My Magazine (FINISHED)

ENJOY AND COMMENT. THANK YOU

Audience Feedback.

Front Cover:

• Change cover lines; use better font, make them stand out more, change colours, too many different fonts.
• Change the masthead; use a black and bold outline to make it stand out.
• Fix the image; it look too stretch.
• Change the slogan; make it bolder.

Content Page:

• Make font smaller; size 12
• Work on branding.

DPS:

• Work on branding.
• DPS2; Work on the pull quote; make it bigger or bolder.

Audience Feedback On My Magazine

My Magazine (UNFINISHED)

Front CoverContent Page
DPS 1

DPS 2

My Photo Shoot

Here are some of the images I took at my Photo Shoot for my magazine.

Call Sheet

Magazine Idea ( Front Page and DPS)

I really like this front cover because the genre of the magazine links with my genre and I like how the colour scheme relates to the lady in the image clothing which makes the front cover very put together and pleasing to the eye. however I don't like the font they used for the masthead, I just looks out of place. I also like the layout of the front cover. I defiantly consider using this technique in my magazine.

I absolutely  love this double page spread

    and I will be using this as my layout for my own DPS. I also will  be adjusting this layout and image to make it look more like a music article.

Benedicte Beya.

Photography Tech (More examples)

Here are some more examples.

Inspiration For My Magazine

This is one of NME contents page. I like the layout of this CP even though the magazine is a different genre from mine I think it would still work if I use this layout for my own magazine.

this is an African magazine. I like the look of this front cover, I feel like the image is very powerful and pretty; this matches the colour scheme with pink, white and red. this front cover is not perfect but there are same elements that I will use in my own magazine.
 

Photography Tech (Tutorial)

We had a photography tech lesson. We was in the studio which I really enjoyed because I learnt a lot of interesting things that I am going to use when I do my own photography for my magazine; our teacher (Scott) went through some points that we should know.


 Here are the points I wrote down:

·    There are two big flashlights called ‘Trinity’ which are covered in ‘soft boxes’. The soft boxes soften and defuse the light so it is very bright. We was taught how to set the speed and intensity of the flash, 6 being the highest and 1 being the lowest.

·    A Godox is the remote that controls the light from the camera.

·         There are only two backdrops, a white backdrop and black backdrop; in this lesson we used the white backdrop.

·         The two types of cameras that we could be working with are: a Nikon D40 with 7 million mega pixels and a 150 millimetre lens or a Nikon D7000 18 million mega pixel with a 155 millimetre lens.

·   On the lens there is AM; the A stands for automatic and the M stands for manual. If the lens is set on automatic means that the lens will automatic focus however if the lens is set at manual it means that you must focus it yourself; this setting is good for if you want really focus close up.

·   When begin to take pictures makes sure to switch off the lights (e.g. classroom lights)

·   A tip that Scoot gave us was that it is best for the model to be 6 feet away from the back of the backdrop.

After Scott took some examples and showed us how the equipment works.



Here is the layout of the studio.

Benedicte Beya

My Magazine Proposal.

My Magazine Proposal Presentation

Research/ Case Studies (Planning) NME Part 2

Research/ Case Studies (Planning) NME Part 1

The magazine that I have chosen is NME which stands for the New Musical Express.

Front cover Analysis:

The masthead is the logo of the magazine “NME” which is bold, short, and red and on the top left corner, by doing this it makes it more noticeable to the reader and easier to recognize to people who want to by this magazine because of the trade mark. The main image is usually of a very famous person or new artists. The image is a medium wide shot of 3 young girls from the up and coming girl band “Haim”. The girl in the middle (Este) is holding a camera faced to the reader, this will catch the reader’s attention as if she was taking a photo of the reader. The 3 of them are looking directly at the reader which is direct address; this makes them up in the readers face and grabs young male’s attention because of their looks. There is pull quotes being used in this front cover, this is a great way to attract the reader to want to read the article inside the magazine. Their body languages are relaxed and fun which suggest what type of music their do (indie pop). The ethnicity of the Haim is white which is typical to the music genre. They are mostly wearing black which is elegant. There is only one cover line which is very different and not typical even for other magazines, the cover line is placed in the left- medium to catch the buyer’s attention as it is relevant to the image because it’s about Haim.  NME colour scheme is simple but with a ‘pop’ of colour. It uses colours such as red, black and white which is consistent with NME magazines however the colour scheme is not consistent throughout the magazine, the majority of the magazine is white and black but the masthead, cover line and their pull quotes are red which makes them stand out more, also all the text are bold which makes them stand out as well. The pricing and bar codes is at the bottom right and there is another pricing next to the masthead. The skyline goes around the picture frame of the image.

