My Project

• The project set to us was to create a music magazine which both uses and challenges, popular and modern day music magazine conventions.

• I have produced the magazine ‘Foul’ completely on Adobe Photoshop and here is how I did it...

Research into existing products

Before making my magazine, I studied many other musicmagazines, and researched two in particular : ATM & Mixmag. These were a rough crossover of the genre of music I wanted to produce my magazine for (Dance/Drum’n’bass).

I I t.I then bought my own copy of ATM and Mixmag. I analysed

each issues front page, contents page as well as 2 feature articles/double page spreads. I also analysed 2 more front covers from each brands previous issues. By doing such intensive analysis, I learned all of the main music magazine conventions so I could understand why and where to use them in my own product.

Front Page Analysis ATM

The front cover on this issue of ‘ATM’ is quite dark and dull. No popping or bright colours are being used - most of the colours are navy, silver, grey, white and black. Most of the text has been written in white on this front cover.The headlines font is digital style, and is a mixture of capital and lowercase. The font also has a scratched/faded effect which gives it a weathered look, much like the bricks in the background. The feature article photograph is of DJ Danny Williamson (Stage name: LTJ Bukem. The photographs background is a bricked wall with piping going alongside. The end result of all the mise-en-scene in this photograph adds up to quite a mystery theme. Where is he? What is he queuing for? Why is he wearing dark glasses and a trench coat? Why am I so suspicious of him?!The camera lens has been placed at a low angle and so is tilting up to Williamson. By using this angle it makes us, the reader, look up to him both physically and figuratively.

Front Page Analysis Mixmag

Unlike traditional music magazine colour schemes, Mixmags main colour scheme for their masthead, cover lines and plugs is neon pink.  The use of neon pink is very eye catching on this front cover. Mixmag have chosen which bits they wanted to promote, and so have therefore put them in this bright colour. The neon pink is used in alternative order on the text with the colour white.All of the text on the front cover is in capitals, excluding the plugs subtitles and the list of featured artists above the barcode. By putting text into capitals it will give the impression of shouting, excitement and importance. The feature article photograph here is a candid one of Deadmau5 from a live event. Their free CD has been stuck on the bottom left corner – a very popular position for free CDs. The barcode is in the bottom right corner, and the price is on the left hand side of it along with issue details and website. The price isn’t extremely small, and I think it’s a fair price for this magazine that comes with 13 free tracks.

Contents Page Analysis ATM

ATM’s contents page consists of only one page. There are 3 categories: ‘features’, ‘regulars’ and ‘reviews’. The pages background is a soft fade from white at the top to navy at the bottom, with a grey wire pattern under the text.The list of items are in a very simple font and all in capitals and the category titles are in bold. In the quarter right hand top of the page, there is the ‘editors note’. This is five paragraphs long, and is written in a smaller text size, and Mark O’Donnell includes personal thoughts and opinions. He also refers to the interviews he carried out himself for this issue.  There is a sequence of four photos on the right hand side of the text in a square shape.At the bottom of the page there is information such as Editor, Assistant Editor, Sub Editor, Art Direction & Design, Photography and also other contact information for the magazine.

Contents Page Analysis Mixmag

Mixmags contents pages are split over two back to back pages. I find this makes it a bit tricky to read and follow compared to if it was over two facing pages.The background on both pages is black with inserted images. There is a heading at the top of each page stating the magazine name, issue month and year and the title ‘contents.’There are 3 different text sections on this page. One titled ‘VIP’ with the subtitle ‘Clubs, news and banter.’ The next section is titled ‘features’. 7 different items are listed under this heading. The last section has been horizontally placed at the bottom of the page, giving information on the free CD that comes with this issue. On the following page, there are five different sections.The first one is about the fashion contents of the magazine, titled ‘fashion’ with one item beneath.The second section is titled ‘tunes’ with a subtitle of ‘the world’s best guide to dance music’ and 2 items in this category.The following section is titled ‘tech’ with 1 item included.The fourth section is titled ‘Don’t Stay In’ by the company Don’t Stay In - ‘your essential clubbing guide’ The last section is titled ‘regulars’ and contains 4 different items in this category.

