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

From the preliminary task, I have a greater understanding and capability with professional technologies like Photoshop and Indesign in order to make a professional media product. I have learnt far more about the kind of drives and pulls behind the audience and how they influence both the designing and creation of the magazine, in regards to fit for purpose, target audience and genre. My preliminary task didn’t reflect as much the kind of things an audience wants, but more so my personal ideas. Through a more effective use research in my development I was able to analyse and asses the codes and conventions behind genres and what makes them so iconic.

In regards to planning, I found that I pushed for a centralised idea, learning from my mistakes in the preliminary tasks and also by vastly furthering my research and understanding of the subject matter at hand. I drew up mind maps and layouts in preparation for their creation on InDesign, this way I was far more focussed on the kind of ideas I was working with and the end result I wanted.

My research furthered my knowledge of the print magazine industry, how they layout their pages, their styles (fonts, colours, images, etc) and how they create iconic and recognisable styles and the printing institutions. The research was invaluable in aiding my choices in order to adhere to codes and conventions available.

My practical skills have vastly improved also, in my preliminary task I had very little knowledge of Indesign and Photoshop, in comparison to now, and this reflects in the lack of editing and poor placement within the ‘College Magazine’ task. Where as, in reflection to the music magazine task there is a clear difference in not only the knowledge and control in technologies but also what I am doing, ultimately.

I feel there is a vast improvement from my preliminary task, especially in regards to professionalism, although there are things I would still improve about my music magazine. For example I think the choice of front cover imagery could have been better, as although it is a great photo, I had difficulty with applying text on top of it as it easily became blended or illegible due to the colouring. Perhaps if I had the chance again, I would create a photo that had a bland back ground, although this would push me to think further into the narrative of the image. I think the colour scheme of a fuchsia and white look good and are statement, I wonder if I could have used something slightly more gender-neutral. My contents page, I think could have been more effective in a different layout. I overall believe my product to be quite successful when relating to my target audience and genre and I am very happy with what I have produced.

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

Before AS media, I only used blogs to read articles written upon them but never to write my own. My experience with using Blogspot/Blogger has taught me how to, not only, compile all my research, development and evaluation in one highly accessible location, but about the effectiveness of presentation and layout. I used the label tool on the blog in order to bind all my posts together in topic, regardless of post and editing dates.

I have learnt a great deal in respect to Photoshop and Indesign, skills that I believe to be invaluable. Within Indesign, I learnt a lot about placement, the use of text boxes and playing fonts for desired effects, swatches, levels, contrasts and effects like sharpen and guassian blur and tools like the rectangle tool. Using my research into codes and conventions and previous publications, both print and online, I found inspiration for layout, types of images used and tone and register of the feature. Using Photoshop, I learnt the power of using tools such as the blemish, spot healing and patch tools to touch up and edit my images used. I learnt how to resize images and how to optimise the quality, in order to increase the clarity and sharpness in a smaller image (i.e. saving the image at 200dpi).

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Who would be the audience for your media product?

My target audience, for my music magazine, are both males and females between the ages of 18-35, working/middle class, C1C2D with interests in live music events and indie/folk/contemporary blues styles of music.

Max is nineteen years old, loves all music types, but more so for acoustic, indie styles, art, fashion and regularly socialising. He is currently a music BTEC student and attends gigs as regularly as possible; through growing up on a variety of different genres and eras of music through his family, his BTEC now gives him a greater possibility to keep an eye on blossoming artists. Max regularly buys CD’s, almost weekly, and if he cannot find what he wants in his local HMV, he happily resorts to importing it in. His last gig he attended was an ‘Eddi Reader’ concert at The Stables, in Milton Keynes, an artist that his parents had introduced to him, when she was part of ‘Fairground Attraction’, and now he follows her more contemporary texts. He lives in a small village outside of Northampton, yet visits the town as much as possible, and dreams of moving to London eventually. Max buys into high street fashion mostly, with an odd piece here and there taken for independently owned boutiques and imported from other countries due to trending styles.

How did you attract your audience?

