These are the final copies of my product
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Evaluation
Before I started to produce my coursework project, I decided that it would useful to do adequate research. To begin with, I decided to analyse covers, contents pages & page spreads from various magazines. This was because I can use ideas from already existing magazines to help my project to remain in the conventions of the music printed media. To do this I looked at the covers of Rolling Stone, Total Guitar, Metal Hammer & revolver magazines, from this it came to my attention that the majority of magazines that are focused towards my audience have a similar style with there head masts. This being that they are bold, easily read & that they stand out from the rest of the cover, personally I think that this is to make them stand out on the shelf, however when I buy magazines, it is generally based upon who is in that particular issue. For my contents pages, I analysed the contents pages of Metal Hammer & Big Cheese magazine. From the two of these, I noticed that the general style differed, this is because in Metal Hammer, the majority of information concerning the magazine was located on the left, & there was a note from the editor on the right, I believe that this would lead the reader to feel that they had more of a connection with the writers & editors of the magazine. To help me to design my two page spread I looked at & analysed articles from Metal Hammer & Revolver magazines, from these two, I found that most articles that spread over two pages often share a design, or image that links both pages, this may often be an image of the band that the article is about, although in other cases it may be that if the article is concerning a broader area, for example an article concerning a genre may not have a specific image spread over two pages. To add to this analysis I also created a questionnaire that I posted on internet forums, this was sp that I could gather peoples opinions on what they thought would be good to have within a magazine. However, the result was less useful than I had hoped for, as only 3/4 people had offered there opinions, these opinions though were useful, as they helped me to construct my contents page & decide which band to ask to interview & take photos of.
After doing this research I decided that it would make my life easier to develop layouts for my cover, contents page & two page spread. My initial design for the contents page was similar to that of the issue of Big Cheese that I analysed, with there being photographs around the top & bottom of the information, this giving the idea of a frame, however I found that this left the to look somewhat scruffy & then re-created it in a style where the information is on the left & space for a note from the editor on the right. For my cover I had initially created two designs, the first having a style that is common to some popular music magazines, however I found that I preferred the second design, as the placement of text allowed it to be read easier.
The third stage of creating my product was to contact various musicians, in order to talk to them & do a photo shoot. My initial choice for a band was a local band that I know, called Sworn to Oath, however it was not possible for me to do this, as on the days that I was able to take photos, the band were in the studio, recording for there demo. So, then I called the guitarist from another local band called Iron Blade, they were able to meet me for questions & photographs. For these photos I talked to the band, as to decide upon the general ideas behind the photos, we decided that I would just photograph them as we hung out, as this would give the impression that they are just fun loving, normal type guys. I took various photos of them throughout the day, although some were posed for, mostly they were not & taken in an organic manor. To add to these photographs, I decided that I should go the band’s gig later that day & take live photographs. It ended with me having more photographs than I needed, so I short listed the best photographs.
After taking the photographs & writing the interview, I was then able to plan out the two page spread. In this design I used a photo of the entire band as a background, & then I used a black box in order to make the writing of the interview stand out. Then I added the other photographs to the page, during this time I used a photograph to finish the front cover. Also I had finished off the contents page by adding a not from the editor & a photograph of a friend of mine.
After completing this version of the project, I asked for various people that I know for there opinion of it. From this I found that there were various problems with my work, they were problems like this “I cannot see the text on the front cover” to fix this, I added a white box behind the text, to make them stand out. Another comment was that the use of different fonts on the front cover made it look to busy, to I changed all the fonts in the white box to the same font as that used in the contents page. Also, I decided that I was unhappy with the design I had used on my two page spread. To correct this, I completely overhauled the design of my two page spread, I replaced it with a design that I thought was more aesthetically pleasing, yet easy to read at the same time. I used a large photo of the band as a background, & then I downloaded an image of note paper & an image of the background of a Polaroid. I used the paper to frame my segmented interview, & then I used the Polaroid to frame the photographs. After arranging them in a manor that would allow the text to be easily read, whilst having the photographs spread around the two pages.