Feature Article Analysis ATM

This is one of ATM’s feature articles for this issue. It contains small bios and interviews with different DJers and Drum and Bass musicians. The background is a fade from black at the top into a bright red at the bottom. On top of this, there is the same style of techno lines used elsewhere throughout the magazine as to maintain a certain theme. Under each picture the artists name is in red and is written in capitals. The rest of the information is in a white text. The information is presented in a form like way for example: Based:, What’s your story?, Inspirations:, Weapon of choice:, Proudest moment to date: and What’s your poison?, Each artist answers all these questions, and some of the answers are quite funny and comical due to such variation between characters. I like how the layout of this article makes the text easy and also fun to read. The information is in short snippets and there aren’t paragraphs of writing to be read. I enjoyed reading this.

Feature Article Analysis Mixmag

The pages background is white, and has a black techno grid border at the top.All of the photos are taken from live events that took place outside. The three largest images capture the stage, the lights, the strobes, the explosions and the crowd. With photos as big as these as so dynamic as these, they really shout out to reader as soon as they turn the page. The rest of the text over the two articles is written in black over the a plain white background. In some places the text actually spills onto two of the photographs so the white background has been carried on over them, creating a text box effect. The writing is black and a very simple font is used. Questions have been distinguished again by the use of a bold font.For each artist, there is information on ‘Forthcoming Live Dates’ giving details of tour dates, and website information.I think compared to the energetic and vibrant photographs on this magazine, the article would’ve stood out better if a black background was used with either white or a brighter coloured font, so the page was more jazzy and dazzling.

Deciding my genre & target audience

• I already knew that I wanted to produce a magazine of the drum-n-bass/dance genre, and found there were no actual existing products. The best I could find was ATM (Drum-n-bass/dubstep) and Mixmag. (Dance) So I combined many of the common elements for my own magazine.

• I assumed my audience would be fairly young adults eg: 16-30years, as this genre of music is fairly modern and is increasingly becoming more and more popular therefore my audience would be around their 20’s.

Audience Survey Results

I created a survey containing all questions I felt necessary in order to be able to understand and meet the wants of my audience.

Here is a summary of the results:

My audience wanted a monthly magazine with a bigger ratio of imagesto writing throughout the magazine, and for the majority of imagesto be candid, rather than posed.They would be attracted to a front cover that is organized & easy toread with a traditional colour scheme. (Red, white and black)My audience want to be communicated via in a chatty, yet chilled andlaid back tone. My audience would also prefer to read about wellknown established artists and would love for information to be given ofgigs and other live events, associated to the particular article.

Who would be the audience for your media product?

From the results gathered from my audience survey, I now have an idea of who my target audience will be for my magazine.

Due to the genre of my music (drum-n-bass & dance) there is already a common stereotype for these type of people. Often associated with illegal raves, and sometimes drug taking, my audience have a bad name. These people are generally aged between their late teens to late twenties.With my magazine, I hope to attract more students, and a younger audience, perhaps from the age of 16 onwards. I will include 1 popartist eg: Plan B as he has collaborated with drum n bass artistssuch as Chase & Status and Pendulum. Therefore I will not only attractan audience of drum n bass music/dance music lovers, but also a small minority may buy it for the one pop artist influence that month, whichcould possibly increase my sales.

Here is my rough hand drawn plan for my front cover. Although it is very rough and vague, it helped me immensely when I was first starting out

on Photoshop.

Here is my rough hand drawn plan for my contents page. As this was only a template, I was able to change around the positioning of text and images on my real contents page.

Here is my rough hand drawn plan for my double page spread. I originally knew where I wanted my headline and kept this consistent. The other items however, I changed around due to the fact I included more images and less writing so initially planned.

