Final

Overall i feel that this assignment has allowed me to learn various skills including photography, editing and planning. One important aspect that i will never forget is how important it is to be good at time management as this is the deciding factor from a good to excellent piece of work. I would wish to go back and start again after knowing what i know now and set myself personal deadlines. Overall i believe my final assignment was a success but i believe that i could increase the quality with a little more time.

Thank you for your time and my this is my last message on my blog.

Daniel Hunter
16829
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Evaluation

Kerrang was a huge influence in my production, mainly the design aspect the Title of the magazine stands out the most with the black text and white background creating a strong contrast. The main image unlike the band photo is three individual models cut and edited to resemble a similar main image as Kerrang. The main title for the main image helps identify the main image so that viewers can identify it. This is very necessary as many of the bands I will publisher are newer bands I.E “Future.” There is additional images and text to give the viewer a sneak peak of what is contained in the magazine.

The social class most likely to read my magazines are students, working and lower class. The rock genre is normally represented to be rough, aggressive and loud. The rock genre social class is normally deemed as rebellious and therefore stereotyped.

IPC are the media publisher I want to use as they are the biggest media institute within the UK they publish such magazines as NME, Nuts, Loaded and others. I believe that IPC will publish my magazine as it is similar to normal rock magazine but with a twist to allow newer bands to be promoted. Also i will be doing coverage on the festivals and gigs that is very poplar at the moment.

IPC are the media publisher I want to use as they are the biggest media institute within the UK they publish such magazines as NME, Nuts, Loaded and others. I believe that IPC will publish my magazine as it is similar to normal rock magazine but with a twist to allow newer bands to be promoted. Also i will be doing coverage on the festivals and gigs that is very poplar at the moment.

I have learnt how to do many things of Photoshop such as spot healing, cutting, editing lighting/shadows/contrast also how to arrange different sections to make the product look more professional. Using my blog to keep a personal record and progress allows me to understand and monitor how far I am. Photography I feel was the hardest part of this assignment as you have to take every aspect into consideration such as background, lighting and extra waste within the photo.

To attract the audience I have used many different aspects such as the colour black and red are normally associated with rock. The content includes bands, gigs, festivals, fashion and stars/icons. The images I have used are very raw and rough to create a rock star image to attract the reader. The icons are normally band front men or the most popular band at the currant time. The language used is very informal as rock genre is loud, rebellious and explicit.

The images previously used had reflections in and wasn’t very good. I have learnt how to plan the photo instead of taking random quick unthought-of photos. The identity is consistent throughout the magazine and in my preliminary wasn’t very effective. I have defiantly improved my editing and create more complex editing including spot healing and shadow, lighting and contrast adjustments to suit the image. I feel that i still need to improve my time management as i have tended to leave important section out and having to go back this is what happened in my preliminary task as well.

final hand in

FRONT PAGE

CONTENTS

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

Preliminary task

i didnt include my preliminary task when first creating my blog as i had missed this out but i have evaluated this previously before creating my final music magazine.

For our preliminary task we had to create a school magazine this included the front page and contents. why researching i had found out who was the ideal age to base the magazine on. Research shows that sixth form would be the best age group to base the magazine on although there was still alot of for positive response from the higher years in secondary school. This is why i based my magazine on 13-18 year old students.

As i was new to photoshop this was just an experiment before our final hand in. i had researched other school magazines before and posted one on my blog. This is how both parts of my preliminary task went.





The original idea was to have an image of the school and students around but due to the weather a good image was harder to come by. Looking at the main image on the front page (of the school) you can see the reflection in the doors. Also advice that i have been given by my tutor was that closed doors aren't as welcoming as open doors. I had been playing around with the layers and cutting images and re locating them on the main document. Another issue that i had pointed out was that the banner (the black on the top of the document) didn't match both pages one was bigger than the other. Also the different fonts was making the preliminary task very unprofessional.

The strengths that i had brought out of this task was creating/re-arranging layers, cutting images, adjusting colour/shadows/lighting and also learning from the mistakes made in this assignment. I made sure that both banners where matching and the same size, fonts were similar when needed and images/models where planned before taking or looked at more carefully to make sure they are usable.

The contents page was very simple and when looking back after researching the music magazine i believe that it was effective for a school magazine whereas a music magazine this wouldn't fit. Changes to make would be more colour and images this is where i had to do more research for the contents page on my music magazine.

