The document describes the process of creating a magazine, including research on existing magazines, primary research through questionnaires, comparisons of magazine covers and contents pages, designing a logo in Photoshop, editing photos, and creating the final magazine cover, contents page, and double page article spread. Feedback from 10 students praised the images, style, and text layout, but critiqued some images and lack of text on the cover and contents pages. Areas for improvement included time management and further editing photos to a professional standard.

2.  When I initially started the project of creating my magazine I
wanted to do research to find out what key features people want
in a magazine to make it popular. So I decided to first carry out
secondary research by simply looking at magazine covers that
already exist and are well known in order to see how they attract
all the business that they get. I then moved
on to looking online for secondary research
people had already carried out on what
people like about current music magazines.
 Finally I decided to carry out my own
primary research, so I designed a
questionnaire specifically to find out what people want in music
magazine covers.

3.  To aid my research I also did a number of comparisons of music
magazine covers and contents pages. During which i took the
covers of two music magazines and the contents pages of two
others and compared each to see what different techniques are
used and which are most effective. For each one I wrote about
the ideas that I have gained from the magazines that I would
consider using in my own. This included a Striking main
image, Less text and more cover lines for the cover, and for the
contents page a plain and simple layout with a neat structure and
a large image.

4.  My final logo design that I used on my magazine was one that I created
using different fonts and editing it on Adobe Photoshop. I Chose this
image because it is clear and easy to read whilst still looking unique and
impressive at the same time. The logo also matches the genre of music
the magazine represents because it is more street and hip hop.
 I also created three different
logo designs to potentially be
my final design. However they didn’t make the cut because they didn’t
work as well as I had hoped on account of them either not fitting to the
genre of the magazine or not looking professional enough for me to use
on my final design. Before creating my logo design I also decided to work
on my product and logo design skills. To do this i used Adobe Illustrator
and created a fake clothing brand and designed several logos to
advertise the product. Some of these designs are shown in screenshots
below

5.  This is an image I used in my magazine of the
Main artists mentioned In my double page
spread. For this image applied a watercolour
filter because this makes the image look a
lot more impressive and striking however it
still appears to be a clear image that isn't
over edited.
 This is another image that I have edited
g for my magazine, For this edit I have
a altered the colour balance to create a
b black and white image. I then tampered
w with a few settings including contrast and
b brightness in order to make the image
l look clear and sharp.

6.  This is another image that I have edited for my magazine
For this image I have edited the background out using
Adobe Photoshop’s Magic wand tool along with a little
extreme close up work. I also increased the contrast to
make the photograph look better quality and have higher
definition. I think the cropping of the image works well
because it allows me to fit text around the image better
while making the image look more professional.
 Finally I edited this image for my magazine simply by
removing the background to emphasize what they are
doing in the photo. It also works well by adding depth to
the image and allowing the background to be changed
to a colour that compliments the overlaying image.

7.  This is my final magazine cover design. I think that overall it turned out
well because of the research I did before creating it. I went with a
smart style giving it a plain grey background and not overloading it
with text. The main image looks good and stands out well due to the
edits. The main cover line stands out well and doubles as a label to
advertise who the main image is of. The rest of the cover lines fit in
well and follow a house style of red and white with the rest of the
magazine.
 Most importantly about the magazine the
layering works well, such as the way that the
main image overlaps the masthead however the
cover lines overlap the main image. This makes
the magazine cover appear far more
professional and smart looking rather than
having to squeeze everything into a small space
by making it even smaller. The spacious, simple
look of the cover compliments this also.

8.  This is the final design of my magazines contents page. For my contents
page I made an effort to keep the same house style with the same
background colour and white and red combo on the text. Again my
intention was to keep the page looking simple, spacious and smart. I
still managed to include all the text the contents page would need after
I decided how much info is common based on my research. This works
well because a spacious design looks far better than a contents page
with small images and too much text crammed
all over the page.
 I used a large main image similar to the cover
because this works extremely well with the
design of the magazine, I made this image by
taking two edited images each of single targets
and putting them together to create the sense
of it being one single image of them both.

9.  Finally this is the final design for my magazine double page spread. On
the double page spread I managed to somewhat keep the style of red
text by highlighting the important words in the first paragraph in red.
This looks good because it helps the reader to skim read and quickly grab
the concept of the article whilst making the magazine look good and
continue with a house style. I completed the double page spread by
writing in small blocks of text consisting of each question and
answer, this makes the magazine easier to read because it is possible to
skip unimportant questions
and the reader can find
the facts they want
with ease. This time I
decided to use two
smaller images instead
of one big one, this was
an effective idea
because I needed to fit
in a lot of text and this
way there is an image
on each page.

10.  I asked 10 students what they thought of my Magazine cover, contents page and
double page spread and here is what they had to say.
 1. “ Love the style and the images but I think a bit more text could be put onto the contents page”
 2. “I like the red and white theme throughout each page and the images look large and predominant”
 3. “I think that the images look really impressive but the two on the double page spread could look
better”
 4. “The double page spread was good I like how the text was laid out making it look unique and easy to
read”
 5. “The red and white style looks professional and well laid out, the magazine title looks a little
unprofessional”
 6. “The writing in the double page spread is extensive and clever however there isn't enough writing
elsewhere”
 7. “Very good, the images are bold and stand out and the text looks smart and effective”
 8. “The style of the magazine works really well and the contents look professional and extensive”
 9. “some clever ideas on each page along with a great looking style, only problem is some of the images
look unedited”
 10. “Impressive looking, nice bold Images, the whole thing looks very professional. Could have used some
more text on the cover and contents page”
 Overall my magazine was considered to be very good, most commonly people
liked the images on the contents page and the cover page, they also liked the
style and the text used on the double page spread. The criticisms mainly
included the images used on the double page spread and the text used on the
cover and contents pages.

11.  For me, what went well during the project includes things like research. I think
that the research element of the project was quite easy and fun to do because it
simply involved looking at popular music magazines to inform myself of what
people are interested in.
 When it comes to the actual creating of my magazine I think that I did quite a
good job on writing the articles and coming up with my own music artists to
write about in the article. I had to write an article big enough to fill a double
page spread but not too big so that it would ruin the spacious theme of the
magazine and put the reader off wanting to look at it.
 The photo-shoot for the magazine went well because just before I took the
pictures I had decided on what the artists were going to be like, what genre of
music they would have, what their attitudes would be like and who it would
include. I then took the pictures in a certain style to base the rest of my
magazine and article around rather than trying to take pictures that fit a style I
had already created. Without much planning being necessary, I found it
relatively simple to capture images that work well and give the artists a good
attitude visible through images.
 Overall I think that the creation of my magazine went very well, completed by
some simple Photoshop layering and editing to give it that professional and
house style.

12.  Finally, my weaknesses during the project were mainly involving a
mixture of poor time management, which if I were to undergo the
project again I would make sure I get each unit completed by the
proper deadline to avoid rushing in any aspect of the project.
 In terms of my final designs, based on feedback I would improve my
contents page slightly and take care to edit all my photos to a
professional standard, something that might have been done if I had
managed my time more effectively. I would also do more planning to
make sure that I don’t have to make things up as I go and I would also
put more advertisements on the magazine for competitions, puzzles
and information about other bands that aren't just the main article.
 Overall the project went well, there are just a few weaknesses that
could easily be corrected were I to complete the same task again.
Regardless of the weaknesses shown I still feel that the final designs
work very well in correspondence to the brief.