Thursday 15th to Thursday 22nd January
I have looking through the assignment brief to find out what is required of me in this project. I have started to gather research into current media practices looking at popular music magazines breaking them down to compare and contrast them. This will help me gather ideas of what features to include and also what not include. I will also be looking at their contents pages and double page spreads to see how a profession magazine lays out the design of their magazine and how I could adapt from research I have found and incorporate this into my magazine.
I will carry on with my research until I am satisfied that I have done efficient amount of research to continue into the next step of production of my magazine. I have been looking at: house styles, fonts, house colours, backgrounds, how they have sections the magazine, pictures and textual content of the magazine and the placement of these.
Thursday 29nd January
I have continued to research into current media practice and I am ready to develop my own ideas from this. I have fully analysed front covers, contents and a double page spread of Q magazine, I have noticed a reoccurring pattern of the magazines and I will look into the good and bad points of these magazines to be able to adapt to my own.
The next step is to adapt ideas and create sketches of designs and look at creating designs for a focus group to look at and help me develop my magazine designs.
Thursday 12th Feburary
From research in current media practice I was able to label the generic factors that appear in the magazines, this will enable me to take a professional view on creating my magazine. I will adapt these ideas to my own magazine personally choosing what features I would like to include and draw up initial ideas.
I was able to plan using my smart targets through the stages of productions of my magazine, this will help me to keep organised along the process without straying off track. I wrote the targets in paragraph form which are more understandable and in depth.
I will be moving on the creating a time line for my project using my smart taregets. I will be drawing up sketches for initial ideas and presenting them to a focus group to get feedback and to move on the the next stage of production.
Thursday 19th Feburary
I went up the town to take location shots and to gather ideas to see what I could use for my magazine, I went to the local music shop and spoke to the owner and he let me take pictures of guitars and and shots of people playing instruments, I feel that I need more training on a camera to play around with the settings. The owner showed and told me about shots that music photographers use and showed me how to get these angles but I would like to do a photo shoot or get pictures of my friend holding instruments.
Thursday 26th Feburary
Today I created a questionnaire aimed to find out what the target audience would like to see in a magazine. I asked questions to get ideas on content to include in the magazine, like band reviews and gig and tour information. I want to collect over 30 people to get a good sample of what people want. I also asked what name the participants what name they liked the best and then I would go on to create this as mast headings then implement this into my magazine. I started to gather initial ideas of I would like to see in the magazine, I also uploaded the location shots from the music shop.
Thursday 5th March
I analysed the the results that I collected for my magazine during the week and found out what the target audience would like to see in the magazine. I will be using each result to help implement this further into my magazine helping me achieve the aim of my magazine but hitting it at the target audience. I also included a small guide on how to install Photoshop brushes on the MACs and what effects I will be using on my text.
Thursday 12th March
I analysed the opinions and feedback from the survey I received on each name of the magazine and this allowed me to see what name would suit my magazine best to aim it at the target audience.
I used a font website to give me ideas of what my mast head may include and came up with 4 different mast head designs. I will be using the mast head that suits the juxtaposition of the cover of the magazine.
The next stages I would like to get more professional pictures I would like to feature on the front page and get the full potential out in the magazine. I will also start to create some basic designs of my magazine and get a simple layout I can work upon and develop.
Thursday 19th March to 2nd April
After booking out a college camera I went to take more pictures because I was not satisfied with the first batch I took. I organised some friends who were willing to be in photos and went to several locations. Such as the local shopping center and locations around the local town. I once again went into the local music shop where I asked if I could take pictures of some one playing a guitar in that scenery which the shopkeeper was happy to let me do that. I felt that I could use those photos to include an artist feature on them as it is a music magazine. I took many pictures of the guitars in the shop because I felt that I could information on musical instruments or equipment. I was making a note of my ideas as I was taking pictures which I could integrate into my magazine.
I was particularly struck by one guitar with the union jack flag in black and white on the face of it. I think using this picture of the guitar I could make a “British Music Special Edition” of my magazine and that image would be perfect to put on the front.
Overall the the photo taking was successful I gained images that I now feel that could be put into my magazine and I would be happy with.
Thursday 2th April to 9th April
I started to create my magazine and I used PhotoShop to edit the picture of the union jack bass guitar and put it with the logo I created on my mast head sheet and it fitted quite well with the picture. To emphasis the British edition of my magazine I have integrated a union jack flack into the title give a good effect to the magazine. I found a font that looks like it has been written on musical notation and have included a list of bands on the front page. I keep referring back to my research for other ideas of what I could put into my magazine front cover, so I experimented with different photos but I was not happy with the way they looked. So I decided that I would make the picture of the guitar the main focus of the cover.
Then I moved onto making the contents page I had already ideas of what images I wanted to use. I wanted to have an editors note like I had seen in Kerrang! magazine, it gives a personal touch to the magazine. I looked though my images getting ideas of what to do but I did not want to over crowd the page with images but I wanted to illustrate the textual content. I chose the best pictures I had taken and placed them to see if they would fit with the page. I eventually only picked two, one for the editors not and one to illustrate and break up some of the textual content. I used brushes to give the page a good looking effect which I fell looks professional and keeps with the theme of the magazine.
Thursday 9th April to 16th April
The double page spread I had ideas from an old image I took years ago of a local band and played around with the “fish eye” effect on PhotoShop. This page was made a lot quicker than the others because I already knew what I wanted because I had used my design sketch of what I wanted and it turn out like. It looked similar to the sketch and I felt that it had I had achieved something by sticking to a design and felt it actually worked.
I added the finishing touches to my designs and collated all the images that I had saved during the production stages of each page of the magazine. I created a development blog for each page show how I developed the pages and annotated what I did at each stage. I have effectively shown how I have produced my magazine reaching the final product, I feel showing each stage allows me to look back on what I had done and see room for improvement for the future, I could also see where my magazine succeeded and where it didn’t.
