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.

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

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



I wanted to try something new with the Polaroid images and i thought it would look really interesting if i covered the page with them, with a different photo of each one. I also considered that Polaroids are quite old, an old means of taking photos and Country music is all about old traditions I think - a slower progressing type of music. To do this, I will have to either take the Polaroid images and scan them in, or take the photos digitally and edit them on the computer to look like Polaroids. I want the pictures to show a variety of artists, so I will do several short photoshoots with different people to make it look crammed with people.
I thought, even though it isn't in this plan, that I could put an acoustic guitar image on the right hand side of the page for the text to sit in - making it stand out more from the polaroids, as well as bringing it back to a country theme.
I want the text to be in "Marker Felt", thin font, because I think it looks stereotypically 'Country' and helps link the page together.

"It's All Country" Cover Mock-Up

This is a hand-drawn draft of my magazines front cover.



I've only got noted that I want two images on this, but from the last magazines research I would consider adding more. But then again, on country magazines they have very few so It is something I will have to think about. I want the color scheme to be the American Flag colors as much as possible, going on how patriarchal the magazines I looked at are. I want the font of the name of my magazine to be in "American Typewriter" because it is quite old fashioned and I think it really fits in with the genre and I want the main article's text in "Zapfrino" font as it feels very 'Country' like. The font next to it, giving a tiny bit more detail to the article, I want in "Marker Felt" font, so that it stands out more. The articles surrounding the smaller image I think should all be in the same font, so that no emphasis is put on any artist, making them equal. I haven't decided what that font should be yet.