Contents Page

The aim of the contents page is to tell the reader what’s in the magazine and where they can find it. The content page is split up in 3 columns; the first column consist of 3 images with information of the image and page number; the second column has one big image and a smaller one, it also has numerical ordered categories which makes it easier for the reader to find what they are looking for. The third column has 2 images with information and page number and an advert. On the bottom right there is advertisement for the magazines online subscription website, this is very catchy because just as the reader is turning the page it see the advertisement plus it is red which makes it stands out from the contents page and raises publicity of the magazine. The colour scheme of the content page is the same as the one of the front cover. Personally I don’t think that the images reflect the genre of the magazines because the artists are all different in my eyes

DPS

In this double paged spread, one page is used for the images of the girl band (Haim) which matches the image used on the front cover however the image is a wide shot and because the girls are on one level that suggest that there is no lead singer in the band. The other page is used for text; the title of the article takes up 50% of the page and it states in

big, bold, black letter, of who the article is about. The other 50% is the article that is split up in 3 columns which makes it seem like there is less text then there actually is. In the article there is a drop cap which shows where the article begins. There is also a quote from the feature article, it consist of offensive language so tell me that the article or magazine is not for the younger generation. The colour scheme has changed as there is different colours such as blue and pink.

Magazine Newsstand Task / Distribution of Magazines

Last week I visited WHSmith to do my newsstand task. I went to the music magazine section which I found very limited and there wasn’t a large variety of different genres of magazines. This was quiet surprising considering that WHSmith is a book/ magazine shop. The majority of magazines in the store were Rock however there a few other genres such as pop and RnB.

All the magazines are place in columns and rows, facing the viewer which makes the masthead of the magazine visible to the viewer to buy the magazine, I have noticed that all of the magazines mastheads are very out-standing and bold; this makes the entire masthead easy to see and all stand out from each other. A few of the magazines have the same distributors, for example ‘Q’ and ‘KERRANG’ have the same distributor ( EMAP) It is harder to see certain magazines cover lines however some magazines have been places on a slant so that the cover lines are seen. I saw that the music magazines where above and next to magazine that taught how to play musical instruments; ‘Piano for Beginner’. There are many different colour schemes however I notice the most common colour used other than black or white was red, a lot of the different magazine used the colour red which I found very interesting.

That’s what I learnt on my trip to WHSmith.

Magazine Ideas

Audience feedback and Evaluation; File Sharing Article

All of my research was done online, which made looking for examples and information easy and quick. The bad things I found with using the internet is that it’s hard to find reliable sources as there are a lot of false information or fake websites. Another problem I had with using the internet was finding up to data or current information and facts to add to my article since the issue has been going on for a few years, however to prevent this from happening, I used online magazine articles and known websites such as Huff Post Tech, RIAA, The Guardian and much more to insure that my source was true and up to date. I had to make sure my research would link with my target audience because I didn't want to write about an artist or label that my target audience wouldn't know off.

For this article I had change and adapt my writing skills because I wanted my article to be professional and mature to match me target audience. I found writing the article quiet easy and interesting as the topic was current and I could connect with the topic, however it was hard to put my thoughts and opinion in a professional text. One of my weakness was that I didn't proofread my work which meant I had  some mistakes so I had to delete the first one I uploaded and upload another that I got one of my peers to proof read it for me.

