Front cover cut out

 After choosing this photo for my front cover, I took it into photo shop to do the necessary edits that I feel are need to make the photo look better than it currently does. In the bottom right is the different edits to the photo so I can how it will look in different aspects of photo shop and then overall in my magazine. You may notice that the hair and some of the image has been edited slightly, this is because it would be very difficult and would take a very long amount of time to edit each strand of hair and other awkward areas of the photo. Now my reasoning for doing this cut is very simple and is like the cutting I did for my DPS, in the sense that I will have bits of text behind my model but in front of the background. Now this would be very difficult to do if it was only one image, actually it would be basically impossible. So what I am doing like my DPS is actually putting one image on top of each other but, so with this image it has no background so would be the top layer and under would be the text and then the matching image with the background. In my next few post I will so you step by step how this works and looks after the edit.
 

Front Cover chosen photo

This is the chosen photo for my Front Cover. I have chose this photo because I feel it matches the conventions of a normal indie/rock magazine and overall normal front cover photo. I think I will make a double of the image and crop one and put it on top of the other and the it will allow me to put something behind his head and still use the background here. This image is ideally what I wanted for my Front cover as it is quite close up but still has the models head and shoulders. A slight concern may be the background but hopefully I will be able to include this as it seems to work quite well but if not then I will have to change it.

FC photos

These are the photos that I took for my Front Cover and I select one to use and then edit and hopefully put on the front cover of my magazine.

DPS photo edit

Here is my chosen DPS with it mostly edited, I have went for the black and white colour scheme as it once again is based upon the David Bowie double page spread. However, I feel the colours work better with the black and white as the t shirt was very light from the photo so it defines it more. The top image is the cutting of the image from the background, my main reasoning for doing this is so I can headlines or something inbetween the image and the background itself which is very common in the magazines I have looked and can be seen as quite a complex skill but have great affect. This is the progression of this photo and it is well on the way to being put into the magazine.

DPS chosen photo

From my photo shoot I have decided to go with this photo to be the main photo and main focus for my DPS. This photo is based upon a David Bowie pose from a magazine I have done an analysis on. I feel this photo is one I can use to incorporate the codes and conventions and is a strong image to use. It is probably also my favourite out of the collection I took for the DPS. This however is not how I will use it in my magaizne, I will need to do some editing to the colour and photo itself to make it suitable for my magazine.

DPS photo shoot

 These are some of the photos that I took for my DPS, these are some of the photos that I have considered using and these are before edit. I will post which photo I have chosen for it.

Meeting model for Front cover and DPS

Today I met my model (Dillon), who will be the main feature of both my Front cover and double page spread. I first approached Dillon a few days prior to today as I thought he would work well and would fit the codes and conventions on an artist in my type of magazine and I was happy with the choice and he was happy to take part. Today we spoke about what we were going to do and what I wanted from the shoot. I showed him the front cover and DPS I was looking the emulate. Here is what else we discussed.

Where : School photography studio
When : 23 March 11:30
Dress code : Black jeans, white t shirt and black jacket/coat. necklace optional.

Front cover update 1

This is currently my Music Magazine Front Cover and as you can see it is pretty much bare, I am in the process of getting the photos and then it will progress from there. Now the change of logo was something I was not sure of especially with the other meeting the conventions so well. However since I wanted to redesign my magazine all together I felt it necessary to change the name and I feel this design and positioning actually works quite well. As of yet I am unsure about the colour of my background or even my title itself so this could very much change and I would not be surprised if it does. The font used for my name is Atlantic Cruise which is one of the three I picked out from my previous post and one of the ones I was most fond of. This is the base of it, so there will definitely be improvements from this point on.