Overall I would say that my project has been finished to a good quality, although if I had more time in the initial stages of the project, I would have made more in depth research into my target audience, as to make sure that everything that could be useful to me had been researched. Also, I would have spent more time planning my two page spread, as to make sure I was happy with it & thus not have to go back & re-make it.
After doing this research I decided that it would make my life easier to develop layouts for my cover, contents page & two page spread. My initial design for the contents page was similar to that of the issue of Big Cheese that I analysed, with there being photographs around the top & bottom of the information, this giving the idea of a frame, however I found that this left the to look somewhat scruffy & then re-created it in a style where the information is on the left & space for a note from the editor on the right. For my cover I had initially created two designs, the first having a style that is common to some popular music magazines, however I found that I preferred the second design, as the placement of text allowed it to be read easier.
The third stage of creating my product was to contact various musicians, in order to talk to them & do a photo shoot. My initial choice for a band was a local band that I know, called Sworn to Oath, however it was not possible for me to do this, as on the days that I was able to take photos, the band were in the studio, recording for there demo. So, then I called the guitarist from another local band called Iron Blade, they were able to meet me for questions & photographs. For these photos I talked to the band, as to decide upon the general ideas behind the photos, we decided that I would just photograph them as we hung out, as this would give the impression that they are just fun loving, normal type guys. I took various photos of them throughout the day, although some were posed for, mostly they were not & taken in an organic manor. To add to these photographs, I decided that I should go the band’s gig later that day & take live photographs. It ended with me having more photographs than I needed, so I short listed the best photographs.
After taking the photographs & writing the interview, I was then able to plan out the two page spread. In this design I used a photo of the entire band as a background, & then I used a black box in order to make the writing of the interview stand out. Then I added the other photographs to the page, during this time I used a photograph to finish the front cover. Also I had finished off the contents page by adding a not from the editor & a photograph of a friend of mine.
After completing this version of the project, I asked for various people that I know for there opinion of it. From this I found that there were various problems with my work, they were problems like this “I cannot see the text on the front cover” to fix this, I added a white box behind the text, to make them stand out. Another comment was that the use of different fonts on the front cover made it look to busy, to I changed all the fonts in the white box to the same font as that used in the contents page. Also, I decided that I was unhappy with the design I had used on my two page spread. To correct this, I completely overhauled the design of my two page spread, I replaced it with a design that I thought was more aesthetically pleasing, yet easy to read at the same time. I used a large photo of the band as a background, & then I downloaded an image of note paper & an image of the background of a Polaroid. I used the paper to frame my segmented interview, & then I used the Polaroid to frame the photographs. After arranging them in a manor that would allow the text to be easily read, whilst having the photographs spread around the two pages.
Overall I would say that my project has been finished to a good quality, although if I had more time in the initial stages of the project, I would have made more in depth research into my target audience, as to make sure that everything that could be useful to me had been researched. Also, I would have spent more time planning my two page spread, as to make sure I was happy with it & thus not have to go back & re-make it.
Monday, 2 February 2009
Spread Progression
After creating my first two page spread, I asked members of my per group there opinions, this lead me to the desision that i could vastly improve the spread, to do this, i went back & looked at various metal magazines "tour" sections, from this i drew the idea of using a "notepad & poloroid" idea, as in the second image.
Cover Progression
After the creation of my initial cover, i asked some members of my per group there opinions. The general consensus was that my cover could be improved by there being a background to make some of the writing stand out, i did this, then decided that i could improve consistancy with the rest of the magazine by changing the font to a one similar to the contents.
Progression of Contents Page
After deciding upon a new layout for my contents page, i added the information required, this is shown in these images.
Inintial Designs - Cover
I initially created two different covers for my magazine, out of these two i chose the first, because it would be easier to get all the band members of "Iron Blade" to a photoshoot & the layout was easier to read.
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