In InDesign I was teach that; my page should be a A3 landscape page; the black outline is the outline of the page and anything thing outside of it would not be shown on the page; the purple outline is you would put your text; to divide the page in two you had to drag horizontal line to where you wanted it (I wanted in the middle); to create a text box there was a symbol with a capital T in the toolbar which you had to click on and drag the box to your desired sized; to add an image there was a symbol called rectangle frame tool but you had to save the image you want in a file and then paste, if not the image will not be saved on the page; the symbol called rectangle tool was to add colour; it was a bit confusing because most of the symbols looked the same and since it was my first time using InDesign it was difficult at the beginning because it was new software and I wasn't familiar with the tools, but after doing lots of drafts and getting use to the tools in InDesign I found it easy and fun to edit.

To web publish I had to first create a blogger account which meant that I had to make a Gmail account as well, I had to pick a suitable name, so I decided to name it my first and last name plus AS media to let people know that the account was for my AS media work and not personal. After creating my account I could publish my finished article.

I only had two comments on my article and both were positive. “This is a really good article! It is very detailed and has some facts and Lady Gaga's view which make this article quite good. The appearance is also nice.” This comment was helpful as it reassured me that my article was detailed enough and that interested my target audience. “Love how the font colour compliments the background image, very informative piece *thumbs up*” this comment was helpful because the comment mostly judged my editing and considering that I was struggling with editing, it made me know that practice makes perfect and my hard work was appealing to my target audience.

My targets to improve are;

·         To proofread my work before handing it in or get someone to do it.

·         Check if sources are true before writing about 

Research/ Case Studies (Planning) Draft

The magazine that I have chosen is NME which stands for the New Musical Express.

Front cover Analysis:

The masthead is the logo of the magazine “NME” which is bold, short, and red and on the top left corner, by doing this it makes it more noticeable to the reader and easier to recognize to people who want to by this magazine because of the trade mark. The main image is usually of a very famous person or new artists. The image is a medium wide shot of 3 young girls from the up and coming girl band “Haim”. The girl in the middle (Este) is holding a camera faced to the reader, this will catch the reader’s attention as if she was taking a photo of the reader. The 3 of them are looking directly at the reader which is direct address; this makes them up in the readers face and grabs young male’s attention because of their looks. Their body languages are

relaxed and fun which suggest what type of music their do (indie pop). The ethnicity of the Haim is white which is typical to the music genre. They are mostly wearing black which is more elegant. There is only one cover line which is very different and not typical even for other magazines, the cover line is placed in the left- medium to catch the buyer’s attention as it is relevant to the image because it’s about Haim.  NME colour scheme is simple but with a ‘pop’ of colour. It uses colours such as red, black and white which is consistent with NME magazines however the colour scheme is not consistent throughout the magazine, the majority of the magazine is white and black but the masthead, cover line and their quotes are red which makes them stand out more, also all the text are bold which makes them stand out as well. The pricing and bar codes is at the bottom right and there is another pricing next to the masthead. The skyline goes around the picture frame of the image.

Contents Page

The aim of the contents page is to tell the reader what’s in the magazine and where they can find it. The content page is split up in 3 columns; the first column consist of 3 images with information of the image and page number; the second column has one big image and a smaller one, it also has numerical ordered categories which makes it easier for the reader to find what they are looking for. The third column has 2 images with information and page number and an advert. On the bottom right there is advertisement for the magazines online subscription website, this is very catchy because just as the reader is turning the page it see the advertisement plus it is red which makes it stands out from the contents page and raises publicity of the magazine. The colour scheme of the content page is the same as the one of the front cover. Personally I don’t think that the images reflect the genre of the magazines because the artists are all different in my eyes

DPS

In this double paged spread, one page is used for the images of the girl band (Haim) which matches the image used on the front cover however the image is a wide shot and because the girls are on one level that suggest that there is no lead singer in the band. The other page is used for text; the title of the article takes up 50% of the page and it states in big, bold, black letter, of who the article is about. The other 50% is the article that is split up in 3 columns which makes it seem like there is less text then there actually is. In the article there is a drop cap which shows where the article begins. There is also a quote from the feature article, it consist of offensive language so tell me that the article or magazine is not for the younger generation. The colour scheme has changed as there is different colours such as blue and pink.

