Development of skills

How have my skills developed since the School Magazine?

Looking back at when I was doing my school magazine, I can now see how much my skills have developed. At the beginning of the year when I started doing Media Studies, I had no idea how to use Photoshop or any of the programmes we used within the media lessons.
>Having Photoshop on my home laptop, has allowed me to practise and improve my skills on the programme. I have used YouTube tutorials to help guide me through the vast, complex features of Photoshop. With these programmes I have learnt to use liquify- the slimming and bloating tool, I know how to change hair and eye colour and am now much more confident with layering, changing fonts, font colours and adding glows, strokes and embossing text. I can also use the Magic Wand tool to precisely outline images and crop them. All these techniques have been very useful in the making of my magazine.

>I am also much more confident with photography- having taken many pictures of Louise for my feature, I became more sure of all the features on the camera- for example, manual zooming with the lense, changing the picture to black and white and achieving good lighting for different types of photos.

>Making the questionnaire and getting back the results from it showed me how much easier it was to understand what exactly it was that my target audience wanted before going ahead and constructing the magazine. I feel now that I am more aware of the types of issues young teenage girls are interested in. I now know how important it was for me to organise to research and carry out an audience survey.
The talk with Art Director of Mojo, Mark Wagstaff really gave me an insight to how much work and planning goes into making a magazine. It was interesting learning about all the different jobs there are to do throughout the process and the large number of specialized people it takes to make a single issue.

Having deconstructed a large number of real music magazines, I could compare the techniques used by real magazines to the skills and techniques I used to make my own magazine. I stuck to only using three colours throughout the whole magazine and these colours were purposely chosen to appeal to my target audience, and my pictures were striking however not overwhelmed with colours and patterns. I linked the front cover information to the contents features and the main feature in the magazine so that, although this is a fictional magazine, it is still consistent and appears realistic. This lead to a more coherant, final product.

Finally, looking back at my finished magazine, I can tell that my skills in Photoshop have progressed dramatically and I am pleased with what I have been able to achieve. If I had the chance to re do the task at hand, I perhaps would have aimed to find out about a real upcoming artist as opposed to making a fictional feature. I would have also liked to have tried making a magazine which was not in my comfort zone; for example, a music magazine aimed at 20 year old men. This would have been a lot more challenging and perhaps could have tested my skills further. However, all in all, I am very pleased with what I have made as I have learnt a range of new skills which I can take with me into next year's media studies.

Audience Feedback

I showed my magazine to the Art Director at MOJO music magazine and he approved of my magazine saying it was 'brilliant'. He said that my feature was 'jazzy' and the writing was a 'good size' and even though the writing wasn't in perfect columns, this layout would appeal to my target audience of females aged between 12-17 years old; this was because a girl of such a such age wouldn't want to be swamped with text. The pictures and the fun style of the feature is more relaxed and much easier to digest.
I also showed my magazine to my 10 year old male cousin. He said the 'pictures were nice' and it is very 'colourful' however, being a boy, he said he wouldn't buy the magazine as it is 'too pretty and pink'. Although this piece of feedback was essentially negative towards my magazine, it made me feel more confident that I had correctly targetted my target audience.
My 12 year old cousin, Chiara also took a look at the magazine- I did this knowing that it was her age group at which the magazine was targetted. She said she 'liked all the artists involved' in the magazine and the pictures 'were pretty and nice'. She also commented on how she liked the extra features not associated with music including the make-up, fashion and quizzes. This was very positive feedback.
The ex-Media teacher in Camden School for Girls, Ms Camillo looked at my magazine and said it looked 'extremely realistic and very technical'. She liked the use of colour and the front cover picture as the 'eye line match makes it feel as if Lulu is looking directly at us.
I showed the rest of my class my magazine in a presentation and Billy Cape said 'the professional style has really been captured' and said that I have 'been able to combine a great literary feature with an intelligent, bright design'. Kendra said it was 'great!'.
With the wide range of feedback I have gathered, through my questionnaire and the people who have seen my magazine, I can safely say that I have successfuly created a magazine which appeals to my target audience of girls between the ages of 12 to 17. The choices I have made with reference to the design and the content of my magazine have been well chosen to meet my expectation.

