In my AS year we had to design a magazine cover, contents page and
double page spread. In order to do this we had to use digital technology in
order to make it look as professional as possible. The main software we used
was adobe photo shop. This was actually very complicated software as there was
so much we could do to our photos and front cover to make it look professional.
Before we began the magazine we had a starter activity to produce a perfume ad.
This gave me the chance to play around and get to know the software before I
began my final task. This helped me improve as it made sure I could correct any
mistakes or problems I may have had with the software before designing my
magazine. When I began my final product I would research on the internet
tutorials on certain things you could do with adobe Photoshop such as changing
hair colour, airbrushing face etc. This helped widen my skills in photoshop and
has given me understanding of all the different aspects from when I first began
up to my finished final product.
My creativity has also expanded from starting the course to present day.
When we designing my magazine I had to stick to typical conventions such as
headlines, main photo, barcode etc. However before I began my coursework I got
taught about different styles of magazines, types of genre, the conventions within
the genre. My magazine was an RnB magazine aimed at young adults in university
and students. This gave me a lot of ideas on poses that my model could do and
how I could arrange my magazine to give it its own style. Also because we had
to do different drafts of our cover it meant I could experiment with the
creativity of my cover.
Before I even began constructing my final work I did a lot of planning
and research running up to it. This really helped with the production of my
magazine and really boosted my grade up as it taught me how to make my magazine
match to existing other real life magazines but add my own kick to it. In my
research and planning I did things like analysing existing products by looking
at the mise en scene within the photos. This gave me ideas on who my magazine
would be aimed at, with this in mind I built a questionnaire given to a few
different age groups. This helped me to understand what genre matched with
which age group and how I could reflect this in my overall product I also looked
in depth at the genre I was doing and the type of celebrity’s that would be
featured in magazines of this genre. This gave me my idea for my main celebrity
‘lea bee’ who was represented as glamorous with a fur jacket but contradicting
with the revealing clothes underneath.
The post production side was a lot more difficult to the planning and
research and photo taking. As I have already said this was due to having to
pick up the skills from internet tutorials for adobe photoshop. I began by
arranging my conventional magazine features on a page seeing what worked best
and what didn’t. I did this by using the layer tool making it easier to move
certain things on the cover such as the headline. However this was quite
difficult as I had a lot of layers I had to work with, at one point I had 47. I
also used adobes tools to edit my photos for the magazine. Adobe photoshop
helped me change the colour of my models hair, add accessories, cut out
background images, changing the settings of the picture (such as contrast) and
airbrushing my models skin. I also had to write an article for my double page
spread on my artist. This helped me on my writing skills. I also wrote an
evaluation on my final product. This gave me the chance to reflect on all the
skills I have learnt and what I could of improved.
In conclusion I think I have improved and come along way from when I
first began my media studies course to now. I hope to bring these skills I have
been taught into my next year of media in order to get a good grade in my
coursework this year.
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