Existing magazine covers

There is a wide variety of magazines currently available, all of different genres and aimed at different target audiences. The ones you see on a magazine stand are all well established, and although very different in style and stories, have clear conventions they follow. For example the masthead, each and every magazine above has one. They are all at the top of the cover, taking up the full space or keeping to the left hand corner. They also clearly have one ain picture, which presents the artists/ celebrities that they have used for their main story. This picture is used to attract the audience, and tends to fit in with the genre. For example, above we see NME's cover which has darker colours and more serious facial expressions. On the other hand the TeenVogue cover has Kendall & Kylie Jenner, who are very popular among teen girls, wearing brighter colour with a lighter background. Both these covers are very different, whilst showing similarities with magaine covers and also show what their audience would like to see.

Editing

For my School magazine's contents page I used pictures to make it more interesting. I didn't want to have all my pictures with the usual rectangular/square shape with clean cut edges. To edit the photos I used microsoft word, this is because I found that it offered the easiest way to make photos more interesting.

 

Preliminary Task

 

 

Prelim Task Evaluation

What did you find difficult about producing your school magazine? What did you find easy?
I found it difficult to make to make the cover look like an actual magazine, putting it all together so that it all tied in proved much harder than I thought it would. The production took a lot longer than I thought it would as every little part of magazine has to be thought through, chosen and altered accordingly and this took a long time to do. The easiest part, for me, was choosing individual factors such as background colours and the masthead font as there were only a few options to choose from that would actually work.

How would your task have been easier if you had researched into school magazines?
If I had done some research into school magazines then I would know more about how/where to take the photos for the cover/contents page. I also would've known a lot more about how to structure my magazine which would've made the task easier as without knowing I had to do a lot of guessing 

What tactics did you use to attract your audience? 
Due to it being a school magazine, of course my target audience was school pupils. Being a pupil myself I knew that most people tend to find school magazines boring and don't have any interest in reading it and so I tried to make it so that it would actually interest 16-18 year olds. I chose to make my magazine specific to the sixth form at my own school, and because of being a student there I had some idea of what a pupil might want. I made it bright and colourful so that it wasn't boring. I also didn't put too much writing on the front as I knew it would put people off. Using pictures of people from my sixth form also would've appealed to the audience as if it is someone they know on the cover they are more likely to want to read. Also I made sure that the stories on the front were ones the students could relate to, as this would lead them to wanting to know more and read further. 

What have you learnt about photoshop/other software used in the production of your preliminary task?
In terms of Photoshop and fireworks I have much more confidence and ability when it comes to using them than I did when I started, I had to spend a lot of time on both of the software and it lead to me gaining a lot of knowledge about both. I hadn't used either of them a lot beforehand and I was mostly clueless, now however I have a much better understanding of both. 

What lessons have you learnt here that will enable you to excel in the production of your main task-the music magazine?
I have learnt a lot time management wise. I didn't manage my time well at all for this task so I think this has taught me that for the main task I need to keep to a time plan. I also have learnt a lot when it comes to photographs, for example that the picture needs to be good quality, well thought out and the front cover will fit around the photo rather than the other way around. I learnt that making a magazine is a lot harder than I thought and I will need to think everything through thoroughly. 

Original Photoshoot

For my magazine cover I decided that I would like to have the pictures I used relating to Idsall Sixth Form. I asked some of my fellow students if I could photograph them working, on both computers and in a class room.

                        

                                                                                                                                                                                                          

For this picture I used an 'over the shoulder' shot. This shows the student working on the computer, which I thought was effective for a school magazine.



For the above photos, I took some shots from different angles. These show pupils interacting and working together, which I liked because  it shows the friendly atmosphere of the Sixth Form.

Magazine Layout

After researching magazine layouts I have created a layout that I think will be suited for my school magazine cover.



As I continue to put my cover together I think there will be a lot of trial and error involved with placing and making the layout look right.

 

Mood Board

For my school magazine I have chosen, rather than the traditional green colour, to go for a yellow and black colour scheme. This is because the Idsall school website's colours are yellow and black and I decided that I preffered these colours to the green.





I have created the following mood board to show my inspiration for colours and different image ideas

 

Audience Theories

The term 'audience' is probably one of the most often used terms in media. We don't tend to analyse an audience apart from at a distance, we make generalisations about it and we never seem to think of ourselves as a part of one.

 

When we actually start analysing the idea of 'it', we see that is in fact not an 'it' but, depending on where we are standing and why we look it is a collection of different things. Media texts are constructed with an audience in mind- they are made specifically for us (the audience). In certain cases they try to construct the audience, particularly in the case of propaganda.

 

My own opinion is that an audience is a group of people, or an individual, that consume a media text and interpret it in their own way depending on many different factors (e.g. Age, Gender).

