Diary week 13

DIARY WEEK THIRTEEN
This week I continued on my double page spread a bit more and I actually got rid of the "My Tunes sticker" and replaced it by taking a picture of an iPod with headphones and adding the "My Tunes" text inside the screen. I believe this gives the page some detail and makes it look a bit more professional. Luckily all of this was saved on my school computer as my memory stick has completely wiped its memory clean and i lost all my work on it. So in this weeks lessons I will  be finishing my blog as the Final Cut dead line is tomorrow.

Diary week 12

DIARY WEEK TWELVE
This week I changed my double page spread again and i feel it looks a bit better as now i have made the background image grey scale. This makes my main image stand out more and i feel looks more professional. The background of the text boxes and the background colour to the sticker labled "My Tunes" I changed to a dark navy blue. This will make the colour scheme of this page a silver and blue scheme. This could be the artists colours and will be recognizable with him when people see it. I believe I am pretty much done now so i will be looking to add the finishing touches to my blog.   

Diary week 11

DIARY WEEK ELEVEN
This week I have altered my Double page spread by giving it the gold background that the target audience requested. I feel this looks really poor, so i will be looking to change this later on. This being gold I think makes the whole magazine too similar as i will now have gold front cover, gold contents page and a gold double page spread. Normally a music magazine would have the front cover and contents page in the same house style, however the double page spread will be a completely different colour scheme as it will belong to that artist and help build their image

Diary week 10

DIARY WEEK TEN 
This week I completely changed my contents page as I felt out of the three pages it was the least successful. I based it on the Mojo style and i feel that it looks the best page out of all three now.  I have kept it as simplistic as I possibly could while keeping it looking as eye catching and as professional as possible. Whilst doing the changes to this magazine, I had to remove the picture of my Grandad as I felt it didn't fit in to the magazine as well as it could. However I still made sure I have atleast four original pictures in my magazine to meet the exam requirements.

Diary week 9

DIARY WEEK NINE
This week I started to edit my 1st draft of my front cover to create my final draft. I have listened to a lot of the suggested changes by both teacher and target audience, which I believe has made the front cover look more professional. The layout is now slightly different and I have moved everything in a bit so that it fits in the bleed line. These little alterations will overall make this magazine a more professional and eye-catching piece.

Diary week 8

DIARY WEEK EIGHT
This week I received my target audience and teacher feedback. There is a few changes I have to make, which I am happy to do. However there are a few changes that i feel will ruin my magazine. This is mainly the case for the front cover as i feel that the layout will all have to be changed because of the changes people are asking me to do. I shall carry out more audience research in the mean-time to see which layout is liked best by the target audience. Also this week I edited the 'Riffs' logo yet again as I feel it didn't stand out enough for a title. This problem was solved by simply adding a drop shadow. I feel this gives it more life and makes it a little more eye-catching. 

Feedback on rough cut

Teacher feedback - Liked the layout of my font cover.

 Didn't like the fact that the stories weren't in capitals, apostrophies arn't correct, barcode is too big and fill the space on the left.

Target Audience Feedback - Liked the fact that it looks "professional". Didn't like the barcode as it seems to stretched, Didn't like the guitars on the front cover. Need to make sure the word Gibson isn't on two lines as well.

 Teachers feedback - Only coment left was "decent" for how they like it.
To improve I need to organize stories more neatly. Change the font size, style or colour for this page.Make the photo of Bill smaller.

Target Audience feedback- Dont think anyone liked my contents page. Alter the Jimi Hendrix title so that the number 30 is on another line.Alter the colour scheme and change font size.

Teacher feedback - "Good!"
Need to change the 'My Tunes' section to maybe make it fit better. Get rid of the background colour for the text and change the background picture to be gold again.

Target Audience feedback- "drop captial is amazing" "page numbers are good" "love the shadowing image for dps background". Try Black or Gold for the background image. Change page number style and colour scheme.

                                           Feedback on rough cut

1st Draft of Music Magazine

Front Cover

Contents Page

Double Page Spread

Diary week 7

DIARY WEEK SEVEN
This week I have finished the first draft for my music magazines front cover, contents page and i have finished everything on the double page spread except my article, which I am busy writing now. I feel my music magazine is looking very professional however I have changed how i intended it to look in the first place.

Diary week 6

DIARY WEEK SIX
This week I have been putting together my front cover for my 1st draft. I havent stuck to everything thing I imagined i would or drew in my sketches however i believe my music magazine is looking quite good so far. I have decided that it will be based on Mojo, rather than being based more around a Total Guitar magazine. I decided this as Mojo is a more professional looking magazine and i feel it has a touch of class to it that Total Guitar lacks.

Diary week 5

DIARY WEEK FIVE
This week I had to make my Riffs logo again with a very similar font as the original logo was too pixelated and would reduce my chances of getting the grade i want for this project. Also this week I took pictures of a friend and of my grandad (who both can fit into this genre of a mojo style magazine). Finally I also finished my initial sketches to give a very rough idea of how I am planning to make my magazine. These didnt copy too well under the photocopier, however as i said it gives a rough idea of what i'll be doing.

Initial Sketches

These sketches are very rough drawings and they didnt copy very well in the photocopier. i didnt really stick to much in my initial sketches however i still kept the double page spread similar.