Benedicte Beya

Audience Feedback and Evaluation - Preliminary Task/College Magazine (Planning)

I created my front cover on Photoshop and I feel like the photography I used on my front cover went well with the college magazine. I like how the image I chose shows a happy, learning student, the fact that she is reading an open book and smiling gives a good and happy impression and mood to the layout of the magazine. The images is staged but looks realist which makes the image more believable to the reader, the student is wearing her own clothing which could make it hard to identify who is the target audience but because she is wearing her student ID card shows that the magazine is aimed at students. I decided to put more photography on the contents page to show the range of college life. I still put an image of the same student that I used in my front cover to show relative but I also put other student in different environment and situations.

I enjoyed manipulating some of the images on Photoshop, I didn’t do much to the image I used on the front cover, and all I did was crop some areas that I didn’t want and place the image in the centre, by doing this it made the image the focal point of the front cover which I wanted. I did more manipulating to the images I used on the content page; I used a tool on InDesign that faded out the images to blend better with the white background which I liked using.

I really like layout I chose for the front cover, I like how I put the text on both sides of the main image but placed the more important ones on the left side of the page to create the lower left third, this is a good factor to have on the front cover as it’s a key factor in distributing magazines. I used a simple layout for my content page with similar factor as the front cover, because all my text is on the left and my images are on the right

My masthead is LSC which is an abbreviation of Leyton Sixth form College. I used this because the youth of today would recognize and relate as it is the language that they use and know of. The colour scheme that I have chosen  are orange/red, black and white which are colours that I’ve taken from the image as she is wearing a black jacket, white top and her student ID card, by doing this I feel like the colours and image complement each other, and this is consistent throughout the content page. I chose a big, bold and strong font for the masthead as I wanted it to be eye catching and remembered; also I made it an orange/red colour so it stands out from the off white background. The colour scheme was also used on the cover lines as I wanted everything to link, I used different fonts as I wanted to portray that the college life is different. I chose relative and modern cover lines to appeal to the target audience. One of my cover lines was ‘Upcoming Events’ I feel like this would attract more readers as my target audience would be interested in find out what events and shows they can get involved with.

I feel like my content page need to be improve as I rushed I and didn’t spend as much time on it then I did with the front cover, this is shown in the final product and I wish that I had put more effort in my content page however I’m still satisfied with what I created in time that I had. I only have verbal feedback from my target audience and most of them can tell that I put more effort into creating my front cover then my content page. In consideration of my own opinion and audience feedback my three key points for development when producing the main task is:

·         Spend the same amount on all pages

·         Don’t rush work

·         Put equal amount of effort in all work.

Benedicte Beya

Preliminary Task: LSC Magazine (Planning) : Student Magazine

Preliminary Task: LSC Magazine (Planning) : Student Magazine

Kerrang Magazine Analisys : Double Pages Spread

In lesson we looked at an example of a double paged spread. This is an article from the magazine kerrang of the boy band ‘Chemical Romance’; it talks about their album and themselves.

In a group we came up with a little analysis of the double page spread.  We noticed that the font that was used was bold and stood out just like the boy band and the main image linked with the colour scheme and house style of the page. The colour scheme is red, white and black, which is presented in the text, arrows and image, this colour scheme is consistent throughout the magazine. We thought that the arrows used in the DPS was symbolic for the boy band as we think that it symbolizes that the band is moving forwards in the music industry. Personally I think the conventions generic in this DPS confirms what genre the magazine is; Kerrang is a rock magazine and this is shown in this article. I like the layout of this DPS and I like how they used 5 small columns which makes it look like there is not a lot of text to read but once you start reading there is a lot more text and information than thought, this is a good trick to get the audience to read. In conclusion there are a lot of things that I liked with this DPS and there are tricks and ideas that I will use when creating my own magazine even thou I might be doing a different genre.

By Benedicte Beya.

Clash Magazine Analysis of Contents Page

Here is an example of a content page that we looked at during lesson.