 















Photo Editing

 

 

In the media, photo editing is used a lot to perfect or alter images. To get some inspiration for my magazine I tried out some editing techniques using Adobe photoshop.

 

Magazines are known to airbrush models to make them 'perfect'. For example make them slimmer or remove unwanted imperfections. Using this knowledge I decided to use a picture of a scar and see how easy (or hard) it would be to remove them, and therefore alter this person's image. Using the 'spot healing brush tool' I experimented for a while and found that it was difficult to make it look natural and not obviously blurred.

After some practice I found it easier to blur away the impefection with the tool, because I realised you had to be a lot more precise than I had first thought. In the end I managed to create an image that looked a lot better than my first attempt, however it still looks quite obviously tampered with. Through this I have found that a lot more effort goes into making models look 'perfect' and 'airbrushed' than I had previously thought.





 





Original photo, taken from google.

My edited photo.

Analysis of a School Magazine

 

As I mentioned before, I will be creating part of a school magazine for my preliminary task. To support my work I have been researching existing school magazines, and how they have used different codes and conventions.

 

^On this cover of 'The Griffin' the masthead stands out because of its bold colour in contrast to the light background. However it should fill the entire width of the magazine or just the top hand corner of either the left or right hand side as the title looks a bit oddly placed.

Their choice of buzzword was well selected, as the word 'FREE!' automatically draws the reader to the magazine. Although, they could have used different colours as the black doesn't stand out that well against the purple. The same goes for the strip, which they chose to put at the top of the magazine, it instantly catches the eye because of how bold it is however the black writing gets drowned out because of this. 

The main feature article picture looks very professional, which helps make the magazine look more refined. The background colour was also well chosen as it means the picture stands out and doesn't disappear like the black lettering. 

There are a few changes I would have made to this cover, however I think that it was still made to a very high standard and the students that created it did very well!

Codes and Conventions

All magazines have certain codes and conventions that they are likely to follow.

To start with the magazine usually has one main feature article and the person, mostly celebrities, it is about is usually displayed on the front cover.

For example, in this issue of ELLE their feature article was about Victoria Beckham. They have used a Mid Shot, as there is no real need to see her legs. The colour palette they have used is very clean and pure meaning that Victoria's tanned skin stands out against the background making her the most eye catching feature. They also have her looking straight down the lens of the camera meaning she appears to be making eye contact with the reader. This is very effective because it draws the eye to her, therefore the magazine cover as a whole.

They also have a masthead that tends to have a trademark or unique font that is made up of one or two words. It should fill the width of the cover or be on the top either left or right hand side. It may also have a positioning statement e.g. 'named no 1 by...'.

The 'teenVOGUE' masthead has the famous 'VOGUE' print to show it is a different generation of the world famous magazine. This is very effective because it means that people recognise the font and know that they can expect the magazine to be of a very high standard meaning people will be more likely to buy it.

A magazine will also often have a 'puff'. This offers something else to the magazine, for example a free giveaway. Along with this there could be 'buzz words'. They are usually alongside the main feature article and they are used to draw attention.

^For example this cover of ELLE, has the buzz word 'WIN!' in black with a surrounding background of red which immediately stands out against the more neutral colours of the cover. 'WIN' draws attention even without such bold colours, as humans we are naturally attracted to such words. As it is in front of the masthead it also means that we are drawn to the whole magazine title, which is an effective way to make the magazine a strong competitor when on the stands. And as you can see on this cover, the bar code is always on the bottom right or going up the right hand side.

Another code and convention is a 'strip'. This goes along the top or bottom of the cover and it contains a list of items/people that will feature in that issue.

 

 

^As you can see on this front cover of 'VIBE' the strip has been placed along the top. The main effect of the strip is showing that the magazine is full of content and the buyer is therefore getting their money's worth and they can know what to expect.

 

There are many codes and conventions that each of the 100s of magazines out there stick to, which is why many of them are as successful as they are.





Introduction

Hi, my name is Kate and I am 17 years old studying Psychology, Sociology and Media Studies at AS.  I chose to do media studies as I am particularly interested in the different aspects of media and how it effects us as people, but also how it is created and distributed. Throughout my AS course I will be posting a range of work I complete, including my preliminary and final tasks. I hope you enjoy my blog, or even find it helpful if you are a student like me.  Kate :)

Hello! My name is Kate, and I am an AS media student at Idsall Sixth Form. For this course I have to create a blog, on which I will present all of my work including research and final pieces.

For my AS levels I chose media along with sociology and psychology. I wanted to take media because I find it particularly interesting since it is such a big part of the 21^st century and our day to day lives.

I hope you enjoy my blog.

Kate