Creating my mastheadFirstly, I typed in ‘Foul’ in a textbox on Photoshop and placed in Tahoma font (house style) and expanded the text box, making it larger and easy to work on.I then highlighted it and changed the font style to ‘bold’ and also changed it to the ‘faux bold’ option, as well.

Next, I changed the writing colour to red and clicked on ‘edit layer style’ so I could add my ‘stroke’ effect. (Size: 3px) I also added a ‘drop shadow’ (Size: 5px, Distance: 5px, Opacity: 75%. Both of these effects are in black.)

This is step 1 of my front cover process.

I wanted a traditional coloured masthead (red and black) and from my audience survey results I was able to use a traditional magazine colour scheme. I knew I wanted the mast head in the top left corner of my magazine as this is the most popular layout for many magazine front covers and works well. I then inserted a black banner, with a white one on top to separate the mast head from the page and this also allowed me to place other text on top clearly.

I also knew from the start this was the photograph I wanted as it was a candid shot which was perfect for my magazine issue a ‘festival review.’ The photograph although we cannot see the singers facial expression, his body language connotes live action and as he is mid-action, we can tell he is a rapper. His clothes are very casual and suitable for the music he is performing. He is standing right at the edge of the stage and so is really interacting with his fans. The atmosphere in the photo is enhanced by the light coming in from the left, the drum set behind him and the body guards in front of him. I did contemplate cropping the body guard and camera man out of the picture, but I decided to keep them as they both add depth to the photo and show just how close the artist is.

Although this image is blurry, which is unconventional for professional magazine front covers, it suits the style of my magazine as in order to suit my genre, I do not want a crisp clean shot photograph and I like the edginess it gives to the front page

Step 2

Here I started to play around with text, font and font effects. For example the shadow effect and also the etching effect on my mast head.

Step 3

Next I decided to split my cover line into two as I felt there was too much text altogether and I want all the text on my front page short, snappy and easy to read.I started to add plugs up the right hand side corner of my page.

I even experimented with layering and overlapping as you can see I have done so with ‘Best festival acts this year!’ underneath Tempa T’s head.

Step 4

After experimenting around Photoshop I discovered the stroke effect for both text and images. I then used the stroke effect on every single item I wanted outlined and used the same size each time as too keep a house style.

Step 4

Here I decided that the previous plugs on the left hand side of my page had too much text and I wanted them to be shorter and sharper .I also did not like the amount of red I had on the page, and wanted to add more of my other colour scheme colour: orange.

I then shortened the list in the top right hand corner of artists, and moved some of them down into the centre right of my page as I wanted to create a longer vertical list.I then inserted a star shaped banner and put the remaining artists in that shape.

I also moved the image up a lot as I felt the space above Tempas T’s head was boring. By doing this, the reader sees the body guard and camera man better, which intensifies the images ‘live’ feel.

I then added a black banner to the bottom of the image, which made the text, price and barcode stand out more.

Next I moved the feature article photographs caption to the centre left of the figure as I felt it made it easier for the reader to make an immediate visual link to the photo.

I also added a puff to very top of the page and moved the date and issue number to inside the ‘F’ or ‘Foul’.

Step 5

Despite my previous decision, I decided to move my feature article photograph down once more due to the fact I had rearranged and had enlarged my headline.

I decided to make my headline much bigger as I wanted it to stand out more to the reader and I also placed it beneath the figure in order to give it a more 3-D effect.

Next, I split my list of artists into two, which as a result took up more room on my page and gave it a ‘packed’ look.

I used words such as ‘plus’, ‘including’ and ‘exclusive’ to add an exciting tone to the page.

I also changed my plug from ‘the only dance-drum’n’bass magazine’ to: ‘the best selling dance-drum’n’bass magazine’ as this made my magazine sound popular and more established.

Step 1

This was my original layout for my double page spread.I quite liked the effect on the background as it gave it a ‘starry’ look, perfect for my festival review issue.

Step 2

Here I inserted my stand first and started to add and move around photographs.