I attracted and addressed my audience through the use of immediate imagery, from the cover, of an artist of a that reflected both my target demographic, but of a certain dress style too. Using an art-type artist on the front cover promotes ideas of inclusion and relatability for perspective buyers, promoting both the music genre, via relevent artists and art styles, and also, in regards to younger readers, a sub-culture that would publicise a sense of style and norms and values. The magazine throughout uses bright yet contrasting colours to ensure a statement is made by the fonts and backgrounds; This encourages a sense of accessibility and aesthetics within the product, whilst maintaining a contemporary look. Choosing the pricetag of £2.25, aids attracting a younger audience, due to a generalised view of financial instability, and also the older spectrum of the target audience as being affordable it would be something cheap enough to easily add to the shopping load without second thought.

Feature Development

Initially, I worked to my layout idea I drew up in planning. sectioning the page clearly in two, to have a clean break in the sections of the feature, left hand-side for content and right for imagery and facts. I used the same gray swatch I made for the contents page.

After placing the image, I found it to be too wide and so I resized it on Photoshop in order for it to fit well and not spill into the rest of the feature. The creation of the feature's masthead was probably one of the more time costly things to do, as I had to maintain a sense of aesthetic without it overlapping, the text flow breaking due to adjusting leading and that it wouldn't take up too much space. I also added the top right corner text box filled with my planned content.

I took two of my favourite, closely linked and the most important, in my opinion, sections of the interview to fill the gray text box, as if to promote that those two questions are standardised for every interview. The text itself was written in 'Helvetica' and used the same purple swatch I used on the front cover as a highlighter. I decided to use 'Papyrus' as the '5  New Artists' font, as because it is so different to Minion Pro and Helvetica it stands out and looks more like a logo for a serial feature. I then laid out the text boxes ready for my feature.

I placed my feature into the text boxes, allowing them to overflow into one another, but realised that the feature fitted well and I had spare space at the end. The introduction, I made sure that 'Sara Spade and The Joyful Noise' was highlighted, increased in font and using the themed purple swatch.

I shortened the first text box until the overflow reached capacity in the secondary text box and then placed a image box ready for placement. I found an appropriate image and edited it in Photoshop, so that the size would fit well and placed it in the bottom corner.

I realisied that leaving the feature like that left it a lot to be desired. I had a final adjusting before adding a paper swatched thin rectangle running across the bottom of the feature, in order to add page numbers and the publication name for professional reasons, and pull quotes on the standardised gray swatched rectangle as finishing touches.

Contents Development

Initially, I set out the lines according to my plan, dividing the page up into it's equal portions.

I then added an array of text boxes to help give me a greater idea of how the layout will look.

I created two new swatches for the colour scheme, using the swatch of the fuchsia I created on the front page paled slightly and reduced in opacity, and a gray swatch by having zeroed colour levels and played around with the contrast level to find what I wanted. I set out and aligned my boxes ready for text and image, making sure the 'number' box had a paper background to overlap the image.

The next step was filling them with text as I edited my photos. I made sure I used the same fonts as I did on the front cover in order to maintain a reoccurring theme.

I then added the images and played with how they were placed within the image boxes.

And finally tweaked and adjusted, adding a miniature version of the front cover to the subscription advert.

Front Cover Development

Initially,  I placed my chosen image on the layout, as this would be my base to the rest of the image, and the mast head of the publication.

I spent a fair time trying to find a font that would appeal enough and fit for purpose to the kind of message I would like to send; I finally settled on Minion Pro as it appears as both bold and statement, this I think promotes a more confident and a possible iconic style. I ended up playing around with the leading and height and width percentages to get the effect I wanted.

I then begun placing planned text boxes on page (coverlines), filling them as planned with information about what was inside the cover. I initially used Papyrus to contrast the masthead, as I thought it to be more delicate and chose to use a white in hopes of contrasting the image behind as using black didn't work very well. I also added a white rectangle in the lower left hand corner, placing the bar code image upon it and adding details such as the price, what issue, date and the website.

Deciding against using Papyrus, I changed it back to Minion Pro and removed the large 'list-like' text so I can focus on two major cover lines. I chose to try and keep with the Masthead to tag line colour differentiation, in order to keep some kind of theme. The text itself had leading editing in order to pull it more tightly together.

But, that way, it all blended together and looked bland, so I reversed it and found it far more effective.

To finish, I simply added Boss, Drop Shadow and Bevle effects to both the mast head and my main coverline to make the image really stand out.