Friday 13 February 2009

final magazine cover


Magazine Front Cover and Commentary
Commentary for my magazine Front coverWhen I conducted my questionnaire I asked them to pick three colours as I was going to use three body colours for the front cover of my magazine however in production I used two which was Red and White for the cove line, sell line and masthead; I did have a third colour which was black because it was the colour of his clothes. As a result of this I thought it would have been better if I didn’t include the blue as it would appear to be an anomaly colour. These two colours were also the most popular scoring 20% which was the same. I put the initial cost of the magazine as £1.50 because in my questionnaire I asked them the price they were willing to purchase a magazine for and whether they read magazines on a daily basis. From these answer I thought that I could make my music magazine a weekly one at the price of £1.50 as people would be willing to buy it on a weekly basis. I interpreted this from the answer that they read magazines on a daily basis.Two main images are on the front cover of the same person to indicate that the magazine is mainly about them also according to the results I collected half of the respondent’s said that images attract them to a magazine therefore by placing two on the front cover I am trying to attract a audience that is caught by images rather than colour which is shown by the limited amount of colours I have used. The use of a guitar was something that I though of before when I did my mood board as I had a rough idea of the genre the magazine was going to be before I conducted the questionnaire. The image in the middle uses a low angle shot this was used to emphases his passion of music which is also shown in his facial expressions. The colour red has many meanings and one of the connotations is passion. If someone was looking at the image and looking for the denotation I hope they would come to the conclusion of a young male, enthusiastic in music, the use of black shoes his power and the red his passion. The camera angle used for the foreground was also low angle this is because it shows his passion for music once again. I wanted to make this point very clear which is why I have used it twice.From the images shown on my plan it is clear to see that I have uses Adobe Photoshop to change the colour of his pants from Black to Red. I did this because I originally had no red due and as I needed to use this colour I thought it would be a good idea to make something red so that everything on the page goes together. To do this I used Airbrushing and changed the layer to Soft light to give the effect I was looking for. I have also changed the image used for the foreground from landscape to portrait. To do this I used the magic lasso tool on Adobe Photoshop.I choose this location because it reminds me of a recording studio or some type of studio that someone would practice their music once more leading to the idea of his passion for music. I wanted to look at passion because hopefully the target audience will see some personal identity in their love for music and his. It can also be used as escapism to get away from the real world and gain inspiration to be there if it is their dream.The target audience will be someone from the ages of 15-18 which is similar age to the target audience of the magazines I looked at for the double page spread. I have not really done anything which goes against the conventions of the magazine except on the barcode as it appears to be transparent and doe not have any numbers. I have done this because the magazine is not going to be sold in a shop so it will be purchased without scanning. The barcode was placed on the magazine so it looks more professional. It is inclusive to a school but not for any particular genre of music as each issue will have a different theme on a different genre of music.

1 comment:

Mr Lau said...

Hi Shenaz,

this is a creative first draft, with lots of positives-original design ideas, good colour scheme, clear sense of audience, unique masthead. Good general conventions.

There is some feedback for the overall production techniques here:

On the S of Solidic, the blue does not completely go around the white border. Use magic wand to select these black areas and fill these in blue to clean the lines up.

The colour on the "D" of solidic seems brighter. Could you either change all the other bits of blue to match this, or change the D to amtch the others.

I understand how you want to convey the magazine like ROCK SOLID. Well why not call it this, something like:

ROCK SOLID
SOLID
SOULID (Although this is more soul than rock)
SOUL I.D.
You may choose to keep SOLIDIC, I don't mind. Just my opinion.

Test your rockometer works as a strapline, but rockometer is cut out on the bottom right splice. Maybe reposition/make it smaller so people can read the Rockometer in the white box.

For a less cluttered look, maybe leave this wallpaper style rockometer for the table of contents. That way you can have a clear black area and the barcode will become more visible.

Polaroid is a nice ide, however I would keep something this elaborate for a DPS. The front cover iamge wants to cover the "FULL BACKGROUND" or most of it.

"Pump your volume" needs to colour match the other blues

Date line could go below issue number, or not at all, so that it does not clutter the masthead. Think about Z-Line.

Grammar: "Your free CHUN TURNER poster up for grabs only in this issue."

Chun turner on your main image, should be bigger like a main cover line. Then underneath have the explanatory text "meet the new sound" in smaller text in a different font maybe.

"The choices are yours" is more like a pull quote in a DPS than a coverline, so consider changing this. And as with all cvoerlines, vary the font. This means your masthead should be one font, your coverline kickers another font and maybe your explanatory text another different font. This convention will help the reader differentiate masthead from kicker and explanatory texts.

I hope this advice helps, like Isaid, you can act ona s much or as little of it as you like, I'm just aware that if you stray to far from convention it will amke it a much more difficult commentary to write and much harder for me to mark you highly.

Thanks

Mr Lau