Evaluation

As Media Studies Evaluation

View more presentations from chloelouise93.

The link in my slideshow will not work on the blog, therefore i have provided it below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz-FoGp3p0s

In order to gain feedback on my product i asked a few of my potential audience, these are the results that i obtained:

• "The erosion on the 'FLAUNT' works well cause erosion of the text is more and more common in headings in magazines these days, especially appealing towards teens."
• "Wow, it looks really great! I love the colour scheme because it really makes the magazine grab your attention, the layout is really realistic too. I'd definitely buy it."
• "I love the film reel idea on the double page spread, very cute and a good way to include loads of pictures."
  

Creating my contents page

Because of the colour scheme that i established on my front cover, i carried on using my three staple colours, black, yellow and white. I decided on a black background as this would make my contents look professional and grown up, adding an edgy effect to the rest of the magazine.

I firstly took a picture of my model, Hannah, for my contents page. I wanted it pretty close up with a black background so used the art studio at college which has a black background. once i had taken this picture i opened it up as a document and used it as my background. I filled in the background using a brush so that it was a consistent colour:

To this i decided to add a yellow band at the top of the page, similar to one i had seen in Q:

I chose yellow for this as it stood out and meant that i could leave my flaunt in black lettering. I then added my logo on to this yellow bar, the word 'contents' and the date that the issue was published. After this i decided to use an idea that i had seen in most of the magazines that i had researched, a band list/index. I listed here all of the bands that are in this issue of my magazine with subsequent page numbers. I decided to use white for this writing so that there was not too much yellow on the page, but the bands that were on the front cover would be in yellow so that they were easily identifiable.
After this i needed something to say why Hannah was in the magazine. I came up with the name Mini Rave, and then wrote a quote with a few lines about her article.

I then decided that i needed to fill some more space up and opted the add a subscription service. I used a yellow circle to contain this writing and placed it the the bottom left hand corner.

My finished contents page:

Finishing my front cover

I needed a colour scheme for my magazine. After trying out Red, Blue and Yellow with black and white i decided that yellow looked the best as it's an original colour to choose and it stood out with my image on the front cover.
I now began to add the articles to my front cover, i decided on the font Honey I spilt veranda as it complimented my chosen font, Veranda, well whilst still looking edgy and cool. My stories would be:

• The Ruby Noise Project: 'We just love making music. Simple'
• Temper Trap: Reveal all about latest album and brand new sound for festival season.
• Paulo Nutini: on his new record label.
• Bloc Party: announce huge UK tour.

These would all be placed down the left hand side of the page, so i decided at the top to put a heading saying: This Issue. . . (this was in Honey I spilt veranda)
All of the band names mentioned above, except The Ruby Noise Project, were in this font, with their subsequent stories in Veranda.

The bottom of the page was dead space, this is not realistic of a magazine so i added a black rectangle. I then added band names on the top of this as a taster of who else was in the magazine. I added more text down the right hand side of the page, these included a competition for Greenman festival, and more bands that would be in the magazine.
After adding all of my text i printed off my finished front cover. This is when i realised that the image was really dull. To brighten this up i added extra editing layers, adjustment layers. I wanted the whole image brightened up to start with so i added a hue/saturation and then a levels (brightness) layer. I then decided that i wanted my cardigan brighter than the rest of the picture, so i cut out the whole cardigan and layered it via copy. I added another adjustment layer above this, this time a colour adjustment and clipped it so that it only effected the layer beneath it. I did the same to my face as it was in a shadow.
This is the image after the adjustments:
My front cover was now complete!

Editing my front cover

The first thing that i did when i started my front cover was add my image. This is the original image that i added:
The first thing that i wanted to do to the image was make the people and the balloons more prominent, one of the ideas i had to do this was the make the background of the picture out of focus or black and white. First i duplicated the layer, in case anything went wrong and then went to Filter, Blur, Box blur. This gave me the box shown below:

I then changed the radius of the pixel until it made my picture as blurred as i wanted it. This gave me a good blur without the picture becoming illegible meaning the reader would still be able to recognise the background.

After this i needed to make the people in the picture back in focus. To do this i took the other layer that i copied from the first and copied it again. On one of the copies i used the background eraser to slowly get rid of the background. This is the end product from this stage:

Once i had done this i needed to place this image over the top of my blurred background. As you can see, i erased the balloons as well so on the backup copy of the layer, i copied it again and cut out the balloons:

After layering these three layers and re arranging the layout of the pictures, i had this:

I could now start to add text to my image. After deciding on my font for my logo in a previous blog, i added the font to photoshop by downloading it from dafont.com and then opening it so that it opened in photoshop. I wrote the title out and changed the size of the font until it fitted well where i wanted it to go. I decided on font size 120, I then added the tag line 'They got it, we flaunt it.' underneath the title so that it fitted around my head. I added a bar code and issue number to fit in with conventions of magazines. After this i felt to really target my audience i needed a website, so i added this in the font Veranda.
My mast head was now complete so i started to add text to the rest of my magazine, i began with the main article. In a previous blog i explained how i wanted my band name to be personalised, so i'm going to add this logo to the front cover.

