looking back at your premlininary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

this was my preliminary task's front cover. i tried to be arty by using illustrator to create a logo.
i used inconsistent fonts and a very large 1/4 face shot. this convention destroying magazine did not go too well and was of a low quality as it didn't really show any appeal or anything and was generally bad and looked extremely unprofessional or arty. The title font was completely unreadable and the all capitals with punctuation marks made this look more like a cheap fanzine than an actual college magazine.

in my new task i learnt about inset spacing so everything looked neater and did not overlap, i learnt about using consistent fonts for professionalism, and placing texts in the center of boxes. After my research i learnt  how to properly arrange things for route of the eye to work properly so it is easier and less straining to navigate and read. I decided to go against the convention of a 3/4 body shot again but with a full body shot this time, but as this photo shoot was more planned and used for a certain effect eventually it turned out to a higher quality than my preliminary task, as i had learned new skills in magazine design and i learnt about new  tools in Adobe InDesign such as Inset Spacing.

In my preliminary task, the college magazine contents page, i didn't know about proper arrangement, route of the eye, colour schemes, consistency and photo choices. Also my logo was inconsistent. Overall, i did not know what i was doing, i tried to free form a magazine without actually having a base idea, it was all rushed and i hadn't researched into professional magazines of that style so i pretty much slapped everything together and it was a piss poor performance. The unequal sizing of the pictures, the route of the eye was not proper so you didn't know which order to read the contents in. Also, my colour scheme wasn't correct and looked horrific.

in my music magazine task, i kept with consistent fonts(every single font used is Helvetica Bold) this gives a more professional outlook. i also learnt to keep a colour scheme going on on the page (black and white boxes, not all different covers).  my photo choices were better as they were actually taken in planning for this magazine and are of musical pursuits which are related to my magazine. my logo is consistent with my front page one which means it looks professional compared to my preliminary task. This time, I learnt well and decided to base my magazine on the NME contents page so i could relate to a professional magazine and have a base idea to work against which made it look much higher quality.

example of the basis to my music magazines contents page. the idea of the Main Articles in the center, the 'band index' in the left third, and the lesser important news, reviews and live shows on the right third, also the subscribing note at the bottom of the center articles. using a professional magazine as my template allowed me to make a better looking magazine.

overall, looking back at my preliminary task i have learnt about how to  make a magazine more professional using inset spacing, layouts, consistent fonts and CMYK photos.

in what ways does your music magazine use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

my music magazine challenges a convention. firstly, the front cover picture is not a 3/4 body shot. i challenged this convention as i believed that a full body shot suited my magazine a lot more than the usual and i used it for a more appealing effect.
it developed a convention of having the main article headline in the centre at the top. i moved it into the middle as it helps to see the actual front page photo.
i adhered to one convention by keeping my logo at the middle in the top of the page as it provided the most effective and professional look.

in my music magazine contents i challenged a convention. i used more than one main article in the middle as i wanted to focus on more than one and it gives a professional look.
i developed a convention of including all the articles on the contents by adding all of the pages as a 'band index' for easy access to look at the bands the audience want to.
i used a convention by putting my logo at the top and have a CONTENTS label for it as this helps keep the magazine professional.

in my music magazine double page spread i challenged a convention. i put the double page title in the centre of the left page instead of at the top as i wanted to influence the route of the eye so they read the article straight away.
i developed a convention of keeping the article in the middle of the page by spreading it between the two pages. this gave it a more professional look.
i adhered to a convention of starting the article on the left of the page because it looks professional and standardized and route of the eye works better for me.

choices of photos + justifications

i chose the photo for my front cover as i needed one of a full band lineup in an actual shoot and this gave the desired dark effect i was going for. also it fit my magazine style(teenagers) and they represent the audience well.

i chose to use this photo as a front cover piece as it is the only mid action close-up i had and could be used for many purposes as it fit into my articles well. i had to remove/fill the black space but it worked well.