                                                Audio Feedback

Photo shoot

For Riffs magazine, I have selected two models to you. I used Bill Maddison as one model (who i will portray as a Eric Clapton or Mark Knopfler kind of artist) and I also used Jason Jones (who i turned into an artist called Jack Pender.) i decided to call him Jack Pender because I believe in the modern music industry most solo artists have a unique name. These are some of the photos I took. Underneith each image there will be a caption explaining why I took the image and what it is meant to show, however the images with captions underlined are the images I selected to put in my magazine. The images I left out are left out because they either didnt fit the page, the target audience requested they were left out or I feel they wouldnt suit my Mojo style model.

Here I am trying to create a focus pull from the guitar head down the neck to my grandad. I felt this would look good as it would show that the music comes first for Bill as the guitar is the first thing you see then you see Bill.

Again I tried the focus pull, however this time I made sure that Bill was pushed over to the left of the page to make sure this picture was suitable for the double page spread.

In this picture, Bill is more centerised and is actually making eye contact with the camera to give him some sort of connection with the readers.

Here I tried a low shot to make Bill look a little bit more page dominating as now he is standing and you can almost see his full body. This almost gives the model a sense of power as now we all seem to be looking up at him.

In this image I made sure that the guitar head is at the centre of the page to show the music is the most important part of the picture and artist. Also that the article will be about his music and nothing else.

In this image I have Jason in a medium shot with his arms crossed and a fake tattoo to show the attitude expected from a modern rock star however he has the slightest smile on his face to show that this article will reveil his soft side.

This is very similar to the last shot however on this jasons arms are uncrossed to try and give a less aggressive feel to him to show to the audience that he is ready to answer all the questions asked.

In this shot he have a very low shot of jason standing tall with his arms crossed again to show him standing over us looking down on us. This shot gives Jase a lot of power and is meant to be an intimidating shot. He also has the guitar casually hanging from his back, which contridicts what was said about Bill's image, as in Jasons live, he comes before the music and thats exactly what the article is about.

This is my shot for the double page spead and I like this as I feel it gives the artist a layed back look and also shows that he is coming back with his music career.

This picture is a more intence version of the first double page spread image as he now is staring at his guitar and this shows the audience he is now dedicated to his music and will focus on coming back.

New Logo

The logos i made were too pixelated so i had to make a new one which i believe looks very similar. . .

Diary week 4

DIARY WEEK FOUR
This week I took my originial Riffs logo and in Photoshop CS4 I edited the colour scheme for the logo to make 11 different options. I havent decided on which I like the most so I will ask people who would fit into my magazines target audience and I will stick with the logo that the target audience select. Also this week I made a plan of what pictures and which models I should use. In this plan i will decide on which artist I will use and why, when i will take the picture and why, what angles i will take the picture and explain why, the costume that the model will be wearing and why and finally what kind of lighting i will use to get the most out of my image.

Picture Planning

Riffs experiments

  I have been experimenting with the "Riffs" logo by testing different colour schemes for the title. These are a few of my ideas. . .

Diary week 3

DIARY WEEK THREE
This week I made a list of possible names for my music magazine and from that list I selected six names and used a logo making website i found and designed these to match the title style I will be using for my music magazine. I experimented with using titles in a sans-serif or serif font, I changed colours and different patterns. So far my favourite title is "Riffs". This is all also displayed on my initial ideas diagram which I uploaded recently. On this diagram you will see my ideas for my front cover, contents page and double page spread, you will see different colour scheme ideas and story ideas, etc.

Audience Research

I asked people which title they thought would fit my magazine best and this is what i found out...

7 people voted for this

2 people voted for this

14 people voted for this! Winner!!

Audience Research

What colour scheme do you prefer? Gold, White and Black or Red and White?    "Gold, White and Black because I feel the colours will look better together and i dont really like Red. I think it will look too much like Q magazine and I thought your magazine was rock?"

Usually a double page spread will have an entirely different colour scheme to match the artist. Looking at the artist I am using what colour do you think will go well with him?

"Either like a violet or a greeny bluey colour"

Which do you feel looks better for a contents page? Blocky or Image dominating?

"image dominating, definately!"

Possible Titles

I have been thinking of possible titles for my magazine and these are some of the ideas i have come up with. . .

• RK or ROK
• OD or OverDrive
• TWANG!
• 6
• 6 Strings
• Solo
• Whammy
• R
• Pleck, Puck or Pick
• Trebble
• Riffs
• Unplugged
• Amp'd Up

I found a website that is useful for making logos and titles so i tried this out with a few of my ideas.

6 Strings would be a suitable name as guitars have 6 strings and for a rock magazine a guitar is the most popular of instruments. The slogan underneath, I took from Q. This is to help publicize and show off their success. 

Riffs is an idea I like as Riff means to play a short series of chords in Jazz or Rock. I like this idea and font as it is more like the Mojo magazine or Q with its relaxed font.

ROK was originally going to be ROCK but when I typed it on the keyboard I spelt it wrong but I liked how it looked as it still said the same thing but in a more rebellious way.

Twang! Is an idea I developed from Kerrang as it is an onomatopoeic sound representing the string of a guitar being plucked. The font is very apt as it looks as if the letters have just been disturbed.

Unplugged gives the idea that all people in the magazine are unplugged/acoustic/opened up sort of thing. Giving the idea that all these articles are the ones to read.

Amp'd Up is a more futuristic stylist font as it can give the idea that my magazine is a step ahead of all the trends and newest rock artists.

Initial Ideas