Front Cover Magazine Analysis

Production Log - Wednesday 24th September

In todays lesson we were told that we had to analyse 3 magazine front covers, contents pages and double page spreads over the upcoming lessons.
We had a group discussion on how we should go about analysing a magazine. I discovered that we had to describe what it was that we could see, what it means and says about the magazine and then why it appeals to the audience. I made notes on this and on what topics to talk about eg. masthead, images, house style etc. to keep for future references.
I then began looking for front covers and contents pages of music magazines on google and began adding them to a powerpoint presentation. I will finish my front cover analysis for homework and continues workig on the others next lesson.

video of creating preliminary task

Production Log - Monday 22nd September

In today's lesson I completed my evaluation, I planned beforehand some topics that I thought would be good to discuss such as house style, photos, content and text. I then talked about all the decisions I made in terms of this and the skills I used to create my final product.
After I had finished this I uploaded it to my blog and began making a video of my product coming together however, I encountered difficulty with my computer and so it took a long time for me to actually get a good and saved version of my product being created on Indesign.
Next lesson I will put this video together and write a post to describe what I was doing and my decisions made during this process.

Preliminary Task Evaluation

I used the software ‘InDesign’ to produce my preliminary magazine front cover and contents page. When planning my magazine, I had to decide on a colour scheme to make my magazine look consistent and professional - I chose the colour scheme of light blue, black and burgundy. I chose these colours as they stood out against my background, they complement each other nicely and would attract students to buy the magazine.

Then, I got a mid-close up photograph of a girl in year seven to put as the background of my front cover. I chose to have a photograph as my background instead of a solid colour so that it doesn’t look out of place and I could write text on top of the photograph to advertise my magazine to customers. For the contents page I chose to take a photograph of St. Nicks building and set it to the background picture. I then added page numbers and what they would consist of, I made the font colour black so it would clearly stand out against the white building. I also added in the Haydon stag as it is the school logo which keeps to the theme of making a school magazine, this makes my magazine look more personalised to the school.

I then had to think about what people from Haydon School would like to see in this magazine, to do this I thought about what I personally would like to see and what some of the younger years would like also, next I had to decide what text I was going to write upon my front cover to ‘sell’ the magazine. I advertised the different features and articles that would be in the magazine – I made this appealing on the front cover by adding colour to the text and text boxes.

 

The things that I like about my magazine is the way that I layed out my contents text as it is on top of the picture of the building, almost giving the impression that the text is written on the building. I also like my front page title as it ties in both words “Haydon” and “news” by having a larger font size ‘N’ between both words and in the different colour of blue contrasting to the rest of the black title. I think that this made the magazine more original and attractive. I believe that my preliminary task has met the criteria as it is a school magazine, includes pictures and a mid-close up shot of a student.

When it comes to the real task, I will use the skills that I have learnt throughout doing the preliminary task to ensure that my magazine meets the expected criteria; I could also use some ideas generated in this task to use in the real task.

Final Preliminary Task

Production Log - Monday 15th September

In today's lesson we had a quick briefing as a class on what we had to do today, which was to carry on working on our magazines and to start the evaluation if we finish.
I began to put the finishing touches to my magazine by adding in a photograph of a group of girls eating lunch in the canteen to the front cover where I advertise the new lunch menu. I thought that this would be a good addition to my magazine cover as it adds more variation in imagery to advertise customers to the product. I also looked at my magazine and checked to see that I was happy with the layout of everything and the font sizes. By this time it was the end of the lesson, in my next media session I shall begin my evaluation as I have now completed my magazine.

Success In Previous Blogs - HW

Production Log - Wednesday 10th September

During todays' lesson I carried on making my magazine front cover and contents page on Indesign. 
I added all text to my front cover, edited the font colour and style, added another picture and made my front cover more eye-catching by adding in a text box in the colour blue. I then went on to making my contents page, I used one of the pictures of the school buildings that I took with the camera in a previous lesson and made it the background, I added in a title and all text. Next lesson I will put the finishing touches to my contents page such as editing fonts and images to make sure that I'm happy with the way that it looks and then I would have finished my preliminary task of making a school magazine.

Production Log - Monday 8th September 2014

In today's media lesson we carried on carrying out our preliminary task of making a magazine.
I used Adobe Indesign to start creating the front cover of my magazine, I began by producing the title and I played around with Indesign in terms of font size and placement on the magazine page until I was happy with how my title looked - I also used my magazine plan to know what I wanted my overall magazine to look like.
Next I added in the mid close up that I took of the year 7 girl in my last lesson and made it the focal point of my magazine cover by making it very large and covering the entire page. Finally I started adding in more text around the picture to advertise the magazine to the target audience. Throughout this lesson I have become more familiar with Indesign as I have not previously used it and I will carry on producing my magazine next lesson.

Planning My Preliminary Task

Production Log - Wednesday 3rd September

Today was the first day of my Media Studies course, we were introduced to the course and told that we were to make a Haydon magazine cover and contents page over the next week or so. 
To do this we had to begin by designing our magazine on paper, following the required theme and specification of a mid close up picture of a student. I began to think of things that would typically appear in magazines and moreover things that would suit my theme; I began to add them to my front cover plan to advertise the magazine - alongside a drawing of a student and a draft title. Next we took the cameras around school and took pictures to use when producing the magazine - I took pictures of the school buildings, a group of girls eating lunch and some mid close up pictures of a year 7 girl in preparation for my next lesson when I will begin to produce my magazine.