Contents Page #6

This fills up the page completely and makes it very visually exciting and beautiful to look at. I really can't imagine putting any more work into this as I've included everything I can think of. I am happy leaving this as the final draft I do.

Front Cover #6

This front cover has been made the most exciting it could possibly be without it becoming cluttered as it is now fuller and the colouring has been increased. This is visually exciting and exactly how I wanted my front cover to look.

Contents Page Draft #5

This makes my images all blend together and work as one complete whole as opposed to separate pieces of work. This makes the colour scheme stronger and takes more influence from Kerrang, especially with the new fonts used. The red has been brought to the front and that is what makes the image so powerful. 

DPS Draft #3

This way of editing definitely makes this article more indie and more professional looking. The colour drain has brought out the red which makes this image more powerful and simplifies the colour scheme. This is a very aesthetically pleasing image and I can't think of anything else to change about it.

Contents Page Draft #4

This page is more visually exciting and blends together a range of different conventions and codes. I feel as if it's starting to look quite professional but I still need to make tweaks and improvements here and there to ensure that it blends with the rest of the magazine and that all pages work together.

5th Front Cover Draft

I added more colour to this by mixing contrasting colours but I feel as it's too much and it's overpowering and unpleasant to look at. I will not be keeping this but it was an interesting experiment. I still need to continue looking at ways to improve this product.

Front Cover #4

This is very clear and the colour scheme is well defined. My only problem is that it seems a little bland. I feel as if it needs a little more colour or a little more going on. I will experiment around to see what changes I could make to make it feel less bland.

Contents Page Draft #3

What I don't like about this is that the page numbers do not blend with the rest of the page and feel as if they came from a different magazine. I'm going to be editing this to see if I can make it blend more seamlessly. For now, I'm not happy with this.

DPS Draft #1 and #2

Both of these were done in one lesson and I'm not sure about either of them. Whilst I like them on their own I'm not sure either of them fit in with the rest of the magazine and this will need to be something that I work on. I feel as if they fit conventions fine and they both look good. I will need to receive feedback on them.

3rd Front Cover Draft (writeup)

This is the third draft for my front cover. I really like this though I know there are some things I will have to tweak. I feel as if the image is now too dark and the font is too childish. I'm also not sure if I like the black box surrounding the title. I need to experiment more with colours and text placement as a whole. 

Contents Draft #2

I've changed a lot here to make it fit a more mature audience and I've based this front cover more off Mojo

I added in an editors note but I feel as if my editing style has been similar. This was to appeal to an older target audience but I feel like I've made it look a little bit too old.

2nd Front Cover Draft

This definitley looks more like a real front cover that the other pieces I've done. I don't like the way the fonts seem to blend into the background and I'm planning on changing them around. However, I do like the way the masthead dips behind the models head. I still want to see how Leah would look on the cover before I make any decisions. 

Contents 1st Draft

This was my first contents draft. I don't like it very much. I definitely left too much white in the images and need to crop it down. I also don't get a very professional vibe from it and need to work with image editing and different fonts. I do like the red colour scheme in this though I need to experiment with colour further. Editing the headphones to make them the only thing not greyscale was surprisingly easy and had a very dramatic effect that was exactly what I wanted. 

Front Page First Draft

I need to practice with photoshop and consider how I will edit the photos of my models. I took a simple approach inspired by this magazine.

This was quite difficult and I had a lot of things to consider. This lesson was mostly experimentation - I need to make final decisions soon. I had looked into replacing the image with the umbrella with this image as my girls are a lot closer together and it fits easily on the front page but I'm not sure that I like using this image due to a multitude of reasons.

- The checked shirts make the text harder to read

- This image is not exceptionally exciting 

- There is not much room for text down the side

What I did like about this draft was :

- The list of names along the top looks very nice and professional 

The font for JUKBOX is aesthetically pleasing

- Using a 'fade' effect on the image can look quite nice though it does erase some detail

Photoshop Practice

Original image:

First, I set the page height and width to match a standard A4 sheet of paper. Then copied in an image of my lovely model. I used the lasso tool to draw around my model and cut her out. This allowed me to put a title behind her head, brining her forward and making her stand out. I put the vibrance up to +100 and saturation +10. I then used auto-contrast, +0.24 exposure and 0.9 Gamma Correction and I used lighting effects to make a spotlight on the centre. I raised the offset once more to achieve the effect I have on the front cover. 

Final product: 

This forced me to look at editing and various difficulties I will face. I learnt a lot about how to edit a photo.

Problems with the draft

EDIT  28TH OCT: I RECREATED THIS BOARD WITH REALTIME BOARD WHICH YOU CAN LOOK AT [HERE]

This outlines some of the real problems and I will work to fix them in my final piece.

From my own knowledge and with the assistance of my teacher, I've addressed the major flaws in my work and this ensures that I will not make these same mistakes in my final piece. More specifically, it has highlighted to me the importance of getting professional photography done and refining my editing skills. I need to do research into my target audience to ensure that I can refine to language used to suit them and I need to pay close attention to my grammar. I think that my article would be more grammatically correct if I wrote it out in word and proofread it as opposed to typing it up in the photoshop text box. Additionally, it has helped me look at composition and made me realize the importance of working from an existing magazine. Whilst I do like my composition in this instance, I feel as if there is a large margin for improvement in the future. 

Practice Double Page Spread

This is a practice double page spread I did with a focus on understand how some of the language used in an interview would work and how you could go about recording an interview like this. My two friends did modelling for me and I used their photos. This was also good to practice as I wasn't before aware of quite how hard it was to edit photos and I'll certainly need more practice with it. 

Eve may end up being a model in my final product though I've yet to look into that so I'm still unsure.

Initially, this taught me how difficult photoshop was going to be to use and gave me an outlet to mess around with my existing ideas and see how well they'd work together. I've yet to do substantial research so all of this is subject to change. What I will come to learn from this will come heavily from the feedback I am given when I learn how to improve as this will tell me what I will need to do differently in my final piece in a way that is specific to me.