Media Fonts

For my magazine I will use different fonts for  different aspects of my magazine. I went on DaFont to find and select fonts that I may use for magazine and here are some fonts I selected that may work well for my magazine. American Captain is the font used for my old logo which I put on a previous post. It reminds me of a NME styled logo. However I am currently using Atlantic Cruise for my logo at this current moment which is what I probably prefer. I would not use all of these fonts as I feel that would not fit the codes and conventions of a music magazine but there are certainly a few ones usually so I would look to include probably 3. Currently the 3 that I would  use at this moment would be Atlantic Cruise, Bellerose and Dolce Vita Heavy as I prefer those 3 too the rest. However my opinion could change but I will try and use these 3 until then.

DPS update 1

Here we have my new base for what will be my Double Page Spread. There is no current content on it currently as I am in the process of getting photo and will then move on from then but this is a brief insight as to where I hope to put everything.
Now the left hand side will be filled up with an image which will take up that full space and will be the only image on the page and should dominate the page hopefully as I will try and make that the main focus. At the moment my current thought is too have the DPS in black and white but this is a recent idea that I have had so hopefully the photos will be able to match with this idea and if not then I have other ideas in how to change it.
The to right is where I will have a stand out caption/s or maybe even put the heading, as what I put in this space I am not to sure but it will be filled with text. I want whatever to go in this space to be attention grabbing and too stand out on the page, I think I will do this by making the text significantly bigger than any of the other text on this page.
Now the bottom right is already an improvement from my rough cut as I only included two columns of text on that where as I have included 3 which fits the conventions of the magazines that I have previously researched. I will also probably change the size of my font depending on the type of information I use or the size of the text in the box above.

I can already see significance improvements on this page compared to my rough cut as I will I fit more of the codes and conventions setting it out with this plan, and now all I need is the content and then I can start to improve this page further.

My new inspiration

The new magazine I have found and will try to base my magazine around in MOJO. It is within the genre of Indie Rock and I feel it is an image I will find more familiar and enjoy to make. This is a complete change to the likes of NME but this could work very well for my magazine and overall project.

Inspiration for magazine

Since finishing my rough cut and taking the criticism on board I have made a big decision in terms of taking my magazine forward and improving it.  I will start again which may seem like a bold move. It is not something I have taken on lightly and it is because the I think I received more criticism than praise from my rough cut. It was not a product I was happy with in truth. My rough cut was based upon NME magazine mainly and the style did not quite work with how I wanted it to. This may be a bold move starting again instead of improving what I already have but I believe I can make a much better product second time around. I will now search for inspiration and direction for my new design and idea.

The changing of my logo

Now despite my logo not being an area that needed to see improvement I have changed the logo to something that prefer as a I think the design is more original I like the look of.

This is the old logo for my magazine named AMP. I originally based this design off of NME magazine with there three bold letters in the corner so I incorporated the design and altered it slightly by having the 'AM' in black and the 'P' in red, which linked with other bits of text on different pages so it had some coordination. The font used for the old logo is American Captain.
I then decided as I am having a complete redesign from my original magazine I will change the logo to complete the fresh start that is happening after the rough cut. Now this logo is based off Mojo magazine if anything but is not so similar unlike the old logo.

This my new AMP logo and I think the changes are highly significant but they still fit the conventions for the target genre. This new font Atlantic Cruise which is a lot thinner in comparison too the old logo. The line affect was something that I was just playing around with and it just happened all of sudden there was no initial intention to include it, but I think it works well with the new font.

Rough cut Double Page Spread

This is my media double page spread rough cut which is based on the genre of Indie/Rock.

One good point would be the text and the colour and font and how it has been used and presented on the page, especially the DOM-O-NIC I think is particularly strong and the large text on the other page is quite good. The image itself is also quite good despite the poor photo shopping. Also the continuation of the black, white and red is good as it has been used throughout all three pages. I am quite happy with the overall layout of this page.
However there are quite a lot of negatives on this page. For instance the photo shopping of the model is extremely poor and I now know somewhere that needs extreme time and detail on which is the care I take with the photo shopping. Also my DPS only have two columns of text and where as music magazine usually have three so I know I could easily improve upon this. Another thing is that the page does not have page numbers which is quite a rookie mistake. Also the gradient does not have as dominating an affect as I was originally hoping for.
So despite the quality being poor I know what I can do to improve this page overall so it has more codes and conventions.

