Music Magazine.

Our task is to create a front cover, double page spread, and content page for a music magazine. I will be researching current magazines to inspire me, I will be looking into unique theme/era's that I could base my magazine upon. I will research current bands/singers to again inspire me through my development.

Audience.

If I could categorise my magazine cover, I would say that because of the professional looking images, and the sophisticated layout and colouring that the magazine would be in the B/A group of people, which would be higher class, families with a higher income, therefore the magazine would be for a Private School. 
However, it would also be welcome for any school that is looking for a way to inform parents of what is happening in the school but hopefully written in an interactive way to ensure that they were given every opportunity to participate and ' have their say', so it could also apply to a new school with new ideas and enthusiastic parents.

Magazine Cover.

Out of the three images to choose from for my main image on my magazine, I decided to choose my favourite image of the two female pupils, one in focus, with the other blurred behind, as I thought this was the most professional looking image for my magazine cover. I added the row of montage of additional images at the bottom of the page, which took a while to make the images even, but came out effectively. The masthead was the most difficult stage, as I wanted to make the ''V'' the largest letter, but I had to keep  the rest of the font big enough to stand out, and to fit it horizontally across the page, which was very time consuming, as I had to keep changing fonts, until I managed to find the right one. I was then having difficulty in deciding whereabouts the catch phrase should be placed, as originally it was placed before the masthead, but it did not look right as it was stealing the limelight from the masthead which should be the most important heading, so I moved the phrase to be placed underneath. Deciding on the font style was quite difficult, as for the masthead it had to again, be a style that would fit across the page, but it still had to be bold and big which took a while to find, also to give the masthead a 3D effect i added a slight shadow, which brings out this effect, to help make it stand out. The catch phrase was quite easy as all I had to do was change the font to "Italic Script", to add the sophisticated style. When i looked back at my researched current School Magazines, i noticed some had a small date/year at the top, which i thought would work perfectly on the top right side of my cover, ''December 2010.'' I found creating a colour scheme for my masthead was fairly easy, as I already had decided that the colour was either to be dark green, or a dark red/maroon, as my magazine was going to look quite sophisticated, i need sophisticated colours to match, but i soon noticed that the uniform was dark green so I decided on the colour dark red/maroon, as it stood out and contrasted nicely with the dark green I then decided that plain black was my best option for the catch phrase and the date/year as i feel that if any more colours were added, it would steal away the limelight from the masthead.

Montage of Pictures.

Once I had discovered what my main focus image was going to be for my front cover, I was now able to add additional images to the cover to convey what else was included inside the magazine. Looking back at my research on current School Magazines, I got a lot of inspiration from three of the covers that included Montages, for example, 'Castle School - Contact.' As i had imagined that the two female pupils were to hold the main focus, and to take up most of the magazine, I had decided to create a row of five images that i had spare, as i edited them slightly just in case i was going to include a montage right at the bottom of the page, like a 'Film Strip', to add additional images. Also i decided on creating a row instead of a scattered effect, as i wanted to keep to the sophisticated/formal approach. 

Editing Pictures.

As earlier on in my stages of developing my own School Magazine, I had mentioned that I was sharing a camera with another student in my media class, so we decided to meet up during the christmas half term to edit the pictures that we had taken. We used photoshop software  to create professional looking images for our covers. We will use completely different images for each of our covers, however our edits will be similar as we both liked the idea of the blurred effect in the background, but we went our separate ways after this stage of the process. Here are a few images that I spent a long period of time editing.

As i was taking this picture above, I was experimenting with different angles, and positions to see which angle gave the best blurred effect that I was hoping for. I asked the two pupils to face inwards and asked them to just carry on what they were doing, and to pretend I wasn't there, as I wanted the concentration image for my cover. As there was a lot of art work on the table, I experimented by lowering the camera, onto the table, tilting it slightly upwards to create a depth of field effect. The only part of the image that I have edited, is blurring everything around the two pupils, and I contrasted the 'Santa hat' to make it stand out, against the blurred surroundings.

I love this image and feel very proud with the affect that I have created, I remember thinking how can I create a 'Vignette', to get a hole effect. I was looking around the classroom, when I picked up a piece of blue paper, and rolled it into a 'Tunnel' shape, and with the help from another student I placed the camera lens through the tunnelled paper, and created this effect. I edited around the areas that needed to match the blue colouring. I also like the actual photograph, as there is a nice balance between the pupils and the teacher. I like how naturally the pupils are looking up at their teacher while he is explaining. I also really like the blue tools in the background, which creates a nice contrast to the yellow lighting. This  looks like a professional School Magazine image and gives a looking through the window type image into the classroom!

 

This is my favourite image. As I took this picture, I again lowered the camera to be the same level as the table, and slightly titled it upwards, so that the piece of art work in front would naturally blur, to focus on the two pupils. When I came to edit this image, my aim was to make the first female pupil really stand out, whilst the other smiling pupil I slightly blurred into the background, which is similar to my final flat plan draft image which I managed to do on photoshop by slightly blurring everything surrounding the focused pupil. I also contrasted the image to make it more sophisticated.

Final Flat Plan.

After looking through my research on current School Magazines and summarising my concept drawings, I concluded that a lot of my ideas for the images had one focused pupil and one pupil blurred in the background. I read through my comments and noticed that I had repeated several times the effects that I really wanted. So, keeping with the idea of two pupils, I decided to create the image of two female students, one focused, and one blurred, concentrating on their work. I found that the masthead would not work at the top, as it would block out a lot of the large image, so I experimented and eventually designed the masthead to overlap the image in the centre of the page, also ensuring that I kept the catch phrase underneath. As previously I had said I liked one large letter in the masthead, I kept with that idea, as shown throughout my research and planning, I have mentioned all along that I loved the idea of a montage of pictures, so I decided to include them and felt that they really worked at the bottom of the page. After researching 'Private School' magazines, I have really grown fond of the sophisticated bold colour scheme of dark greens/reds. So I decided that my masthead would be a maroon/dark red colour.