Continued in next blog.

My extra page

After finishing my double page spread and realising that i had written too much for my article I then began work on my extra page, i wanted to add more pictures to this page and had the idea of using poleroid style borders around them. I decided to use two pictures and chose these two:













I chose these two pictures because they were really good ones that i hadn't yet used in my double page spread, contents or front cover. They were both the same landscape shape so i cut them down so that they were portrait because that's usually the way that poleroids come. I then downloaded a brush which was in poleroid shapes. The brush was not very opaque so i made a new layer, then continuously clicked on the same place until the shape looked opaque white. I added the picture on another layer underneath this outline and then merged the layers. I repeated this with the other image and then positioned the layers where i wanted them, i decided on the top left corner, and in the middle of the text. I then tilted the whole layer to tilt the picture, i did this for both images. I added a drop shadow to give the images depth, and to make them stand out from the pale blue background.
For the background of this page i used the same image that i used on my double page spread, of the balloons, but used the clone tool to clone the sky over the balloons as they would have interfered with my text.

This is the layout of my page:

After adding all of these things to my page i decided to change some things, i added a quote in between the two columns on the right hand side, then one at the top as well. I then added a circular graphic to the bottom right hand corner.
My finished extra page:

The double page spread

Once I had done my band logo and written my article i could start on the layout of my double page spread. I wrote my article before starting my double page spread and it turned out that i had written too much, so i added an extra page.

The first thing that i needed was a background to go on the opposite side of the page to the main image, this is the layout i had decided on:

I decided that i would use one of the other pictures i took for the background on the left hand page, behind the start of the article. This picture is one that we took as the balloons were flying away, so it's sky & balloons.


This is how the image began, i opened it in photoshop and zoomed in on the balloons so that they would be on the right of the picture, so that the band logo could go on the left. I then adjusted the brightness, contrast, hue and saturation until the image was bright and looked 'cheery'.
This is the final image that i put in the background of my double page spread, i think it works really well as it ties in with the rest of the images that i used and links them all together.

This is what the top of the left hand page looked like after adding my logo:


I added a black border as it will separate the article from the pictures. After this i added the picture to the other side of the page, and then added the film strip idea that i had earlier.
i used a brush to do the film strip, i found it on a Photoshop brush library, and downloaded it, i then loaded the brush and stamped it on the bottom of both pages. I decided on the images that i wanted and cut them into equally sized squares. After this i placed them on the film strip so that they followed the line of the brush. The finished result is below:
I'm really happy with the effect that this has had, i added both of my quote, but i felt the page needed another quote, so i added another underneath the article. My double page spread was finished!

Finished Double Page Spread

I love my double page spread, i feel it represents my band perfectly and looks very professional. I added page numbers, the magazine name and dates to the bottom of the pages to make it look more realistic.

Naming my magazine!

Now that i'm starting to edit my front cover i could do with having a name for my magazine!
After my research i've found out that most magazines names have something behind them, some examples are:
NME - new music express, it is the initials of the long version of the name.
Q - Q the music, again a shortened version of the name.
AMP - American music press, again initials.Mojo - this could mean anything, when people say they've lost their mojo, it's like they've lost the thing that was special about them, this indicates that the magazine is special and unique.I wanted my magazine name to be different, my magazines aim is to expose the best new music, so i began with something like FNM (Fresh New Music).
I thought that this would be too predictable and decided against using initials, i needed one word that would have a BIG impact!

I didn't want anything too predictable, so it couldn't be a word that was entirely music related, after all the magazine would contain other articles, like musicians gossip.
I then came back to the idea of exposing new music, other words for expose are:

• Reveal
• Uncover
• Release
• Unveil
• Display

I wanted something more extravagant than these words and something short and snappy that would stand out, that's when i came up with Flaunt.
The slogan: If you got it, flaunt it, came to mind immediately, but i wanted to change it a little to make it more about the bands.
I decided on: The got it, we flaunt it.

So i have a magazine name, and a slogan. I had a front cover image too, so i need to decide on fonts so that i can build the front cover!
I used: www.dafont.com again to find a suitable font for my title.

