ low angle shot. This gives it more of an effect and doesn’t just look like a boring picture taken in portrait/ landscape. I also learnt about zooming into the pictures to a good point that shows the model in a medium close up or mid shot and so on. I also learnt about making sure the pictures aren’t fuzzy or blurred but are in good quality being aware of the backgrounds/ surroundings also.

I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 to create my music magazine and edit the different photo’s and so on.  I learned a lot about Photoshop from the process of constructing this product such as adjusting and brightening of the photos, I used adjustments to set the brightness/ contrast and also used the curves tool. From using these tools I learnt that they give different effects and tones to the photos used in my music magazines, making it look more professional and like it belongs in a magazine.

I also learned about using stroke. I new about Photoshop before because I’ve used it before previously but I didn’t know fully about all the tools; while creating my music magazine I realised you could use stroke to give the text used in my music magazine effects and making it more appealing to read and interesting to look at. Also I learnt that you can change/ adjust the sizes of the strokes, so it stands out even more which I didn’t know about before. Not only that but I learnt and discovered that stroke can also be used around pictures not just text and numbers, so I used that in my magazine.

My image was too small on my double page spread to fully fit the A3 Page from this I learned about the cloning tool. This meant that I could clone the background and put it in other places to fill up the space. I never knew about or used this tool before and it really helped me because I was worried about how I was going to deal with the situation.

Similarly, I learned how to use tools such as the guide tool and the new guide tool. I learned that these tools were important to use as it helped me to move and adjust my columns, text and pictures so that everything was in line making my magazine look more professional. For example I used the new guide tool to help me split my double page spread in half so that I can separate the text from the pictures and so the fold line in the middle doesn’t interfere with the texts and pictures.

Q7. Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?

I’ve learnt a lot in the progression from the preliminary task which was to create a college magazine to the full product which is my music magazine. One of the things I’ve learnt/ realised was that by doing planning and research before carrying out my music magazine, it had a huge impact on the outcome of my magazine. I was able to have a full understanding of what and how real music magazines make their music magazines so successful and in drawing their target audiences. This was something I didn’t do when creating my college magazine therefore the outcome wasn’t very good because I didn’t use the rules and conventions of real magazines; it didn’t look like one, even though I included things that are put into real magazines such as the cover lines, selling line, and barcode and so on. So I learnt that before doing something especially when creating a magazine that research and planning is really important.

Comparing my college magazine to my music magazine, you can identify that I was unaware of some of the tools used in Photoshop which I used in my music magazine to make it look more professional such as: Using strokes around pictures and texts to make the text stand out and the use of the curve tool to make the model more interesting to look at because of the editing, toning and brightness/contrast used.  I was also unaware of the website ‘dafont.com’ which I discovered through doing research and planning and now there’s a clear change from the masthead in my college magazine to the one In my music magazine.

  Time management was another thing I learned in the progression from the preliminary task because I didn’t have/ spend as much time in creating my college magazine in comparison to my music magazine. My media teacher looked over my work and was pleased as I completed all the tasks, finished early and had time to spare as this meant I could check over my work and make sure there was no mistakes made.

Also, I learned how to produce good quality pictures with the camera I used. When taking pictures for my college magazine the pictures weren’t really good in terms of the lighting on the front page of my college magazine, and then drastically changed to a bright photograph on the contents page.

I learned also that putting writing over the picture isn’t really a good Idea because as you can see in the contents of the college magazine the writings not really clear and you cant read it; It clashes with the background. This is where the guide tool and new guide tool comes in which helped me structure where on the page to put my pictures and text which was done clearly and successfully in my music magazine.

In addition the uses of colours weren’t really thought about as I used loads of colours and didn’t stick to or plan the theme colours I wanted in the college magazine. Whereas, in my music magazine I challenged that and done the complete opposite. I chose the theme colours I wanted my magazine to have and then stuck with those colours throughout the magazine (In the contents and double page spread.)

Post production feedback:

                                                                



Front cover

Strengths:

“The masthead is bright and the design is suitable to the target audience”

Weakness:

“To make it look more professional, you should have put the masthead behind the model as this is done in real music magazines”

Contents

Strengths:

“It stands out and makes you want to read on.”

Weakness:

“There’s too many things happening at once; you don’t know what to look at first.”

Double page spread

Strengths:

“The colours are eye-catching there lots of information and its clear and easy to read/ understand.”

Weakness:

“Everything looks squashed together; there should have been space between the title and some of the text.”

My music magazine

cover of my magazine draft sketches

I called this magazine fusion because fusion is the combination of two elements. In this case the two elements are hip hop and R&B combined In this magazine. It’s also in the top left hand side on the cover of the magazine. 

First Initial design for the cover of my magazine

Second Initial design for the cover of my magazine

Third Initial design for the cover of my magazine

Fourth Initial design for the cover of my magazine

Fifth Intitial design for the cover of my magazine

Final Initial design for the cover of my magazine

Contents drafts

First Initial design of my contents page

Second Intitial design of my contents page

Final initial design of my contents page

Double page spreads

First Initial design of my double page spread

Second Initial design of my double page spread

Final Initial design of my double page spread