movie magazine analysis

ew-cover-1074_l, a photo by DanielleLondon on Flickr.

front cover in the making

 This is the starting bases of my magazine front cover. The basic parts are here including the graphics, done by following and editing a tutorial, (in the top left) the yellow tabs for the coverlines, and also the image which has been edited and positioned

 This is a slightly more developed version where ive added in some cover lines and also the raw title.

This is the finished piece. I sued blurring on the face to make it seem air brushed and to make the eyes stand out, This captures the readers attention and draws them in. The positioning of the title on a wonk was created to follow the colour scheme, stand out and also to give a layered messier effect.
Strap lines were added in for advertisement and of the magazine and its content.
I used glow effects on the title to make the letters stand out and i experimented with tools to highlight this by adding in drop shadows to the text.
I created a bar code on paint which details the issue of the magazine and the price. I feel that the over all piece was fairly successful.

FINAL RAW CONTENTS

FINAL RAW DOUBLE PAGE

FINAL RAW FRONT COVER

what have i learnt from the progression of the preliminary task to now?

Above is the preliminary task next to my finished final front cover. The differences are very clear in the fact that my skills in creating the magazine has developed far.

The angle of the image in the preliminary task does not drag in the reader at all. Its not personal and doesn’t even make eye contact. Ive learnt that these things are very important in the selling and attracting the target audience. By shooting the image in the way that I did in my main front cover (to the right) you can see a clear difference. The image is more in depth and personal and draws the reader’s eyes. The eye line appears to be staring out to the reader and its much more interesting than the image to the left.

The difference between the titles are that the preliminary task has a very simple cheap looking title with a tacky texture imbedded. The title that I have created for my final cover has graphics created on Photoshop by following instructions. I researched titles which would fit in with my style of magazine online and then found one I liked and followed the steps, altering it to my magazine taste slightly. Layering is also used to add interest to the overall piece. The title also links much better with the overall magazine feel, better than the preliminary task appears to.

The cover lines in general are so much more interesting in my final piece. There’s a key colour scheme to the final piece, where the only colour scheme in the preliminary appears to be the same dull coloured blue. Both magazines have similar text alignment in the way that the cover lines follow the page making it appear neater; however by adding highlighted boxes to my final, it appears to be more interesting and makes things stand out like a spot light effect. I also made text on the page stand out by using tools such as highlighting effects on the font and drop shadows. This is something that I didn’t use on the college magazine and I feel if I had of done, it wouldn’t have had such a cheap 2 layered feel to it.

The space reduction was also changed in my final to a way that I felt worked best. This is something that ive learnt since doing my preliminary task therefore it wasn’t used in the college magazine.

The main image in the final cover photo had to be blended into the background so that it didn’t look cut out or odd. This is a very useful technique that I have learnt and it’s much more effective than using one image as the entire cover.

The overall layering of the final magazine cover works so much better than the college magazine in a way that I’ve used a larger amount of layers to give the feel of more content. This is the main thing making the college magazine feel cheap, as it’s literally 2 layers.

I used rulers on Photoshop to insure the measurements of the overall image lined up. This makes the magazine feel more expensive and more professional giving it an overall better appeal. This is an important thing as it would help sales and help the target audience be attracted to the magazine.

I read through several media articles before writing my double page as this helped to get feel of the style of writing and how it connects to the audience. From this I learnt that a friendlier informal feel connects to the reader better than a very factual piece which is hard and almost boring to read. I took this into consideration when drafting my piece.

what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

The lighting used in my cover photo and the set was mainly simple and dark. The image was taken in a bedroom as I knew from planning that I didn’t want a light background, meaning the image would work best if it too had a dark lighting. The main image was taken on a nikon d3000 in a bedroom of a house. The lighting was from a small lamp.

The contents page image was taken in the studio at college so that I could edit the image in a way that it had a plain background. The lighting used in the studio was used in a way to add a spot light effect on the person in the image. This was a big learning curve as it was my first attempt with using the studio lighting. I felt I did a good job with not over powering the image with too much light, or too little that the image was too much shadow. I liked using the studio as the over all image appears more professional and cleaner. It’s also a lot easier when editing.

The double page spread image was taken in a bedroom as I knew I wanted a pattern based background. I experimented here with different angles and found that face on but rotating the image seemed to work best.

Before this project I hadn’t used Prezi nor Flickr. I feel that this has been a massive learning curve and both of these programs have been a huge help in the way of presenting my work in a neat and easy way. I feel that I prefer Prezi as with practise throughout the project, I can now create a clipped slideshow which allows people to understand my work in an interesting way.

Flickr works the same way however I don’t think it gives the best presentation although it is easier to create than a Prezi. I feel that the advantages that Prezi has compared to Flickr are that the overall finished product has a more professional feel to it. It also appears to be a lot cleaner and feels less like a draft. For simple annotating Flickr however is very useful, it just doesn’t give the same finished feel that prezi does.

Using a blog in the project has developed my understanding in the blogging world. I already had a blog beforehand but this project has inspired me to take my blogging further. Over all, recording my work on a blog has meant that accessing my work has been easy from home or from college. It also makes my work appear neater and I feel that I can add my own twist of my style to the blog when showing off my work.

I did have some experience with Photoshop before the project but creating my pieces has meant I’ve had to develop my understanding of the Photoshop tools further. For example, I can now work myself around the program so much easier. I find experimenting on Photoshop seems to work best as I can try out different techniques and styles, for example, blending effects and then chose my favourite, instead of having a set idea. My Photoshop knowledge that I’ve developed has helped me to create products exactly how, and maybe even better, than I’d originally designed.