I wanted a font that would reflect the personality of my magazine and grab my readers attention. It had to be cool and edgy, so i began looking at eroded fonts as they are very modern and new, like my magazine, i also thought that as well as being modern my font needed to be feminine because the name of the magazine is quite feminine.I considered a few fonts:
The first is VTKS Highlight:
Although i do like this font i feel it is too masculine for the feel of my magazine, this is because of the capital letters, the font only operates in capital letters.


The second is You Are Loved:
This font is more feminine than the previous font, but still not feminine enough. I don't like that it's wonky and not in a straight line, this doesn't look very professional.

The final font i considered was Hotel Coral Essex:


This is my favourite font that i've looked at, it's rounded and not sharp giving it a friendly sense, it's also well aligned and in a straight line. It's feminine without being girly and will still appeal to boys, i think it's perfect for my magazine! There is one problem though, i don't like the capital F, i much prefer the lower case version:


I think that this looks far better, i have my magazine logo!

Development of band logo

So, i knew what i wanted to call my band. The Ruby Noise Project, a little long winded i know.
After deciding on the band name i knew that i needed some sort of personalised font that the band would use, a few examples of these are shown below:


These logos are the trademark of the band, they are instantly recognisable and define the band. If a fan sees these they are immediately interested.
To make a logo for my band i looked for fonts on the website: www.dafont.com
I wanted a script font for part of the name and a more masculine font for another part of the name. I decided that the best part to be masculine would be NOISE.

The two fonts that i decided on were:I decided on Hard Rock as it is eroded, and gives a sense of rawness, like the band it's self.
I decided on Hand Of Sean because, even though it is script, it has a modern edge, again reflecting the band's music.
I then had to choose how to arrange them on the page. I worked through a few ideas and decided that the best way to lay them out would to have the words on three separate lines:
This was too straight forward, i thought so i tried to change the alignment of the words and see how it looked. In the end i decided on this arrangement:


I liked this arrangement of the text, but did not want these colours, i therefore changed the colours to something more fitting with my band. I wanted the colour i used to be red, as this is the theme running through my band's photo's, dress code and name.

My finished logo:You can see from this that the boys shine through in the word noise, in the way that it is in capitals, but it's still quite feminine, it offers a good balance of the two. I decided to use white rather than black because black is the obvious choice and can lack dynamics.

So my band logo is sorted, i can start work on my front cover!

Photo selection

Front Cover

The photo shoot turned out really well, although the weather was a little dull! As i would be in the photo's a friend helped out by taking the pictures, i would arrange the three of us, tell the lads what poses i wanted them in and then Caff would take the picture. This worked really well as i had complete creative control, i think i was a good idea to use myself in the pictures as i then knew exactly how i wanted to appear and would be able to portray this successfully.
These are the pictures that i considered for the front cover of my magazine:


After spotting this door on a building in the park, i knew i had to use it in the shoot, it was red so again tied in with my band name, but there was also an air of mystery about it. I positioned us on different levels to give the picture depth. In the end i decided against this picture for my front cover because it was slightly too zoomed out, and zooming in ruined the composition of the picture, it wouldn't work for a front cover as the writing would not fit around us very well.


Again i loved this picture, but it just isn't right for the front cover, the lighting is too dark and it would take a lot of editing to change this, and even after it was edited i don't think that it would look realistic. As with the image before, the picture was taken from a little too far away, and zooming in would cause there to be too much 'person' in the picture.


This is the final picture that i considered for my front cover, i thought that this one would work the best for the cover. The lighting is pretty even and there are only a few shadows meaning it would be quite easy to edit the picture to make it brighter. The balloons also stand out well in it, and our faces have some depth to them, in that we are not expressionless but also not very happy/very sad etc. I decided to use this image for my front cover, now to start editing!

Double page spread

I decided on my layout of my double page spread, i wanted a whole side of it (A4) to contain a picture and then text on the other side. This meant that the picture that i would used had to be portrait, or have the potential to be cropped to the right shape.
Some of the images that i considered for the main image are shown below, i took into consideration that the pictures on the double page spread are usually less serious and more playful than the picture on the front cover.

I really liked this image, the way that the boys are out of focus and I am in focus really captures the essence of the band, and the importance of the lead singer. Although this image is landscape, there is a lot of dead space the the left of the subjects meaning it could be cropped. This image has good lighting too, so not much editing would be needed.

This image was again great, it showed a more playful side to the band and this is what a double page spread should do, show personality. The only problem with the image is that you cannot see the singers faces, and this is a problem, another problem is that her foot is cut off meaning the image is not framed very well. For this reason i will not be using this image as my main image.

