Final Product

This is the final submission of my college magazine. As you can see that I have not stuck to my colour scheme that I originally had planned ('purple, white and green'). I decided to choose the colours red, white and black as red is an aggressive colour therefore reinforcing that idea that the football team are fierce and are ready to play. I have used the colour yellow for my plug in order to make it stand out, this will easily catch the audiences eye.

Evaluation questions

1. What have you learnt from completing this task?
2. How have you used technology?
3. What conventions have you used and why?
4. What would you change if you were to do this task again?

Mock up Contents Page

This is my own personal mock up of a contents page. I have made this by following the conventions of a Q Magazine, by doing this I know I will include all the conventions that I would expected to see in a contents page. This will allow me to make a professional and successful contents page for my music magazine in the future.

Evaluation

This is my evaluation. By writing an evaluation, this allows me to establish the flaws in my product and research as well as the advantages and positives about my research and product.

Photoshop Process

When creating my final product, I used many different tools, techniques and styles that helped me to create a successful front cover. I have had previous experience with Photoshop therefore I am aware how to manipulate it in order to benefit me marginally.

To begin with, I had to duplicate my initial layers just in case I damaged one layer, then I would still have a back-up layer. This helped as I knew I could experiment with any of the tools on Photoshop and know that I would not make a permanent mistake as I always had the back-up layer.

When creating the plug on the front cover of my magazine, I noticed that it didn't stand out like a plug should do. I know it is conventional for the plug to catch the audience's eye therefore I had a play around with the different effects that would make the plug stand out more. I decided that I didn't want to add the effects to the plug itself but the text instead, this is to give the text depth and look almost 3D. I played around with different effects, such as the inner glow and the outer glow. After previewing both effects, I decided that I would use the outer glow as it adds more depth to the text.

As you can see here, the first picture is the plug featuring the inner glow whereas the second picture is the plug featuring the outer glow. The outer glow effect is what I desired therefore I will use this effect.

There are many different tools that I used in order to help me produce the front cover of my magazine. I used the zoom tool to zoom up close in order to erase the initial background of my model. I also used the eraser and the magic wand tools which allowed me to erase the whole background of my model in order for me to add my very own background. I also used the text tool to create the masthead, sell lines and the plug so the audience are can easily read the name of my magazine, any competitions that are on offer, or what is inside the magazine.

 

Photos for Front Cover

These are the main images I took for the front cover of my magazine. As I stated in an earlier post, I am going to use a medium close up shot of my model which is what I have decided to use here. 

There are examples of a bad images due to the fact that my female model is not maintaining eye contact with the audience. Although some magazines are successful by not using eye contact, it is a conventional feature to include on the front cover of a magazine because it catches the audiences eye as if the model is looking straight at them.

As I stated earlier, my magazine is going to cater to a wide range of students therefore I have decided to include a scientific element by including images of a glass in class and by including images of a boy posing for a sports photos.

These are the pictures I took to use for the background of my magazine. I decided to use the sports hall at Wyke College in order to connote that my magazine features sports stories. This will entice my target audience to buy the magazine.

Digital Drafts

This is my first digital draft. I decided that by creating a digital draft it would benefit my when creating my final college magazine edit because it would give me an introduction as to what tools I should use on my final edit. Be conducting a digital draft, this has allowed me to trial specific tools that I feel will benefit me in the future as well as trial specific techniques that I have seen been used in professional institutions that I feel could benefit me when creating my final edit.

I have taken inspiration from a Vogue magazine in order to make my magazine as professional as possible. I have followed the use of a theme of colours, as well as different fonts and sizes.

When creating my digital draft, I used tools like the magic eraser tool, the text tool and the special effects tool. These all helped me and allowed me to create a professional-like magazine that looks presentable and sell able to the public. 

Mise-en-scene and Location Ideas

For my college magazine, I will not include just one theme. I will cater my college magazine to a wide variety of students in order to broaden my target audience. I will do this by including shots of the sports team as smaller images on the front of my magazine cover, as well as science experiments and possibly theater studies. My main image will feature a male and a female, in class progressing with their work. I have decided to include a male and a female in order to portray that the magazine doesn't just appeal to males or females but both. By placing both my models in the classroom environment, this illustrates that these two models are acting as determined students who are aiming to achieve high grades through the use of their body language. I will include textbooks and notepads in the frame in order to reinforce to the audience that this magazine is a college magazine.

In order to portray that my magazine will be aimed at sports students as well as theater students, I will include Wyke's sports kit on the models in the frame. By doing this, I will easily attract members of a sports team into purchasing this magazine as they are aware it appeals to them.