i used this photo for my contents page as it is a medium length 3/4 body action shot which grabs the readers attention and could be used for effect as the man represents someone well known in the audience community. i left it raw as it was only a preview of the photos to come.

this photo is a re-edited and cropped version of the photo above. i used this as a gray as it isn't meant to grab the audiences attention straight away but the size makes it noticeable.

i used this photo as crowd photos are filler photos but can also attract the audience who went to that gig, as they may want to spot themselves(research into this i did at home which i have no file for showed that peoples eyes were drawn towards photos like this to search for themselves). it was mainly justified as a filler photo.

this photo was chosen for my magazine as it shows a mid action shot of the guitarist. i kept it small as it was a filler photo but it does attract people to it as the guitarist is wearing a bright shirt.

i chose this photo to be used as it was a mid action shot of a bassist, and bassists aren't usually pictured in many magazines(not a convention just a pattern) so i thought i would break this pattern and add this picture. it draws the audience to it as it was an interesting shot itself.

i used this photo also as a filler but the fact it is mid shot is also interesting as people will look at whats happening in the mid action photos. it is slightly dark but in my final product the levels had been altered to make it clearer.

this photo was simply included because it is part of the narrative of the review(stage invasion) and people will want to see pictures of the detailed events.

this next photo was added as it captured more than 3 band members and people will look at the photo if they recognise the members, it also helped to fill space in the magazine.

this photo was included due to the fact i have an interview style area with opinions from the audience and this included a band member and one of the audience, so it fitted perfectly with the plan for my magazine,

double page spread part 2

after realizing that my title was not in a suitable location and route of the eye would not flow as well as i had hoped, i had to move it so i re-sized my pictures to fit the new location of the title and moved the title to a place where the route of the eye would lead to the article(above the article, below the main picture). Also, i used shift and the re-sizing tool on my titles so that they were in proportion but larger and more noticable to the eye,

Once i realized that my magazine did not look up to a true professional standard, and the route of the eye was incorrectly placed. I then replaced the re-sized picture and added my titles in, meanwhile placing my main two columns of the text back to where they were as i deemed them fitting to stay where they were as i got a member of the class to look at my article and they managed to follow the text, they did not obstruct route of the eye, which meant that the article still worked as normal.

This became the final product. i noticed a large area of black space which i minimized with my best efforts by adding my logo in at the end of the article in large letters, which also makes it recogniseable to my readers so they know where the article is from. I considered the idea of enlarging my texts or removing pictures but i did not find any suitable ways to do these without ruining my overall desired look and looked unprofessional to my own eyes. In retrospect, i do believe that i could of improved it by rearranging the article and text from the start but i did not know this until i did more research into double page spreads.

Double Page spread Process

firstly, i placed all my text onto my page in the desired layout and used the drop text tool to make my text flow naturally. Also, now my boxes are aligned, i started to realize that i had large white gaps as my photos did not fit into the correct areas appropriately, so i decided to come up with a solution:

 I solved this problem by adding black boxes whilst in zoom of 200% or more, so i could close up all the white gaps that were irregularly sized. This meant that every space that was blank was covered eventually. I encountered one more problem whilst covering these spaces in which were pure black.

after i noticed this space in my text box i noticed had a large black space i couldnt remove, so i decided to add my logo into the box afterward to fill the room and say it was a 'HOMESICK EXCLUSIVE'. This was to add my logo to the page which seemed appropriate, and also it helped somewhat fill up the page's black space.


The next problem i encountered were that my boxes had become uneven and the text would not align correctly which made my double page spread look unprofessional. To combat this i re-aligned and resized the boxes with text in until they fit perfectly.

After i corrected these problems and added my pictures back in to fit. i have removed all problems that i encountered during it using zoom, boxes, space filling and resizing. I believed that i had finished but i encountered some more problems which i have addressed in Part 2 of this post.