The next image i considered is the one above. It's playful without being overly childish but i don't like the facial expressions of any of the models. The sky in the background looks very good, but nothing about it tells us that the magazine is a music magazine. The sign is a nice feature though, i may consider other photo's that we took with this sign.

This is the image that i decided to use as the main picture on the double page spread. The way that I am covering my mouth and lads are covering their ears was inspired by the quote: 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.' But we took out the see part. The name of the band, The Ruby Noise Project, relates well to this, because of the work noise. I think that this sums up the band really well and the colouring and framing of the photo is really good.

Contents Page

I needed a picture of the band in my contents to show that they were the main article and the tie in with the front cover. I decided on the picture below as i eliminated a similar picture from my double page spread and felt that it was a good image of the band.

This image is again playful, yet serious and we see the tie in of the balloons from the front cover.


I had the idea of including a lot of pictures into my double page spread to show a time line of the day of the photo shoot. I thought a good way to do this would be in a photobooth style, but this does not show the passing of time. I thought a better way would be to use a film strip effect. This worked very well and allowed me to use many of my photos! Images will be included later on.

The photoshoot!

After doing my research i had decided on the photo's that I wanted to take for my front cover.
I decided to use the forest setting that i had considered in a previous blog, this seemed appropriate to my band as it can portray a sense of adventurousness whilst still being serious and professional.

I needed a concept for my photo shoot so that there was substance to it. I wanted to put across that my 'band' were only 18 years old and that they were still able to act irresponsibly and have fun, like all students can, whilst still being serious when it came to their music. I began looking through established band's album covers and came across a Fall Out Boy EP cover which captured exactly what i wanted to with my band.



This picture contains balloons and I thought that this would be a good way to portray the childish side to the band.

So my concept was there, I knew where I was having the photo shoot, now I needed to decide on how to dress the models.

I decided that the female lead singer of the band, me, should wear white so that she looked very feminine. In the music industry there are many women who are quite masculine and have to toughen up to be accepted by the largely dominated profession, but I didn't want this for my band. I decided that she would wear white white and red, red because of the name of the band. And that the males in the band would wear darker colours so that she stood out as the lead singer.

The photo's will be posted in the next blog.

Research of front covers

Well I found a few different music magazines, all aimed at different audiences who all listen to different genres of music. I am going to analyse them to take away points from each that i can use in my own magazine.

NME has a very similar audience to the audience that i want to attract, it aims it's magazine at people who are dedicated music followers and people who enjoy new artists.


I chose these issues of NME to write about as i think that they are good basis's for the design of my magazine.

• As seen here the style of the NME front cover changed from issue to issue. On the issues with Lily Allen and Morrissey on the covers are very busy, they are covered with writing and graphics introducing other articles in the magazine. Where as the covers with The XX and Arctic monkeys on are quite plain, they don't have any other pictures, any boxes containing writing and they have information on only a few articles.
  
• This, i feel, reflects the importance on the main article. In The XX's issue, the band a fairly unknown and so the magazine wants to focus on making them known, it's an introducing article. Where as with the Lily Allen issue it's as though the main story isn't as important because she's very famous and doesn't need the attention drawn to her, people will buy the magazine because she's on the front cover.
• From these images we can also see the conventions of the magazine, the house style. As in every magazine, the style and font of the mast head does not change from issue to issue, this makes the magazine recognisable and gives it a brand. We can also see from these covers that NME usually has a tag line at the top of it's cover. This highlights other important stories, not just the cover story, drawing the reader in even if they do not like the band that is on the cover.
  
• The images on the front covers of NME are very varied in their styles, sometimes they are studio shoots, sometimes outdoor, sometimes location. This gives me a lot of versatility with the images that i want to take, meaning i can do what is best for me and it still look professional. I think i would rather take an outdoor image, and the magazine will look more like a music magazine than if it were a studio shoot, there is a danger it could look like a fashion or women's magazine.

The next magazine that i analysed was Q magazine, Q is a very well established magazine that reports on well established artists,, the music in it is very mainstream.


I chose these issues of Q to analyse because they ave various different genre's of artists on their covers.

• Unlike NME, the Q front cover very rarely changes it's style. We see a very consistent layout with the same amount of text on most of the covers shown here. I think this is because the genre of music is so varied, there needs to be consistency for the magazines customers. There is one large cover story, then many smaller inside stories on each of the issues. There is usually a graphic of some sort, on the Madonna cover there is a rectangular box containing the main feature of the issue 'women in music' this shows that this magazine was a special.
  