I will have the students wearing their regular clothing as at college, students don't have tow ear uniform therefore I feel that by including a uniform, the audience of my magazine will be put off purchasing it as they may believe the magazine is aimed at students younger than them. By including a uniform, this will challenge the ideology of the title of my magazine, as it is called 'Graduate' and therefore by adding a uniform into the frame, this illustrates a high level on contrast for my magazine.

As the colour scheme is purple, white and green, I will make sure I include a green notepad or textbook in my framing in order to support the ideology of my magazine.

Shot Definitions

These are the different shot types I explored when deciding which shot I will use for the front cover of my college magazine. As you can see, I analysed each shot type in detail in order to establish which shot type I will use. I feel a medium close-up will benefit me the most when creating my college magazine as it will allow me to convey the emotions and expressions of my model easily, as well as show a decent amount of location that will also convey the genre of my magazine.

Feature Ideas

In order to create a successfully professional college magazine front cover, I will feature real events that are happening at Wyke.

In order to find out what sell lines I will use on my magazine front cover, I decided to look at Wyke's website. I went onto www.wyke.ac.uk and clicked on 'News & Events' this took me to a page that explained all the news, headlines and events are happening at Wyke in the next upcoming months.

I believe that I am going to focus my college magazine on overall college life. I will include images of sports personnel as well as scientific personnel. By doing so, this will easily convey that my magazine is aimed at a wide target audience and will tend to many different styles of learning.

As you can see, there is an event named 'Biology Success', 'Chemistry Competition' and 'Wyke Top of the Table'. (I'm aware the final event isn't Scientifically orientated however it conveys success). I will think about using these sell lines on the front cover of my magazine as well as creating my own to incorporate a bit of my own knowledge into the magazine.

Colour Palette

This is my colour palette research. As you can see, I have chosen to always include the colours purple and white. This is because Wyke's logo and image consist of the colours purple and white therefore I feel that by changing the binding colours, I will damage the identity of Wyke as an institution.

I decided to stick with the traditional colour scheme conventions: three colours. This is so the magazine front cover will look presentable, sophisticated as well as relaxed. Three colours for the colour palette is generally the main conventions for a magazine and therefore I will follow these conventions in order to make my magazine of high standard and professional.

Finally, I have decided that I will go with the florescent secondary colour green as the third colour on my magazine front cover. This is because florescent green is a clear and bright colour that the audience will easily recognise and it stands out amongst white and purple therefore directing the audience's attention to the plugs of the magazine. The colour green connotes positivity and well-being to the students of Wyke College and therefore this will entice them to purchase this magazine.

Magazine Names

When choosing the name for my college magazine, I decided to look on thesaurus.com. This website allowed me to search a word of my choice whilst it collected all the synonyms belonging to that word. To begin with, I search the word 'college', these are the results that came up:

 I have highlighted the options that I thought would most suit a college magazine however, I thought the word 'institute' would connote mixed messages to my audience. This taught me that when I choose a name, I will need to make sure that it sells the magazine and instantly connotes to the audience that the magazine is about college life.

Next, I searched the word 'student', this brought up many other words that were more appealing to me for the name of my magazine. As you can see, I highlighted all the words that I felt stood out to me, these are 'graduate', 'learner' and 'grad'. These words are all relevant to student life therefore would easily connote that the magazine consists of learning about student life, ultimately helping the audience understand the genre, messages and values of the magazine and institution.

Next, I entered dafont.com, I chose to use this website because it has a huge range of fonts that will be useful to me when creating my magazine. After choosing the word 'graduate' to be the masthead of my magazine, I decided that I will search dafont.com using the word 'graduate'. For example, I typed the word 'graduate' into the bos that allows you to preview your style font with any word of your choice.

This is the first font I liked, I liked this font because it is formal yet, subtle. I decided not to include a capital letter at the beginning of the word 'graduate' because I thought by doing so, the masthead would look too formal to be advertising a college magazine. This font is neat and clear therefore the audience would not have a problem or would not struggle to read the masthead which benefits the audience highly.

I then looked at this font. This font is a lot more quirky and relaxed which is initially what I was aiming for however, I feel this font is far too relaxed in order to be advertising a college magazine. Although this magazine will only be aimed at students, I want it to appeal to them and make them feel mature and sophisticated, whereas this font is not achieving my aims of ideology therefore I will not be using this font style.

This is the next font I chose. I chose this font because it is also relaxed and quirky whereas as I have stated before, I feel these styles of fonts are too relaxed to be included on a college magazine front cover. This font style looks like the style of writing you would notice on a blackboard back in the 1960's therefore I feel like the audience of my college magazine will not be interested in buying my magazine if this is the title because it would look as if it is aimed at a younger target audience.