Step 3

After much thought, I decided to actually have a white blank background. As this was a review, I wanted the amount of text I would be including, to be clear and easy to read. I could also make photographs stand out more using coloured borders. In theory, if this was a magazine to be published professional, using a black background would be more costly in terms of ink expenditure.

Step 4

Here I added more pictures and also captions.Before inserting my article text I wrote it up on Word first as I found it easier to organise and arrange by copy and pasting from the word document into Photoshop.

I then started to add stroke borders to photographs.

Step 5

Here is my final double page spread.

I added borders to all photos and textboxes and varied the colours to match their corresponding image/caption.Also, I wrote a website address and page numbers as this was a common theme of other magazine spreads I studied.

As you can see I have used a similar layout for my double page spread as Mixmag. Whilst I was originally analysing it, I particularly liked the article headline and where it was positioned on the left hand page.

I also like the style of the text boxes and how they sometimes overlapped onto the photographs.

This is step 1 of my contents page process.

I knew I wanted a black background and for the majority of the writing to be white, as in my magazine I wanted to alternate between a black background with white writing, and a white background with black writing and develop this into my magazine’s house style.

From my audience survey, I knew I had to have a clear, organised and easy to read contents page as they were more attracted to that style. Therefore, as this was the contents page and if they were browsing in a shop and opened up to the contents page I would want them to be drawn in, not repelled.

I have chosen these two photos to use as one is a relaxed summery shot of the festival, later featured in my magazine. The other, is a photograph taken at the same festival but with a more night time ‘rave’ feel to it, which represents my magazines music genre better.

I also wanted to have a clear layout regarding sections, headings, sub-headings and items. I knew that I wanted the subheading, then a very short blurb containing information to draw in the reader to the article, and for the page numbers to be easy to spot.

Step 2

I started to add items to the ‘Features’ section and used my colour scheme colours for the text: red and white. (no orange at this stage.)

Step 3

Here I added more orange to the page as this was one of my house style colours throughout my magazine.

I then decided my next two sections: ‘Regulars’ and ‘Contact Us’

I also added captions for my two photographs featured.

Step 4

Here is my final contents page.

I have changed all page numbers to orange.

I have also added details such as Editors, Photography and Fouls PR and HR department.

I have taken this idea from ATM’s contents page, as they too had similar information presented, allowing the reader to see and even contact certain employees.

I also added captions for my two photographs featured.Front Cover Analysis

There is a bold masthead, in traditional colours – red & black..A bold headline, immediately telling the reader what the magazines feature article is about. It is the same font and colour as the mast head. Both ‘Chase’ and ‘&’ have been placed behind the figure in the main photograph. This gives the headline more of a 3-D feel, and draws attention to the fact that the photograph has been taking from a live event, and is a candid shot as you can tell form his body position an action.Information on the feature article. The word ‘exclusive’ has been underlined and made bold, in order to make it stand out to the reader that it is important.

Barcode & price. The price is fairly large, and not been ‘hidden’ in any way, as this is a reasonable price for the magazine and is a USP. .

Another headline on the page starts on top left section of the page, and continues at the bottom. The use of an ellipses makes the page look fuller and bigger, as half the title has been placed somewhere else. Also, as the reader searches for the second half, they will take in everything else on the page as they look towards the bottom.

A puff has been placed at the top..

Words such as ‘plus’ and ‘including’ have been used and placed in bold to attract attention to them, ad give the impression that the magazine is ‘packed.’.Plugs have been placed down the right hand side of page, and have been placed in a text box. All the writing, box colour and box border colours correspond with the magazines colour scheme. (red, orange, black and white).Certain figures such as the camera man and 2 security man have been kept in the photo, as this proof the photograph was taken at a live event. It could convey across to the reader, how close the singer was to the audience and how they interacted. It is also one of those photo’s that could make the audience immediately want to be there.

Double Page Spread AnalysisThere is a bold title for the

article, that really stands out, due to it’s size and colour and shadow effects used. .

