Prilimery Task Evaluation

Fusion Contents Page

Throughout the prilimery project, I have tried to be organised and efficient by keeping a daily write up of what I’ve been doing. I completed the school magazine on the Tuesday, the same day that I started the main task of the music magazine.

 The style models I chose for my contents page were Fusion magazine, and Evolve.

Fusion has an image on the top of the page, and all the content written below in an easy to read font. Whereas Evolve has each category of content in a different coloured box with a heading.

I have tried to combine these two in my contents page, by having an image and text categorised into coloured boxes with bold titles. I don’t however, have a note from the editor as seen in the Evolve magazine, or a disclaimer as seen in Fusion, as I simply ran out of space.

Codes and conventions I’ve followed on both the front page and contents, are casual language aimed at the audience of teenagers and young adults, whom this magazine is aimed at. I’ve also adhered to the convention of having images of the school on the front cover, as well as having a student featured.

Evolve Contents Page

By utilising these conventions however, it allows the reader who knows the school, to immediately identify that this is a school magazine, and the lack of a barcode or price conforms to the fact that school magazines are very often free, and therefore have no need of barcodes or prices.

The colours I chose to adhere to the theme of the sea, as Whitley Bay is a short distance from it, and so I chose sea greens and blues, contrasted on the front cover to a deep burgundy which makes it striking and eye catching, and slightly edgy.

If I could change anything, I would add a big ‘FREE!’ label on the front, as well as a date and a strapline to help further promote it. I would also fiddle around with the contents page, as the overlapping bars look unprofessional, as well as the badly drawn bus and blank space on the top half of the page.

To document my research, I used Microsoft Word, and added colour with MS Paint, unprofessional I know, but I just wanted to quickly get it presentable and posted. I have had experience with a similar program to Photoshop which has helped a lot in learning to use it, and have access to the program at home, which is handy, as I don’t have Photoshop at home, but have Paint, Word, and Artweaver which is similar to Photoshop and free, enabling me to keep to the style and post things at home.

I will use Photoshop to add decoration, and to do brainstorms and things in the main task however, as I believe it looks more professional and neat.

I also used InDesign, which was easyish to learn as it’s similar to Microsoft Publisher, and uses a few of the same tools from Photoshop.

For the logo, I used Photoshop. I used two different styles of font (Lucinda Sans Typewriter and Minstral), and used a combination of the Brush Tool, the Healing Brush tool, and the Spot Healing Brush Tool. Each Text fragment was on a different layer, enabling me to move them about without affecting the rest. Towards the end, I Linked together the text layers so they all move at the same time, and moved them up and just under the ‘swirl’ to complete the logo. The ‘swirl’ was made with two different shades of blue, and blended together at certain points to create a wavy, watery effect like a wave.

The photograph I took with a school Nikon camera. It was on Auto mode, meaning I didn’t have to adjust anything apart from the zoom and the focus. I started taking pictures, but they came out blurry despite me focusing. They came out clear when the media admin took them however, leading me to believe that my hands were shaking slightly when taking the photo.

I set up a tripod, adjusted the focus, and took the picture while trying not to touch the camera much. The photo still came out quite blurry and grainy however, so I adjusted the brightness in Photoshop, and added a Sharpen filter which slightly improved it.

The other photos (the school, the car park, the sandwich, the artwork, the pathway) and images (the boat, the bus and the wave) were all taken by me, and images were created by me. The boat and the wave it’s perched on were made in Macromedia Fireworks, as I didn’t have access to Photoshop at the time of making them, and they needed creating quickly in order for me to keep to my plan. I have had experience in working with Fireworks, as I did ICT DiDA in my GCSE’s, and I used Macromedia’s programs throughout.

The artwork is from my diagram of a ‘perfect island’ that I created in my Philosophy lesson, its made from coloured paper, stuck together with glue, and drawn on and written on with felt tip pens. The same room it was created in, was actually where I took the photo of the car park from, as it offers a great view of it.

The photo of the pathway is actually of a pathway next to a main road in Percy Main. I was on my way back from work when I noticed it was a great photo opportunity, and I took it on my camera phone.

My Front Page 

My Contents Page

On InDesign, I added a glow effect to several images on the front cover and to the circle on the contents page, making it appear like a moon for aesthetic effect.

School Mag contents page

Contents page for the school magazine.

I'm not happy with the top image, and theres too much blank space for my liking.

School Mag front cover

Final version of my front cover for the school magazine.

I'm not happy how the main image came out, but I know now that I need abit more practise with the school cameras, as most images I took came out blurry.

Wednesday!

The photos I took were on my camera, and I put them into a folder on the diskbox. I'm going to use quite a few of them, and they've helped me think up possible articles and stories.

I made a draft of the contents page, it took the longest to type up the text.
Brainstorming was useful, and helped me know what picture to take for the front, main image.

Contents draft

Draft of my contents page, I have an image and text and a border, and a next issue sticker.

Front image

Research into what sort of image is shown on the front of a magzine.

Most of the conventions could apply to any magazine genre, and so this research will be useful when designing my music magazine.

Tuesday!

Finished off the rough draft I had already on Monday, and looked through school magazines for research.
This is great, as I now know what sort of things I'm going to be advertising as being in the magazine.
Of course, many of the conventions i've mentioned in my research, can also apply to any magazine, and so will be useful in the music magazine project as well as the school magazine.

Rough draft of school magazine

 I have the border style created and the logo/name made in Photoshop, also have a rough positioning of where things could be.
I decided on the name 'Wave Press', because Whitley Bay is near to the sea, so a sea wave is appropriate, and 'Press' as it's a magazine which is like a newspaper.
The swirling line thingy is like a wave which further identifies it as belonging to a place by the sea.
The logo and the border were both made in Photoshop using the text tool, healing brush tool and brush tool for the logo, and just the brush tool for the border with a blend of a green layer and a yellow layer.

What you see in a school magazine

 Further research I did into what is usually seen in a school magazine. This started off as research into what is on a front cover, but I quickly realised that I had already done a piece of research into that, and it'd be abit pointless to do it again. So I expanded it into a whole magazine analysis, which will be useful when making the music magazine as well as the school mag.

Research into possible stories/articles

I looked around in magazines and even in some newspapers for what kind of things would be intresting and suitable.

The colours are to add order to the brainstorm, and also to highlight the ideas i like the sound of best.

Monday!

First day of starter task involves creating a blog and getting some research done for the project. I also typed up the dates for deadlines+draft hand ins to have a handy copy on the blog.

Content page research

Research I did into content page content in a school magazine.

I liked the Fusion magazine layout, and I also liked the Evolve categorization. Doing research has really helped me have an idea of what to include and how to set up my content page.

Front cover research

Research into I did into three different school magazine covers.

The three magazines are all different from each other, and it was intresting to see what bits were the same. The informal writing style on the Fusion magazine cover is funky, and helps to identify it to a younger audience. For that reason, I have decided to use that kind of tone, but more formal, as there would be teachers and other adults who would be reading the magazine, and a magazine or any kind of product has to appeal to all of its target audience.