Finally, this is the last font style I looked at. This style is also relaxed however, I feel this font style does not connote necessary ideas and themes to my target audience as it would appeal more to a younger generation therefore I will not be using this font style either.

Moodboard

This is my moodboard. Having researched previous college magazine, I realised that there was a running theme of the use of textbooks and college environments as the locations. Therefore in order for me to create a successful college magazine, I will think carefully about the use of mise-en-scene such as what textbooks I will include, (if a scientific choice) a test tube, a white lab coat, (if sports choice) a football, sports kit, trainers, or (if dance or drama), costumes, in a theater or acting. This will help me include all the necessary signs, codes and conventions I will need to include in order to produce a high standard college magazine.

Conventions Analysis

Here I have conducted research to help me analyse the conventions of a front cover of a magazine. I learnt that throughout magazine front covers, there is always the use of a bar code, price, date and issue number; this is universal amongst all magazine covers I researched as these are necessary signs that should always feature on the front of a magazine in order to help the audience establish what form of media text this product is.

Here I have analysed the front cover of a MOJO magazine that features Madonna. I like this magazine and therefore when I conduct my final edit of my magazine front cover, I will use this as inspiration and guidance to produce a high quality product. I have highlighted the main conventions of a front cover magazine and therefore I feel this will help me to product a high quality college magazine by sticking to the common conventions that help the audience establish the media form and genre of a text.

I also conducted college magazine convention research in order to establish the generic conventions that apply to college magazines. This helped to distinguish the conventions of a college magazine in comparison to a regular magazine, this will benefit me when creating my college magazine as I will be able to include these codes and conventions that help separate my magazine amongst others.

LIIAR Analysis

Semiotics Analysis

This magazine advertisement was taken from Heat magazine in September 2011. It features a white unicorn being fed a Trebor mint by a black gloved hand with a sparkly bracelet and ring on.

As it is directly in the centre of the advertisement, the focal point of this image is definitely the black nose of the unicorn. As the unicorn is immaculate, the black nose is an immediate contradiction with the purity of the colour white therefore attracting the attention of the audience. The black nose also links to the black evening glove that is feeding the unicorn a Trebor mint. Back in the 1960's, Audrey Hepburn was an extremely iconographic actress and still is to this day. Known for her beauty and elegance, she commonly wore black evening gloves to convey her strong fashion sense, this relates to the black glove used in this magazine advertisement. The black gloves connotes elegance due to Hepburn's iconography, by including a black evening glove on the magazine advertisement, this instantly connotes that these mints are aimed at an audience of high class, sophisticated (preferably) females - due to the posture and pose of the feminine hand that is feeding the unicorn. Also by including a black evening glove on the magazine advertisement, this enhances the quality of Trebor mints and therefore states that you would not feed a mere pony with your bare hands yet you would feed a unicorn (or an elegant horse) with posh black evening gloves on to enhance the idea of wealth.

Moreover, this magazine advertisement has been arranged in front of a white background or edited onto a plain white background. This may not seem like a big decision or anything of importance however, by choosing to position this advertisement on a white background, this supports the theme of fantasy and purity for this magazine advertisement. Likewise, the colour white is often associated with luxury items and therefore contrasts with the black evening glove.

The target audience is also supported by the use of the jewellery, for example the bracelet and the ring stand out to the female audience as they are generally objects that appeal to this target range. Diamonds are considered to be a sign of wealth and success which relates to the slogan of the Trebor mints 'Sweet Success', therefore stating that the mints are a success in themselves. This entices the female audience to purchase this product because then they will feel wealthy and elegant.

Furthermore, the framing of the image, means that the audience cannot see who the arm belongs too. This therefore diverts the audiences attention to the product alone and the messages Trebor are connoting.

In addition, the unicorn has been positioned in the profile view. This is so the audience are able to get a clear idea of the size of the unicorn's horn. If the unicorn was facing directly towards the camera, looking straight into it, the audience would only think the unicorn was a horse because that view would not portray the scale of the unicorn's horn, which is a key element because unicorns are seen as mystical and magical creatures that only appear in a fantasy world.

Finally, I believe this magazine advertisement is a good and effective advertisement that sells the product well. It has clearly been well thought-out when analysing the colours, the posture of the arm and the main image.

Brief

The brief of my first AS Media task is:

 'To design a college magazine front cover and mock up contents page. Images used on the front cover must be original (taken by you).'