Rough cut Contents Page

This my media coursework rough cut contents page. The genre I am trying to access is the Rock/Genre as I think is quite popular at the moment. 
I received feedback from my teachers and peers as well as my own thoughts and opinions on the rough cut. A positive area was the use of colours that i used, the red, black and white which is typically from indie rock magazines. This work especially well I think on the text and up against the different backgrounds and how they contrast compliments one another. The layout of the page also quite decent as the it is supposedly image dominated despite the poor quality of the images. 
There are significantly more flaws that positives on this page. For starters the images are poor and appear to look like floating heads in the midst of nothingness. Also some of the photo shopping is very poor and needs significant improvement. Also the gradient doesn't have any real relevance to the page and most of it is not even in line. Also it was picked upon that the actual numbers should go higher than what they already are.
So despite a few positives the negatives on this page are significant and needs major improvement. Despite this I know what I need to do to improve it and hopefully can do as the is only the rough cut.

Rough cut Front Cover

This my media coursework rough cut front cover page. The genre I am trying to access is the Rock/Genre as I think is quite popular at the moment. 

My personal thoughts on my rough cut are:

I feel the way that I have strong elements and also weak ones in terms of the codes and connotations of the specific genre I am focusing on. The logo AMP is similar to the one that is NME the very famous music magazine and this is possibly one of the stronger points on this front cover. Also the black, white and red colour scheme matches the conventions very well and I feel this works very well so this may be something that I will be looking keep. I also think the little details and features on like the other artists in the magazine is a particularly strong point of my front cover.

Now despite this rough cut having strong areas, there are flaws that need to be corrected and improved but after all it is a rough cut. My first improvement would be to retake new photos and probably use different models that fit the conventions a lot better as I feel it would improve the piece as a whole. For instance there is now correlation in the clothes and that is a fault of my own as I was not as demanding as I perhaps should of and need to be. Another area that is need of improvement is the cutting out of the images themselves as so areas are blurry and all round is a poor use of Photoshop. I have also use the font Times New Roman for the date and issue and price, which I was specifically told not to use and that needs correcting.

I feel there are probably a lot more faults than positives but I now know where the improvements to go and after all it is a rough cut but I feel I can benefit my finished product from this.

Magazine name

Here is a pie chart showing the results of the name of my Media Music Magazine. The winner is AMP! I went and asked 20 peers as I thought it was a good amount for a relative sample. I asked a few peers to help me create name idea and I was particularly happy that  AMP won because it was actually one the names I came up with. I conducted the research on a piece of paper and then wrote the results up in this chart but next time use and online polling system.

Contents analysis 4

Here is a photo of Lottie from the Foo Fighters and it is from Q magazine.

Colour scheme
Like most of Q's contents page it follows the common colour scheme of black,white and red which is very conventional. It is very common in this type of genre and works well with what the model is wearing.
I do like the use of three colours as a dominant colour scheme but I may change the colours as I might light to challenge the conventions.
Image
The image is a very dominated photo of Lottie standing with a full body shot walking with a guitar. The image is enlarged on the page to show that he is the main focus of the page. This works well with the layout of the page.
I am willing to have my model dominate the page like the has. I also like the idea of having the model standing up and being able to see the whole of the model.
Text
The text used is only really for the articles down the left side of the page mainly but there is some also at the top. It is mainly san-seirf but there is a little bit of serif fonts used for some of the headings of the article. I do like how the articles are all neatly down the left side and use different fonts for both the headings and the actual description of the article itself.
Layout
The layout seems to be image dominated instead of the blocky look. This works very well with the type of image that has been used as all the other information is put behind the image and you can see that it is the main focus.
I may try and use the image dominated look as I prefer is actually to the blocky look and thinks it allows you to focus the attention the more important areas of the page.