• The artist on the front of NME is not usually a band, although one of these covers has Metallica on, it is more likely to see a solo artist on the front of Q. This means that my magazine is similar to Q in the fact that it caters for more than one genre but dissimilar because there will be a band on the front cover. Also, Q only publishes stories on very well established artists, it's very hard to get a story, especially a cover story, in Q. This is the total opposite to the type of artist i want to write about, i want my magazine to be an introducing magazine promoting up and coming artists.
  
• Unlike NME, most of the cover images are shot in the studio, this gives Q a more formal and grown up look, again the opposite to how i want my magazine. This reaffirms my decision to use outside shots on my cover, but also shows me that i want my magazine to be classier that NME but not as formal and muted as Q.
  

The final magazine that i analysed was AMP, unlike my other magazines this one was based in America.


AMP magazine is a fairly new magazine and specialises in alternative/rock/metal music.

• Unlike Q magazine, AMP specialises in emerging bands that are not very well known, they're bands that already have a large fan base, but a fan base that is very specific to the genre of music that they produce. They are not well known outside of the group of people who are very in to this music. This is the type of magazine i want to make, dedicated followers of their genre will already know about these bands and will probably have seen them live but the rest of the world won't even know their name, this is the reason i chose the student population as my audience. It is similar to NME in that it writes about bands that only music enthusiasts will know about and will become main stream a few months after the magazine has written about them.
  
• The images on the cover of AMP are very male orientated, but the genre of music that AMP reports on is very male dominated. I feel that in my magazine i would like to represent females more than AMP do, because the music industry is very good for females at the moment. The genre of music that i want to aim my magazine at also has more female artists than the rock music that AMP writes about.
  
• One thing about the layout of AMP that i really like is that they use the band's logo/font on the front cover. An example of this is 'Four Year Strong' the way it is written on the front of the magazine is the band's trademark way of having their name, it is in the same font/colours that is on their albums/website etc. I like this idea as it gives a brand to the band and people will recognise this immediately, this will attract readers who are fans of the band that are on the front.
  

My audience is the student population, so between the ages of 16 and 26. The magazine will aim
to introduce up and coming bands, promote unsigned acts as well as speaking to and reviewing well established musicians. Up and coming, unsigned bands are very important to the 'trendy' student scene as going to their gigs allows students the chance to see great live music at a fraction of the price that they would pay for more established artists. I have taken ideas from all of the magazines that i have researched and have decided to used an outdoor photo shoot for my front cover, like NME. I will also be similar to NME in the way that i will be promoting up and coming artists that only have a very specialised fan base, music followers. The genre of music will be similar to NME, too, indie/alternative/electro/pop. I will use a similar page layout to Q, with very few graphics but a lot of writing, in similar fonts that fit well together. AMP has inspired me to use personalised fonts in the band names, to advertise the band's more.

i am now ready to take my photo's!

New photoshoot, models needed!

After I had taken my shots in Liverpool, i transferred them on to the computer and looked through them. After looking through all my shots, although there were some that i really liked i didn't think the band worked for the genre i wanted, the clothes that the band wore weren't right etc.
I then looked again through my studio shots and decided against using them. So now I'm back to square 1.

Luckily I have some great friends who fitted in really well with the theme of my magazine offered to model for me, so all i needed now was a concept to work with.
I would now use Chris, Jack and Myself as models, i decided on only using 3 models, as when i researched up and coming electro pop band's earlier i noticed that most of them had between 2 and 4 members. As my magazine is aimed at college and university students, i used models of a similar age to the audience of the magazine, to make a form that would appeal to them.

I researched some music magazine front covers, as i realised this is what i was missing before, and probably the reason that my photo's did not turn out as i wanted them to.

Liverpool Photoshoot

I decided that for some of my shots in my magazine, i would do location shots as the lighting is usually better. I considered a few places to begin with:

• Liverpool city centre (high rises)
• Taylor park (forest scenes)
  
• Liverpool albert docks (industrial setting)
• A pub (fruit machines & pints)
• Liverpool O2 academy (An on shoot gig)
• Chip shop
• Fairground (merry go round & dodgems)
• The beach (Mr whippy)
  

After eliminating the ideas that would be too hard to shoot, i was left with:

• Liverpool city centre (high rises)
• Taylor park (forest scenes)
• Liverpool albert docks (industrial setting)
• A pub (fruit machines & pints)
  

I decided on Liverpool albert docks, as it is easily accessible and has a nice background to work with. It is alsoeasier to get good lighting in an outdoor setting rather than in a pub as the lighting in pub's tends to be low key.

My models wore similar clothing as last time and again I had creative input on all of the shots; i positioned the models, then positioned the camera and Lauren and Sophie took the shots that i was in.

Here are the best shots: