Tom Heritage

Whilst in the planning stages of my center spread I looked at several Center spreads in various other magazines. These were all generally either articles, interviews, countdowns or lists, and some were simply pictures with little or no text. I decided that on my center page spread I wanted to feature an interview with the main band mentioned on the front cover, “Supernova”. I also noticed when looking at other center spreads that some had just one large image covering both pages with the text over this image, I liked this look so decided this was what I wanted to do with mine.

The first thing I did when designing my spread was split the landscape orientated page into two poirtrait pages. I did this by simply placing a thin black vertical line directly down the middle of the page. Once I had done this I placed the band’s name, “Supernova”, to the left page. I did this in the same font as it was on the front cover and gave it a silver colour this time, I made this text fairly large and placed it at a slant on the lower half of the page. I wanted this to be the largest piece of text on the spread as it is the band’s name and almost a title for the interview, the font used is quite bold and in-your-face so the reader’s attention is immediately drawn to this and they know who the following interview is about. Underneath this title I wrote a brief introduction to the interview, this lets the reader know more about what is to come. I wrote this introduction in bold, size 20 font making it quite clear and noticeable, It is likely to be the second thing a reader will notice after “Supernova”. At the end of this brief introduction I added ellipsis, “we catch up with some of the boys from Supernova…”, this ellipsis encourages the reader to carry on reading and also makes it clear that the interview that will be written to the right follows this.

Next I wrote the interview on the right page, I looked at several real interviews in music magazines to get an idea of how to write it and what sort of questions and answers to involve. I wrote the interview in black arial font and set it out in columns to give it a more professional look and make it easy to read. I put the questions in bold font to separate them from the answers, I also put the name of the band member that was answering the question in bold again to distinguish it from the answers and make it ideftifiable as to who was answering. Also, I wrote questions that followed on from previous answers, “Going to tell us what the argument was about?”, I believe this gives the interview more of a fun feel and less serious.

After this I added a quote from the interview to the left page, ” We enjoyed it so much we decided to buy a tent and stay the rest of the weekend”, This gives the reader a glimpse of what to expect and also makes them curious as to what is being talked about therefore encouraging them to read on. The quote was coloured white and made slightly transparent. I later staggered it across two lines and made the text italic, this all tells the reader that it is a quote.

Finally I wanted to add the photograph to the spread. Initially, being a friend’s band, I wanted to take a photo of “Supernova” playing a live gig, however, with no gigs lined up in the near future I realised this was impossible and changed my plans. Later on, when going to see a well known band’s gig, I decided it would be a good opportunity to get a photograph of a band playing live. I took several photos, however, with the photos being taken only on an average digital camera in a dark environment the images were not as clear as I would have liked them to be so I had to use my editing skills to make them more suitable. Firstly, I lowered the brightness of the image I wanted to use which made it slightly more suitable. Then I increased the contrast, simply out of interest to see what the image would look like at first, Upon doing this it gave the photo a glow and almost sepia tone which I liked so decided to keep it this way. When planning my center spread I had wanted the image to sit behind the text across the two pages, although when doing this the image appeared stretched and out of proportion so did not look right. I changed my plans and placed the image on the left page only with the text sitting over it. I changed the background colour of the interview page to various different colours but felt that none of them looked right so returned it to white leaving the page with a more clear and professional look.

The design stages of the center page spread can be viewed at http://s773.photobucket.com/albums/yy15/tomheritage/Music%20mag%20centre%20spread/.

When I first started working on my music magazine’s contents page I looked at a range of different magazines including music, gaming and sports magazines. The first thing that I noticed was that most contained the magazine’s name, the date or issue number, and the word “contents” somewhere on the page so I decided to include this. Also, some of the magazines had a very simple and clear feel which I liked as it was clear and easy to read, however the music magazines, specifically “NME” and “Kerrang”, had busy contents pages which contained a lot of information. As a result I decided I wanted my contents page to conatin a lot of information about what could be found inside but also remain clear, structured and easy to read. As well as this, all the magazines I looked at featured an “editor’s note” or “comment” so I decided I wanted to include that in mine. Lastly, I looked at a computer games magazine which had a “games index”, This listed all the games mentioned in the magazine and on which page they could be found, I wanted to have something like this in my magazine for the bands featured inside.

Firstly when designing the contents page I added the magazines’ title to page, I done this in the same font as on the front cover to keep a constant theme throughout the magazine though this time I gave it a grey colour. I then placed the heading “contents” on the page, this was in a similair font to the magazines’ title and coloured dark blue. After this I moved the two headings to the top of the page and place them directly next to each other with “the scene” on the left and “contents” on the right. I made the “contents” heading slightly smaller and added a rectangle underneath, inside the date and issue number where written in clear, easy to read font. This rectangle also acts as an underline for the “contents” heading, I coloured it in the same colour as “the scene” heading to make both headings feel part of the same page.

Next I designed the layout of the page. I wrote four separate headings; “Features”, “Album Reviews”, “Live Shows”,  and “Gig Listings” and placed them on the right of the page directly underneath each other with a space under each heading. I wrote each of these headings in bold arial font as it was clear and stood out informing the reader of  where  they could find the sort of  article they are interested in. I then placed a rectangle vertically on the left hand side of the page and coloured a section at the top of the rectangle blue, (this is same shade of blue as the “Contents” heading to keep the theme on page), inside the heading “Band Index” is written, again in clear arial font though this time coloured white. After this I placed black outlines of rectangles around each of the headings on the right to make them stand out more. Then, at the bottom of the page, I positioned a large black outline of a rectangle with the heading “Editor’s Comment” inside. I had this headig left aligned and wrote it in large, bold, arial Font once again to keep the theme of the page consistent.

Thirdly, Under each of the headings on the right I wrote about several stories with a number indicating on which page the article is. I gave each article a title which I wrote in arial font with the page number to the left. Underneath each title and page number I wrote a brief description of what the article is about is a smaller arial font to give the reader an idea of what is included in the article. In the empty space that was still left in the middle of the page I added a photograph of a friend leaning against a wall, I took this picture outside in front of one of the school buildings. I gave this photo a black outline to make it stand out more. I then placed a small black square to the top left corner and inside the number 26 stating on what page the story related to the photograph is, the page number is coloured white to contrast against the black background and cause it to stand out. At the bottom of the photograph left aligned I wrote a description of the article that the picture is related to, I did this in a white font. Behind each line I put a black background spanning the length of each line to make the description stand out and easier to read.

After this I wanted to place another photograph above the other one, I wanted a picture of an ipod to go with a story about the increasing sales of downloads over CDs. At first I took a picture of my ipod touch sitting on a table however, the screen of the ipod reflected the light which made it difficult to see what it actually was so I had to change my plans. I decided to take a photo of the ipod in my hand and a photo of the table separately then edited the two together using the “lasoo” tool on “macromedia fireworks”. I then again gave the image a black border  and place a white page number inside a small black box and positioned it in the top left corner of the image, the same as I did with the first image. Finally, I wrote the rhetorical question “Have apple killed the CD?” in white font with a black background once again, I positioned it in the bottom left corner of the picture. I used a rhetorical question as it invites the reader to look inside.

Next I wrote the “Editor’s note”. As it is the July issue of the magazine I wrote about summer music festivals because they play a big part in the music scene in the summer. I then Filled in the “band index” section, I wrote a list of bands and artists featured inside the magazine and added the page number on which they could be found to the right. Finally I changed the colour scheme of the page, First I changed the background colour to a dark grey as this is more fitting with the rock genre of music that the magazine is about. I then changed the title “The Scene” and the rectangle containing date and issue number to white instead of light grey as it stood out more against the dark background. After this I changed all of the text on the page apart from the “contents” title to white, I did this because, again, it stands out and is easier to read against the darker background. I then changed the colour of the rectangles around the headings on the right to dark blue to match the blue background behind “band index” and the “contents” heading. I also gave the page numbers on the right a white background to make them stand out and separate them from the description alongside them. Finally, I changed all of the borders on the page, such as the borders around the photographs and different headings and sections, to white, I did this to continue with the general theme of the page.

The stages in the design process can be seen at http://s773.photobucket.com/albums/yy15/tomheritage/Music%20Mag%20Contents%20pages/.

Evaluation Presentation

Click the link above to view a powerpoint presentation showing my evaluation of my music magazine or visit http://www.slideshare.net/tomheritage/evaluation-presentation-2939254.

When planning my music magazine I decided to to focus the magazine on the indie and rock genres of music, similair to “Kerrang” or “NME”. Before starting I looked at several rock magazines and noticed that the front covers were all quite busy and contained a lot of information, also the main image usually focused on one or two people.

Firstly, I put the title of the magzine, “The Scene”, on to the page, for this I used a large, bold, black font which looks as if it is shattering. I chose this as looks “loud” and “in your face” which is similair to the image rock music has. Next, as I had not yet taken the main photo for the cover I found an image of a musician posing with his arms crossed and placed this on the coverfor the meantime. I chose that specific image as the musician was standing and posing in a similair way to the way I wanted the person in the photo I was going to take to pose. I positioned the image so that it was standing in front of the title, this gives the impression that he is the most important thing on the magazine.