There are 10 photographs in total over the two pages, alongside only 754 words.(80% of my audience said they wanted a bigger ratio of images to text)

All photographs and text boxes have a house style border around them in the 4 main colours.

Some of these photographs and text boxes have been tilted and some overlap other objects. This makes the page look more packed and less boring than having everything horizontal and vertical. It also makes the page look layered with various objects on top of and underneath each other.

There are two columns down the middle of the page with no background or border and written in black font. This stands out against the other text, as this is the actual review of the festival, compared to the other text which are opinions of the acts.

The page numbers have been placed on the far bottom corners in red. There is also a website address in the bottom centre of the right hand page.

Contents Page AnalysisThe magazine mast head is placed in the top left hand corner, same place as on the front page.The date and issue number are placed beneath in orange.

The title ‘Contents’ is only slightly smaller than the masthead as it needs to be clear what page this is of the magazine.

There are 3 main sections of the magazine.‘Features’ with 11 items.‘Regulars’ with 5 items.and a ‘Contact Us’ section.

A constant style has been kept throughout the page. The section heading in white, bold and underlined.The article title in bold and red.A short piece of information about the article in italic and white.The page numbers in italic and orange.

Such information of the magazine is given such as a website and e-mail address, telephone and fax details and the office address. This shows that the magazine are welcoming any feedback viewers may have, via any of these options.

The two photographs featured convey different atmospheres. One is in daylight and outdoors, and obvious it was taken at a festival. The impression looks summery, friendly and sociable.

The other, is of one singer. It was taken at night, again at a festival but this time in a tent. His body language look powerful and the lights denote he is on stage performing at a live event.

Information has also been given of employees who work on the magazine.

How did you attract/address your audience?

I thoroughly adhered to all the wants and requirements my audience had chosen on their survey in order to make it tailored to them. I made all my decisions based on the most popular answer for a question, and did not change it to suit my own tastes as this would be useless in attracting and addressing my audience.

I therefore:

• made sure my magazine was a monthly one • I included a higher ratio of images to text• included a traditional colour scheme • the majority of photographs were candid • I did not include a free CD • my mode of address is laid back • the majority of my articles are about well-known artists • I have included interviews • I have an organised front cover• I have included regulars that my audience listed• I have included information on upcoming gigs and live events• I have not rejected any explicit language in any of the interviews in my magazine.

All of the above were the most picked answer for the matching question.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The social groups represented throughout my magazine could be many, although my main age range is 16 years possibly up to the age of 30 depending on individual music tastes. I believe my magazine could be attractive to people up to the age of 30 as it is modern and fairly mature. It uses a traditional colour schemes which could appeal to both sexes. The pictures I have used I feel are professional and work very well in my magazine and with the genre of music.Many of my images are candid shots at live events and festivals. I feel that my audience can relate to this, especially the audience at the older end of my age group as they may be more festival goers compared to the young 16 year olds, where music festivals have only just started becoming popular with their generation. Most of my artists featured are fairly new eg: Subfocus and DJ Fresh, but other artists such as The Prodigy and High Contrast are featured also to create a good balance of new and existing popular artists and bands.

Following Conventions – Front Page

The masthead is in tradition magazine colours. (red & black) It’s big and bold and is placed in the top left hand corner of the front page.

There is a puff for the magazine, placed at the very top of the page. .

Words such as ‘plus’, ‘exclusive’ and ‘including’ have been used on the front page. This is very common for magazine front pages. It gives the impression that the magazine is packed and has exclusive and elite information inside. These are usually unique selling points for an issue.

My plugs have been placed in coloured text boxes. They are running down the right hand side of the page. .

My barcode and price are to easy to spot. Unlike expensive magazines who may wish to ‘hide’ their price, I feel mine is well priced and so this is something I want to point out to my audience. A exclamation mark has been used to add emphasis. .

