5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Here are some annotated diagrams describing how features on my magazine attract my target audience:







Click on them to make them bigger.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Apple Mac: I had only vaguely used a mac before being asked to create a magazine on one. I found it quite easy to use and I liked being able to drag things across. The ease of the documents to stole and view files was really good i thought, especially when tranferring images across onto Photoshop for example.



The Program I used to actually construct my magazine was InDesign. I found it really difficult to use when I first started out, opting to use Microsoft Publisher for my first magazine instead. I still find it difficult but as time went on I grew more familiar with the tools offered. I liked how you could layer things and swap them around with ease and how you can change pretty much anything. I like how you can resize the images without them blurring and pull them into basically any shape you like. Some things still confuse me on Indesign but i managed to create my pages to the standard i wanted them to be.

The Program i used to edit my images was Photoshop. I preferred using this to Indesign because i had a bit more experience using it in my other lessons and such. Using this program, I edited my images to the high standard you expect to see on magazine covers. I brightened it up, changed the background colour whilst keeping the same texture and changed some of the flaws on my models - hair for example and skin blemishes.

Other programs I used whilst making my magazine were the website www.flickr.com and its editing program 'Picnic'. I found that a very useful place to store my images so that i could edit them at home as well as at school and because it is a site that is familiar to me. I used www.Photobucket.com to store more images and create the slideshows seen on my blog. using that, i transferred the slideshows to Blogger with ease.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

On the left is my music magazine 'It's All Country' and on the right is my origanal project, the school magazine 'Chenny D'. I think I learnt quite a lot since making my first magazine. To start with, i learnt how to use Indesign and Photoshop properly; I avoided using them in my school magazine, preferring to use Microsoft Publisher and Picnic. I also spend more time planning everything in my music magazine, from the photoshoots to the layouts.

Photography: In my school magazine, i didn't plan my shoot, I just found some photos that I had recently taken and liked and just used them. I didn't edit the photo very much at all, preferring it as it was, when I could have given it a magazine polished feel. With the music magazine, I planned my shoot, prepared my models and thought about the kind of things i wanted them to do in it. I sorted throught the images and chose the ones I thought would look most effective in a country magazine. I spent a lot of time editing them and generally thought about it in a lot more detail.

Layout: The layout for my school magazine I just guessed at. I fiddled around with it and just placed the text and photo's where I thought fitted best. In my music magazine, I researched how my genre of magazine tended to present theirs and used that as inspiration to my own. I didn't try to crowd my page with as much as possible, preferring to space things out in a seemingly casual way. I like the layout of this magazine better.

Fonts: The fonts i used in my school magazines were just ones I found on Microsoft Publisher. I didn't try and find any interesting ones, I used ones familiar to me and the program. In my music magazine, I searched through a few websites looking specifically at fonts that i thought would fit into my magazines genre. I spent a lot more time finding the right ones and i previewed quite a few before settling on the ones chosen.

Contents Page Images

Here are the images that I considered using in my contents page. Not all of them went on it:

This is the editing process that i went through, when creating my contents page images in poloroid form!

Front Cover Image

ORIGANAL IMAGE:

I chose this image to use on my front cover because I think it looks quite band like and they are close together with no gaps. I think it will be a little difficult to make my font show through with all the different colours but i will work it out.

FLICKR EDITED:
I edited my image first on Flickr because i am more comfortable with this program than Photoshop. I like the effect this has given it:

Originally uploaded by tiakerby

FINAL EDIT:


I changed the background colour of my image as when i had edited it in Photoshop, the red was too full on a colour to use and it didn't look realistic. I chose blue instead as it matches the colour of my models tights and gives it a softer look.

Possible Photo's for Music Magazine

Here is a slideshow of the photo's I have taken for my magazine:

These include possible front cover, contents and Double Page Spread images.

"It's All Country" Double Page Mock-Up

This is a hand-drawn draft of my magazines double page spread:



I want this page to follow the american flag theme of the cover, because the Dixie Chicks brought in that theme to the magazine and the double page spread is about them. I want the Questions in the article to be black, the answers red and the background of the text box to be white. This will continue, hopefully into the image with the colors very obvious. I want the text font to be "Marker Felt" bold again, which i think will connect the pages and help it feel like a proper magazine.
I want the title of the article, 'The Dixie Chicks' to be as if it is on a banner. I could either find an artificial version when editing the layout or i could get the models to hold up some white material and lay the text on top. I want the font of the title to be the same as on the front cover, "Zapfino" as it seems again, stereotypically 'Country' as well as being quite edgy, making the band more eye-catching.