FINAL FEATURE

When planning my feature I decided I wanted the page to be more plain than the contents page and so I used a plain white background. The colours I used within the feature were consistent to the colours used throughout the rest of the magazine. I once agin used the 'hot' logo however underneath it I changed the sub heading to 'The hottest music interviews' to differenctiate between what each page was showing.

I used the font StencilStd to make the words EXCLUSIVE- the font used gave the words the effect of a 'Top Secret' stamp creating a fun, play like feel.
The introduction to the interview is written much bigger than the actual interview itself . This made it more eye catching and so it was the first thing the readers would read. The font used was the common font, Segoe UI, which is present throughout the magazine. I added a stroke effect to the writing to make it stand out. The extreme close up of Lulu beside the introduction is very eye catching and feels as though Lulu is looking directly at us, the readers, subconsciously inviting us in to read her interview. The heading 'Lulu' is written in the font Vladimir Script and I added a shadow to this to make it appear more three dimensional. The sub heading 'how the spark turned to fire'has been edited in such a way that it looks as though the words are sparklers and are fuzzing. I added a drop shadow, inner shadow and an outer glow and I also embossed the words. This was a good technique as it was consistent with the title and the sub heading of the feature.
To make the magazine look more professional, I included an personal website for Lulu and designed her own logo. I essentially just used different fonts, different font sizes and colours and from the brush tool, I put a blue star in to connote stardom!
The large quotations from the interview was done solely by enlarging the font and adding a black stroke to make the letters stand out.
The pictures I used were all very playful, and appealing and attracted the target audience my magazine was aimed at. Lulu looked very stereotypically pretty and young girls are often drawn to this. Her clothes are funky and fresh and she fits in with the modern idea of a 'cool' female teenager.
On the right hand side of the feature, to add to the realism, I included a contact address and at the bottom of the page, I invented a 'hot' email address. This technique allow the readers to connect to the magazine and actually take part in the making of it.

FINAL CONTENTS PAGE

This is the final contents page. To make it appear more defined and sophisticated I added a colour gradient to create a fade from white to yellow. I also outlined all the writing to enhance it, making it easier to read. To the sub headings, I added curve and perspective to make it appear more fun and to make it appeal to my target audience.

I also outlined a few of the pictures to make it more defined I cropped the Spice Girls photo so we can see the pictures more. I moved the text around to make it overlap and be closer together so that I could have a larger font yet still be able to fit all the writing on the page.

The reason for using such a bold colour was to make the contents page stand out. This is the page which sets out the whole magazine; a boring contents page would suggest a boring magazine. The yellow also implies a rather young, female audience- and this is exactly who my magazine is aimed at.

The Contents Page- Step 1

Step 1

This was the initial idea for my contents page. I used bright yellow as my background to make it more eye catching. This is the only time in the magazine where I used yellow. I used the same title, 'hot' that i used on my front cover to keep it consistant, and then, in the same font, added 'CONTENTS'. I used the hand writing font, to write 'Note from the editor' and to sign my name at the end of the editor's letter. I read a number of editors letters from other magazines to give me an idea of what I should be writing in my letter. I used the picture of Lulu singing to correspond to the idea that this is a music magazine.

In the features and regulars section of the front cover, I scanned in a number of pictures; album covers, music DVD's, photos and an album picture of the Spice Girls. I kept the same colours I used on my front cover to keep it the same.

However, although I liked my initial idea, I felt is wasn't as evocative as it could have been. The yellow background was too harsh on the eyes and had no depth to it. The fonts I used were too flat and didn't stand out as much as it could have. I wanted to make the whole page more three dimensional and so I decided to add a stroke to the font and alter the background to make it more soothing and appealing for the audience.