On my front page there is one element of ‘overlapping.’ This effect is effective as it makes the page look more 3-D and less ‘flat.’ .

Following Conventions – Double Page Spread

There is a large title, in a bold colouring, font and size..

Some writing has been placed in columns. In the case of my magazine, the festival review has been written in 2 simple columns. .

There is a stand first, introducing the reader to the article and telling them a little bit about what it is about.

Any photos have captions underneath, given the reader a small bit of information about what the image is about, or where it is. Many of photograph captions contain opinions as this is a review article.

Page numbers on in the bottom far side corners of each page, and there is also the magazines website address, placed in the bottom centre of the right hand side page. .

Following Conventions – Contents Page

The different sections have been clearly titled, and common sections such as a ‘features’ and ‘regulars’ have been used.

The date and issue number are clear to see.

A large photograph has been used which links to one of my magazines featured articles.

A contact box has been included giving out contact information for the magazine company. A ‘credits’ box has also been used.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media

products? I feel my magazine both uses and challenges the forms and conventions of existing magazines. For example I have used a traditional colour scheme and house style through out my magazine and have kept and used many of the same elements featured on a real magazine front cover and contents page, in my own product.

An area I feel I have challenged existing media conventions include my colour scheme in particular. I have introduced a bright orange colour along with the red, white and black throughout. Using a fourth colour enables me to attract attention to a certain piece of text or area, as well as avoiding a build up of one colour. (For example, on my contents page I used orange to write my page numbers in, to break up and overuse of the colour red on the page.)

Pricing my magazine

My competitor magazines were priced at £4.20 (Mixmag) and £3.75 (ATM)

I decided to price my magazine at £3.00 as this was cheaper than both of these magazines. I am not giving away free CD’s and so this immediately lowers my cost of production compared to the other two. I think my cheaper price will attract more readers, therefore increasing sales. If I were to price my magazine more expensively, the high price could possibly deter customers. I would rather price it cheaper and sell lots in order to make a profit, rather than sell it more expensively and not sell as many to get the same profit.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

ATM magazine is distributed by a company called Planet Media Publications.Mixmag is distributed by a company called Development Hell Ltd.

For popularity reasons, I think I would choose to have my product distributed by Development Hell Ltd. (distributors of Mixmag) Mixmag is a more commonly known magazine and I actually had great difficulty firstly discovering ATM magazine and then buying it, as ATM was not sold in high street newsagents or even popular newsagents chains. I had to order my ATM magazine online where as I bought my Mixmag from a WHSmiths.

Development Hell Ltd is an independent media company who only deal with the distribution with one other magazine alongside Mixmag; The Word. Therefore, I think a small and concentrated company such as Development Hell Ltd would be great for my magazine as they have these two magazine as their main focus. If I were to go with another distributor such as IPC Media, there is some worry that my magazine would be one of 120, and so could possibly be ‘lost’ or not as focused on as it could be in a distribution company such as Development Hell Ltd.

Preliminary Task: Student Magazine

The first product we had to create in Media, was a student magazine for our school. The magazine could be aimed at any age group, and we had

to design the front page and contents.

Student Magazine Front CoverI chose to market my student magazine at Sixth Formers. (age group 16-18years) For my front cover I took a photograph of my friend studying at a desk. I didn’t have a mast head for my magazine as such, simply the name of our school in a dark pink coloured font. Part of the writing was in bold, and the second line was not. I didn’t have a headline, just 2 plugs on either side of the page, at different heights and in different sizes. The writing is plain, with no effects and in either black or white coloured font. There is a discount voucher on the front of the magazine, for a clothes shop popular with the target audience. This was one of the elements I hope would attract readers.

Student Magazine Contents Page

My student magazines contents page was very simple. It has a plain white background. The name of our school is in the same bold font and colour, with ‘Sixth Form College’ in the same colour font also. The schools logo is in the top left hand corner. The date and title are in a green colour, as to stand out against the reddish font above.There are no individual sections as there are only 5 items in the magazine. Each item has no subtitle, but only the small piece of information about the article. The page numbers have been placed in green, underneath.

