Magazine Planning

To help create the best magazine I can, this week I have been doing plans of what I am going to do in my magazine. The first plan I have done is a plan of my front cover. As it is only a plan I have used pictures of the internet of a well known girl band called 'The Pussycat Dolls'. I chose this band because I like them and they have the type of style and image that I want to create from the band used in my magazine. For the front cover I planned where I was going to put the text, like where I was going to put the cover lines or stories. This plan was to show my ideas and help me with the lay out of the real thing. I also thought about the colours I want to use and the size of the font. Next I did the contents page, I focused on where I was going to put pictures and what things would be included, like artilces, stories, news etc. After this I did the double page spread. Again I used pictures of the internet and focused on where I was going to put things on the page, like where abouts I was going to put quotes in the text. This was to show what the lay out of my article would be. Lastly I did the advert, with this I thought about what colours I was going to use and what words I might use, like Live from London. I thought about what image I wanted to use, like mid shot, long shot etc.

The reason I did this planning was to make it easier for me to create my real magazine as I would have an idea of what I wanted to do. It also meant that my real magazine would be better quality as I would know what I'm doing and what areas I need to think about and work on. I also wanted to show improvement and progress of my ideas.

Creating contents page

Welcome to ZINE
The best magazine for the latest College News

For the college magazine I had to create a contents page as well as a front cover. The name of the college magazine is 'Zine'. To help give me some ideas to create this contents page I looked at some magazine contents pages from magazines that are popular at the moment. On my magazine I put 'welcome to zine' as the heading of the page. I then put underneath the slogen of the magazine, this was to re enforce the message that this is the college magazine and is the best one for the latest news. On the page I included pictures of what is included in the magazine. On the front cover I put a main heading, this was about Mike and the student council so I put this on the contents page so readers could easily find the story advertised on the front. On the contents page I put the main stories and the main things that I thought would attract the readers. I madw the page quite simple with its use of colour as I wanted the articles and features of the magazine to be the main focus on the page. I included college related stories and stories that were related to what was happening that week, like rag week. This was to keep the reader intereested. I also numbered the pictures with the pages the story was on so readers could find the page easily.

Contents

p3 - Mike and the Student

Council

p6 - 20 Top Tips

p7 - Sports Award
Celebrations

p11 - 10 money saving
fashion buys

p12 - Rag week! pics

p14 - Copacabana


p17 - Exam dates

p19 - UCAS important info

p21 - Using Moodle

Creating College Magazine Cover

Creating a College Magazine Cover

In todays lesson I have been using Photo Shop again to design and create a magazine cover for the college magazine. I started off by taking pictures in medium close up of one of my friends who is a student at the college and running for Student Council. From the pictures I took I chose this one to use as my magazine background. I opened Photo Shop and up loaded the image, I then tried different ways of using the image as my background. Once I had my final background I then added the title of the magazine which is called 'Zine'. With this title I tried different colours and fonts and I decided on a dark blue colour as the background is a light blue and I wanted to keep a colour theme. After adding the title I then added subheadings and a headline. The headline was called 'Mike gives us his reasons why he should be Student Presendent'. I chose this headline as it is relevent to what is going on at college at the moment, so therefore will attract readers. A subheading I included was called '10 Top Revision Tips to ensure you get the best result this year'. I did this heading in blue and white, blue for the main part of the heading to catch attention. Another piece of text I added was the magazines slowgen or catch phase, this was 'The best magazine for the lattest College News'. I thought this was a good slowgen to use for thw magazine as it sums up what the whole magazine is about. Next lesson I am going to finish my design and hand it in to my teacher. With the feed back I am going to see how I can improve my work for my music magazine cover.

Alicia Pearce

Using Photoshop

Today I have been learing how to use Photoshop for the first time. My teacher gave me a booklet of instructions of what to do. I logged on to the computer and started by exploring all the different areas, like what the different icons are used for. In the booklet there were some tasks to do so i started by doing them. One of the tasks was to create a background image as if it was for a magazine. I recieved a image from the interenet and tried different ways of presenting the image, like different colours and different postitions on the page.

Overall I thought using Photoshop was actually quite difficult. I started off just trying different things but after a while it became a little easier once I new what the icons were for. My aim for the next lesson is to be able to add text to my image to make it look a little more like a magazine cover.

Alicia Pearce - Questionnaire

Target Audience Questionnaire

This week I have also been developing a questionnaire to give out to my target audience. In order for my magazine to be successful I need to research my target audience and find out what they want. My questionnaire asks questions about the music they like and what music magazines they like. There are 10 questions on my questionnaire and I will give my questionnaire out to 15 people. When developing my questionnaire I did a first daft and I gave this out and then I improved it for the final copy. I will give my questionnaire out to my target audience which is males and females aged 16-18. With the results I get I will write them up and discuss the out come.

Alicia Pearce – Analysing Magazine Articles

Analysing Music Magazine Articles

This week I have been analysing music magazine articles. I have chosen to analyse 5 articles from different magazines, these magazines are Vibe, Top of the Pops, NME and Bliss. I have been analysing articles to find out how I need to construct my article and what I need to do to make it successful. For each of the 5 articles I annotated them by writing notes around the article. I commented on parts of the article, like why certain colours where used etc. Two of the articles I chose were interviews, these magazines were Top of the Pops and Bliss. The other three articles were reviews, these magazines were vibe and NME. All of the magazines have different moods to them like the way they are written and the subjects they talk about but all of them use the same methods to construct their articles. From analysing these articles I now have a good knowledge of how I should construct my article, like what colours to use and where to put the pictures and quotes.

Alicia Pearce - Analysing Magazine Covers

Analysing Music Magazine Covers

This week have been analysing music magazine covers to try and understand why there designed the way they are and what meanings there are behind the design. I have analysed 4 magazine covers so I have I wide range of different types of music. All 4 magazines are based on different types of music and give out different meanings. These magazines are Rolling Stones, Vibe, NME and Top of the Pops. I chose these 4 magazines because they are the most popular music magazines and they all had very eye catching images so therefore would be good to analyses. For each magazine I analysed the name, target audience, front cover, style of presentation and the mode of address. I explained what the designer had done and what effect they were trying to create, like making the reader stop and look at the magazine. From studying the covers carefully and in detail I have learnt that every image and text is carefully constructed to create an effect or meaning. Readers sometimes do not even notice the meaning being portrayed from a simple image or text. Analysing these covers has given me ideas about what I need to do to create the right effect I want. And also what I should do to get the readers interested to make my magazine successful.