 

 

This is the content page of clash magazine; clash is a popular music and fashion magazine. the majority of the font is simple and plain, however the titles are more bold and expressive. There is a lot of content on the page which includes: features, regulars and fashion. The colour scheme is a monochrome (black and white) which means give the magazine a professional and simple feel to it. Since this is also a fashion magazine the images used are related to more fashion than music however there is all people related to music. Personally this content page is very different and unusual compared to all the other content pages as it is missing other element that most content pages have but that could be because it is also a fashion magazine.

Benedicte Beya

 

 

 

Preliminary Task LSC Magazine: Research College Magazine

In most magazines front covers the masthead is behind the main person or people just like this magazine cover, this makes the person more important and suggest that the magazine is an established magazine so the masthead doesn’t have to be fully seen before being recognised.

The main image is a medium long shot. I feel like the man or student on the front cover is trying to portray an average studious, happy student who is willing to learn. This is shown by his body language as it is upright and relaxed; he also has a smile on his face and is holding text books.

There are a lot of cover lines around the main image which suggest that the magazine contain a lot of content; it also suggests the type of audience the magazine is aimed at (student that like to read a lot). The changes in colours of the cover lines help keep the attention of the reader; also the cover lines are in different front which draws different attention to different reader.

The colour scheme of this front cover is an off green, white and black; these are mostly plain, boring colours which is unusual for a college magazine but because there is green is brighten the front page also there a some pop of pink in the top cover.

Benedicte Beya

File Sharing

Download or Down-NO

For the last decade, internet file sharing continues to rise and so does the big debate on whether file sharing an issue for the music industry?

Music download has become hugely popular in this century with the statistics of 280 million out of the total 386 million file downloaded illegally, however is it popular with the industry? There may not be a clear answer to whether music file sharing is affecting the music industry as there are many mix opinions by record labels, companies, artists and consumers on it. People believe that record labels and companies are the ones being affected the most as it’s their money at risks and being lost with $12.5 billion of economic being lost every year, most labels and companies agree and are against file sharing as it’s losing them profit and in consequence, recently “record labels have asked broadband provides to collect data on illegal downloads”. On the other hand former record label exec Ethan Kaplan stated “yes it leads to more sales”, which shows that record labels could be gaining money, so are record labels or companies the ones being affected?

Majority of views are that the artists are the victim because they spend their time and money to products music that we all enjoy and give us the best quality that they afford, a lot of artists feel this way and have shared their views such as Michael Jackson states “it is wrong to illegally download but the answer cannot be jail” and even UK’s newbie Professor Green is generally against it with a numbers of 43, 314,568 downloads in the UK. Surprising there are some artists that are not offended and believe that file sharing is a good thing, Lady Gaga doesn’t mind that people download her music for free and says that big artists earn more on tour, “$50 million for one cycle of two years' touring” (Source: Techdirt) and Nelly Furtado states: “if you love music, you’re going to make it anyway and you’re going to find an audience”. Profits in other eyes are the main goal to them making music and others just want to spread their talent across the world.

The consumers are the most important people in the music industry as their opinion matters and I, the consumer have mixed opinions but surely I believe that file sharing isn’t wrong, we are living in the recession and music lovers like me may find it hard to purchase music as they don’t have the funds to pay and when stores like HMV are closing down it makes it even harder to purchase a hard copy. I feel like technology is developing every day and file sharing is a new and quick way to enjoy music and just like Neil Young “piracy is the new radio”.  Free downloading promotes artists and could possibly lead to further purchase; it also allows the consumer to pick which songs they want instead of paying for the whole album. There are many websites such as filestube, 4shared and boxnet that has a large range of music to download from even the music that cannon be accessed in hard copy, this makes file sharing easier and more reliable. A small part of me thinks that free downloading is wrong because it’s illegal and may be an insult to the artist which could lead to the artist refusing to produce any more like Prince. I get the impression that the rate of file sharing may discourage up and coming artists because Lady Gaga’s comment was only for big and well-known artists and that means music piracy could affect other artists as they are not on Lady Gaga’s level. Also certain website can cause very nasty viruses that could destroy PC. Finally I believe that music piracy is not the problem with the music industry, I believe its money being lost or gained with music piracy that’s the issue.

Benedicte Beya

Production Schedule

File Sharing Article