My two front page comparisonsFoul’s masthead is in traditional magazine colours. (red & black) It’s big and bold and is placed in the top left hand corner of the front page.WDF magazine’s masthead is not bold nor eye catching and is in a slightly bold font, in a maroon colour placed at the top centre of the page. It has no fancy outlining and is very simple. Foul’s headline is huge and takes up most of the centre page and feature article photograph. It’s in the same red coloured and bold font as the masthead. There are in various font colorus and sizes, and some are in boxes.WDF magazine does not have a headline.

Foul has many plugs scattered around the page including articles inside the magazine as well as 9 artist’s names featured in the issue. There is a coverline, linking to the main background picture. WDF magazine has 3 plugs on the page. One in the bottom right, another in the bottom right and one in the top-centre right. 2 out of the 3 are written in black, and the other in white. This is due to the background colours behind the text. They are all in the same font, and all quite small & ‘skinny’.

Foul’s feature article photograph is of a singer at a live festival event. The mise-en-scene includes security guards, a camera man, a stage and bright lighting. The photo has text on top, as well as some text placed underneath the main figure. This makes the page have an almost ‘3-D’ effect.WDF’s feature article photograph is of a sixth former at a school desk. The mise-en-scene here is a desk, a pen and notepad, as well as other students in the background. All the text on this page is placed over the image, therefore making the page look very ‘flat’ and ‘boring.’Foul’s front page includes a main puff of the magazine, as well as various puffs across the page such as ‘plus’ and ‘exclusive.’WDF magazine features none of these elements.

My two contents page comparisons

Foul’s contents page is on a black background, and has both the magazine name and page title very large, in the same bold font and colours. The issue number and date is beneath the masthead, underlined, in a bold effect and in in orange. (part of the colour scheme)WDF’s contents page has a white background and the magazine name in a skinny font in a maroon colour. The title and issue number are in a green font, with the title in a slightly bolder font. Foul’s content’s page has 3 different sections ‘Features’, ‘Regulars’ and ‘Contact Us.’ There are 16 items in total in the magazine.WDF’s contents page does not have any separate sections as there are only 5 items in the magazine, and these change per issue depending on the school news that month. On Foul’s contents page there are two photographs linked to the two main cover lines featured on the front page.WDF’s contents page includes no images. The layout of Foul’s contents page items are consistent: the subtitle is in a a bold red font, the short blurb on the article is in italic white, and the page numbers are in italic orange. The photo captions are the same minus the blurb. WDF’s item layout is consistent also, although there are no subtitles for each article, simply the short blurb in plain black text, with the page numbers following in a green font.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the

full product?

Looking back to my preliminary task and then forward to music magazine it is obvious to see I have progressed a vast amount, and have advanced my skills in magazine editing as well as increasing my knowledge of where and why magazine conventions are used and how they work.

I feel I have learnt many things, the main being my ability to connect with my target audience and how I can address and attract them to my magazine. I have also learnt technical techniques such as being able to place background images in front of some text and create the impression of layering. I feel I have a better understanding of how to create effective plugs and cover lines and how to use these to their full potential.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Fortunately before I started to create any of my media products, I already knew how to use Photoshop thanks to having Photoshop Elements on my laptop at home, and had used it for personal leisure before. I was pretty familiar with the tools you can use on there, and the effects you can achieve with images and text. For my preliminary task image, I used a simple 3.2mp camera on my phone. For my music magazine, I took the images off of a 8mp digital camera with various settings to match each atmosphere I captured.I then used the photo effects on my laptop (Macbook – iPhoto – built in editing tools) to do a basic enhancement on my photographs, and then used tools such as cropping and and the magic wand tool in Photoshop to change and move around my images on my pages. I used programs such as Microsoft Word & Office Tools Word to spell check my text before importing it onto Photoshop, where unfortunately this tool was unavailable.