I then added the headline for the main story which is “Supernova”, this was chosen as it is the name of a friends’ band. I coloured the font red as it stands out against the black in the main image. Just above this is the text “exclusive” in a bold, white, arial font surrounded by a white box, this is clear and easy to read. After this I placed a black box at a slant slightly covering the main headline, this gives the cover an messy and unorganized feel which relates to the genre of music the magazie is based on. Inside the box is the text ” A look at the upcoming band!”, this tells the reader more about the story. I later changed the colour of the box to a light grey because it was hard to distinguish between the black of the box and the black of the image. I also added the tagline “The Best in Indie and Rock” under the title.

Next, I slightly lowered the title and added text above which tells more about what is inside the magazine, Each point has a bullet point in front and an exclamation mark after emphasing what is in the magazine. To the left of the page I added a section which says “plus:” and underneath is a list of  bands which are featured in the magazine, this has been done in a font which looks as if it has been hand written on to the page- this adds to the messy, unorganized feel of the cover. I alternately coloured the the band’s names red and blue to add more colour to the front cover.

After taking the main picture for my cover I replaced the previous image of  the musician with it. Then, I added the “lounge on the farm festival” logo to the top left corner on the page. Over it I placed a red ”stamp-style” font saying “Reviewed” letting the reader know that the festival has been reviewed. Also, I changed the band names coloured red to a light blue colour as I felt there was too much red on the page.

After this I took pictures of several album covers and put them on the cover overlapping each other. Underneath is the text “Top 50 rock albums ever”, this is done in the same font that is on one of the album covers and slightly overlaps both the main image and the image of the album covers.

Also, at the bottom of the cover in the centre there is a  barcode and underneath it states the date, price and issue number. This adds to making the magazine look more realistic and like a real magazine.

Finally, in the bottom right area of the page there is an image of someone holding a pair of drum sticks, they are standing side on to the camera and have their hood up making it hard to see who the person actually is. To the left of this image is the headline “who is the new rage against the machine drummer?”, this is staggered down the page and slightly overlaps the image. The text “rage against the machine” is in the font the band use for their name on their album covers and the rest of the text is in a similair, red font. This headline is a rhetorical question and invites the reader to look inside the magzine and find out.

The stages of designing this magzine can be seen at http://s773.photobucket.com/albums/yy15/tomheritage/Music%20magazine%20covers/

With my contents page I had originally planned to have the title of the magazine at the top of the page with the month and year underneath at a slant though when I done this it left empty space at the top right corner of the page so I changed my plans. I took the title that was on the the front cover and placed it at the top of the page left aligned with “September 2009″ directly underneath. This stage in the process is shown at http://s773.photobucket.com/albums/yy15/tomheritage/School%20mag%20contents%20page/?action=view&current=Contents1.png

To the right of the page I then put the heading “Contents” and “This Week” in Bold, easy to read font. Horizontally under this I listed the features in the magazine, I put the page numbers and names of the sections in Bold text with a brief description below in a slightly smaller font. This makes the titles of the features more eye-catching than the descriptions. Finally I inserted a vertical line to the left of this part of the page separating it from the rest of the contents page. This can be viewed at http://s773.photobucket.com/albums/yy15/tomheritage/School%20mag%20contents%20page/?action=view&current=Contents2.png

Next I added images to the page. I added three images to the page and placed a black border around each of them causing them to stand out more, I also put bold white numbers in the bottom right corner of each image indicating what page the story relating to the picture can be found. Next to each image I wrote a brief description of the story to which the image is related and placed a frame around it. Again, I done this in a clear, easy to read font. Finally, I decided to give the “September 2009″ and “Contents This Week!” a blue background. I decided to do this to give more colour to the page and make it more attractive, also the blue continues with theme of the magazine.

When designing my school magazine front cover I decided to put the background image on the page first. The image was one of the school playground from above and also showed the two main school buildings. I then wanted to put the title of the magazine on the page, I came up with the name “Eddies” as the magazine is specific to my school, St Edmund’s, which is often given the nickname “Eddies”. I used a cartoon-style bubble font as this will appeal to my demographic of students aged 11-18, it will also give the magazine more of a fun feel rather than a boring school magazine. Furthermore, I added a dark shadow to make it stand out more. I wanted to add the school logo into the title so I split it into two parts and had the seven stars to the left of the name and the man to the right. After this I added a blue rectangle behind the name and school logo. I chose to have the font in yellow and the rectangle blue as these are the school colours.  This part of the process can been seen here: http://s773.photobucket.com/albums/yy15/tomheritage/School%20Mag%20Front%20Cover/?action=view&current=cover.png

Next, I included the main headline “back to school” because it is the September issue of the magazine. I done this in a blue comic-like font to fit with the theme of the magazine. Then shadow was added to make the text stand out on the page as this is the main headline. This stage can be seen at http://s773.photobucket.com/albums/yy15/tomheritage/School%20Mag%20Front%20Cover/?action=view&current=cover2.png