Contents

While adjusting my contents page i was messing around with the layout. i have used bold red lines to seperate different sections and different style text to make certain sections stand out more I have used many images. There was one image that i thought wouldn't make my final work because i have used the flash on the camera and you can see the black curtains behind the models also someones hand is infront of the camera.



i needed more images and decided to adjust this image. I croped the image so that the model on the left was individual and adjusted the lighting, contrasts and shadows to make the image darker this is how it looked after the adjustments.


now the image looks like it has been taken on stage this is done my making more of a contrast between colours and darkening the shadows and highlights.

i will post my final front page, contents and double page spread after i have posted and evaluated my preliminary task.

Double page spread

After trying these two images i have decided on the image to use.

i also tried removing the colour making the image grayscale but i didn't think it looked as good as the original

After chosing the coloured image i need to adjust the lighting, contrast and levels of the image making the colour more defined.



I have used auto leveling and contrast to make the colour more defined. I will be adding text like questions and answers across the poster these can be personal questions or even the influences.

I will be posting my final double page spread later =)

POSTER

These are my two choices i have for my double plage spread poster.

This one i'm not sure about he looks cocky and arragant (like a true ROCK STAR) but i believe it was my faught when taking this photo as i have cut most of his feet off! I can look into reducing the width and height to reduce the amount of unwanted space such has half of his feet and hands etc.

My other choice was similar as i would have to decide on cutting the image to make it look more profession as i have made the mistake of cutting half of his feet and hands of. =(



I like this image as he looks rough and like a rock star as he is sitting on the street with a ciggarette hanging out of his mouth. This makes him look rough and fairly cool.

I will see what i can do with each image and write back soon.

between contents and double page

I have been switching between my contents page and double page spread and decided that if i have a good enough image that i can create a double page spread POSTER. I have been boosting about it enough on my front page and contents page i might aswell do it!

I am stuck between two images from one model and want him to look as "ROCK" as possible this can be done by making the model look naughty/bad. I have been looking at posters of people such as Pete Doherty this is a prime example of what i'd like to base my idea on for my final double page spread.
This image shows that Pete Doherty doesn't care and is a bit Rock. This is an image that i wouldn't done myself but maybe having more of a distant shoot this image would be ideal to base my poster on.

This image is ideal for a poster it shows a popular presence in the genre rock music industry and makes him look "cool". He is wearing the latest fashion clothing with his new guitar and his body language saying "I don’t care" this is a good photo for a picture but I’d like to incorporate these two images into my original.

FRONT PAGE done: know CONTENTS

Back of holiday and cracking on with the course work. I've been a bit lazy on this blog and not keeping you up to date but i have finally finished my front page and i am now onto my contents page.
I have added borders to break up different sections of the page and used multi coloured text to catch the attention of the viewer making key words such as "POSTER" bold, capital lettering and a different colour to the text around it. One issue i do have with this was the cutting of the main image of the three models as when taking the image I had used the flash BUT this has left shadows across the image edge making it harder to cut between the contrasts.

I'm onto my contents page and haven't been able to find any examples online other than the magazines online presences. SO i went out and brought a couple of mags. I will try photo-copying these onto the blog.

The contents page has loads going on with many small images and bold lettering making individual words stand out. There is normally a structure the text goes in but the images can seem scattered to make this more energetic and actually leaves the viewer confused sometimes not knowing what to make of this. This makes the viewer read on and relate to the text which doesn't give much away so that the viewer may purchase and continue reading the magazine.

The contents page will always have a similar if not identical colour scheme and text as the front page this is something that i will need to do in my course work. I'll write again soon!

How it worked

After my last blog i was discussing how to create a band photo here is my finished band photo.

This has came out how i expected and i will be adding items to the bottom 1/4 of the page such as more captions and images. I will give the band a name and put the name across the main image what will be across the page. I will be making the text different colours and randomly make individual words stand out more E.G. FREE POSTER

SPEAK TO YOU SOON

Ideas pt 2

Back again and have some pictures to show!

There are 3 individual photos that I have taken against a blank background so i can cut them out more easily. I can use the Magnetic lasso tool to cut the images out, this tool allows the cursor to cut inbetween contrasting colours making it easier and faster to cut you can find it HERE!

Here are the 3 photos I'm hoping to use!

As these are the largest images on my front cover i will have to use the spot healing tool on 2 of the 3 models to reduce the amount of Blemishes. Is it located on the tool bar in Photoshop HERE!

My chosen background is all black with the top of the page around 2" red to add a slogan in.

My next blog will show the results of these pictures and the steps!!!!!

Ideas and drafts pt 1

Why researching Kerrang and NME I noticed one major similarity each front page has a band picture. Unfortunately i couldn't get the models to do a band photo but I had 3 individual photos of my models and was able to cut them and play about with them to make the individual photos into a band picture.

Im having trouble making my front cover look professional and hoping YouTube can give me the answers for some hints and tips to using Photoshop. Im thinking about using a red border to give more contrast between the image and the background. Untill next time =)