2. Front Cover As you can see the top of my front cover (masthead, slogan and the banner across the top) I have used a similar layout to the Kerrang magazine. I like the idea of the Masthead dominating the top of the page to make it recognisable to the audience. I found when doing my research into other magazines that although the layout is conventional like the medium shot photo dominating the page the and the large masthead at the top I chose unconventional designs. Using Arrows in the background and as backgrounds for the text I found was quite unique. Another item I found unique with my cover is that I have chose to us a dark background with a vibrant picture. This contrast I believe works well but when looking at existing products they used wither Dec ’09 £2.99 As you can see I have added a barcode to the side of the magazine. I have also added the price and date for future reference and for the ease to the reader.
3. Contents Page As you can see my contents page compared to the Kerrang one above is very unconventional. I found when looking at the conventional layout for a contents page to be boring so I found using unique shapes (arrows) and putting the images on an angle to be more ‘exciting’ so to say. I also chose to use the arrows to stick with the theme that I have used as t he back ground. Using one main image on the page I found drew the readers eyes to the main article for the main story rather than them looking at the less important stories. Having a large image on the page also makes peop le want to see what the article is about. I found that other magazines such as Kerrang only used images around the outside or the page making it seem like a border. I found this to be slightly dull and boring and decided to challenge the conventional layout by have just a bold picture of a person in the middle. I found that this actually worked quite well. The background once again I chose to make the greyscale colours like on the front cover. When looking at other music magazines they either used the photo’s own background as the background for the magazine or they used a bright or similar colour to what was in the picture. I think my idea of making the background dull works well with my images as the images I have chosen to use are vibrant colours which contrast with the b ackgro und.
4. Double Page I believe that for my double page spread I have used a more conventional layout. Having one large image on one side of the page and having the information on the other is what I found to be the standard layout for the majority of the double page spreads I found. If you look at the existing product to the left you can see that there is no link between the two pages. I found that with this existing double page it worked but when I tried this I thought that it didn’t look right for my double page. I linked up the two pages by adding a quote from the article to it and also arrows which point to the picture. I decided that I would have one large extreme close up of a person as the main image on the page. This was because I found it worked with the article name of ‘It’s all about Ash…’ as the page is dominated by the picture and is all about Ash. Once again I used very colourful pictures on the dark background. This made the images stand out from the page and make them the main focus.
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13. Promoting on MySpace Promoting on Twitter As you can see Kerrang use there myspace page for promotion of up ands coming issues and enable readers to subscribe for the digital copy of the Kerrang magazine every month. Ena bles ‘ followers ’ (fans or re aders of the magazine) to keep up to date with news in the up and coming issues and news about articles within the magazine. Also includes tasters (pictures, news) to encourage people to buy/subscribe to the magazine.
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15. Tool Examples Image before (used on front cover) 1)I selected the colour change tool... 2)I then chose the colour I wanted to change and selected a colour I wanted to change it to... 3) As you can see the colour has now changed... 4) I then flipped the picture (horizontal) and changed the colour of the Jacket. Final image (used on double page)
16. Progression from Prelim to Final Products I feel that my skills when using programmes to make the products have improved from making my prelims. When looking back at the prelims I think that look lazy and alot of improvements could be made to them. I have really used any effects on the images and none of the fonts on the front cover work together as they are all different. With my final products I have experiment more with tools I have never used before and I believe that my music magazine products look more professional. The images used on my final products look more professional and more times looks like it has been taken to make the products. Instead of just using one programme I have used multiple programmes such as Photoshop to create my products which I think also helped my products to look more professional. I ha ve learnt more about conventional and unconventional l ayouts of magazines and taken this into account which helped when making the products look more professional and this also helped when thinking about the audience to attract.