Following this I inserted two photos of two students on to the cover. I edited out the backgrounds out of the photos so I was just left with the students. The image of the pupil on the right slightly overlaps the pupil on the left and can only be seen from the waist up, this gives the impression that he is in the foreground. This stage can be seen at http://s773.photobucket.com/albums/yy15/tomheritage/School%20Mag%20Front%20Cover/?action=view&current=cover4.png

After that I put in an image of a bar code into the top right corner and included the text ” September 2009 50P” underneath to make the magazine more realistic. Next a subheading was included to tell the reader more about the main heading, this was done in a smaller simple, white font. Shadow was again added to make it stand out and also differentiate it from the other stories. Part of this text sits behind the image of one of the students giving the impression that they are more important than the text. To the left of the page I had text describing some of the features inside, this was done in a simple, white font so it would be easy to read and also stand out without being to bright and overpowering. I then wanted to add some images related to the features mentioned on to the cover though when I done this the images looked out of place and cramped and made the cover look messy in my opinion so I decided against the idea. This final stage can be viewed at http://s773.photobucket.com/albums/yy15/tomheritage/School%20Mag%20Front%20Cover/?action=view&current=2008_12180017.gif

Monday 28th September

Today we were given the task of  creating a questionnaire for students to find what they would want in a school magazine. I created a questionnaire with 10 questions and handed it out to a range of students from key stage 3 pupils to sixth formers. Below is a copy of the questionnaire I created.

School Magazine Questionnaire

1. How often do you buy magazines?

A few times a week ( )          Once a week ( )          Once a month ( )           Several times a month ( )          Several times a year ( )          Never ( )         

2. What genre of magazines are you interested in?

Sport ( )          Gossip ( )          Computers/gaming/electronics ( )         

Music ( )          Fashion ( )          Cars/vehicles ( )          Home ( )

Other (please state) ________________________ ( )

3. If the school were to release a school magazine, how much would you be willing to spend on it?

20p ( )              50p ( )               £1 ( )               £2 ( )               Nothing ( )

4.  What topics would you be interested in reading about in a school magazine? (Tick all that apply)

School sports ( )          Trips ( )          Extra-curricular activities ( )          Interviews with students ( )          Interviews with teachers ( )          School news ( )          Other (Please state) _______________________ ( )

5. How often do you think the magazine should be released?

Weekly ( )               Fortnightly ( )               Monthly ( )

6. Do you think the school colours and logo should be included on the cover of the magazine?

Yes ( )               No ( )               Maybe ( ) 

7. What would attract you towards buying the magazine more?

Large, colourful text and images ( )          Lots of small text and less images ( )

A mix of both of the previous ( )          Not sure ( )

8. Would you buy the magazine on a regular basis?

Yes ( )               No ( )               Maybe ( )

9. Who do you think is more likely to read the magazine?

Key stage 3 ( )          Key stage 4 ( )          6^th form ( )          Not sure ( )

10. Do you think that a school magazine would be beneficial to students?

Yes ( )               No ( )              Maybe ( )

Friday 18th September

Today we went out around the school and looked for locations to take photos for our magazine cover. We then photographed these locations and analysed them as a class. I added the photos which I took to www.photobucket.com. Below is a link to the album in which I placed these photographs:

http://s773.photobucket.com/albums/yy15/tomheritage/school%20mag%20pics%20locations/

After analysing each photo I decided that the photo named “location 6″ would be the best location to use for my school magazine front cover.

We have been working on our contents page and discussing what needs included in it. We decided that a contents page needs to include; page numbers, pictures/ photos, key stories, brief description of some stories and possibly an editors letter.

I then started to design a rough copy of  how I would like my contents page to look . I decided that I would have the name of the magazine across the the top of the page at a slant and below it the month and year as I have decided that the magazine will be released monthly.

On the cover of this issue of “empire” magazine the use of colour is very important. The black and white text “american gangster” shows a contrast between the two characters on the cover and is representitive of good and bad. The black text stands over the image of Denzel Washington who plays the bad gangster in the film while the white text stands over Russel crowe who portrays the good cop in the movie “American Gangster”. In addition, the red text “history’s deadliest crime lord” and the blue text “The cop out to take him down” also corresponds to this.

The title of this magazine is in bold red font making it stand out although it sits behind the image of the two characters making them seem much more important. There is also the tagline “the world’s biggest movie magazine”, this makes the magazine seem better than all other movie magazines and may convince a buyer to choose this magazine over others.

The front cover also tells the reader the there are two free posters included in this issue.  This may encourage someone even more to buy the magazine as they are gaining something for free.