General feedback

On the 26th of january we were given general feedback on our first draft as a class 

•       We were asked to question are decisions – ‘What are you aiming for?’ This means what I hope to achieve and what I want the final product to look like. We were reminded to look back at previous work on ‘Research into similar products.’ This would help us effectively imitate the already practiced work of published magazines. This would then allow us produce a realistic and professional looking final magazine.
• ·         It was said that on the front cover the main artist should be promoting something substantial and not a ‘New Single being released’ as some had done. Instead the cover line must be rethought and instead promote a new album, a new tour or maybe both of them as some magazines tend to do.
• ·         In some areas musical Mise-en-scene is lacking. This involves lighting, colour scheme, artist look and other features which combine the musical theme together.
• ·         Contents pages currently don’t have enough substance. This can be fixed by adding more stories and features.
• ·         Try to avoid comments like “my fans are the most important things in my life” in double page features, as they are clique comments said by all artists. Use more original comments.
• ·         Double page fonts need to be reduced to font size 8.
• ·        

drafting and planning

From my feedback  the improvements that I am going to make to my first draft are:

• Edit my masthead. i need to redo my masthead so it looks more like the mastheads i have looked into.
• Edit the colour scheme in general because the colours do not work that great in my opinion. 
• Edit my contents page so out has more substance and rearrange the so it looks more organised 
• have more photos on my contents page 
• choose fonts styles more carefully for my music genre 
• write more for double page spread 

Independent post

Last week me and my fellow class mates went to our drama studio to take photos for our magazine drafts. We used the drama studio because it has plain black walls which makes it easier for us to edit our pictures. These photos can be used for our cover and our contents pages 

Personal improvements to first draft

this post is going to look at certain aspects of my first draft on what I feel needs to be inproved from my point of view as the one who made the first draft!

Main image: the image was good however I feel that with the colour scheme that was used it simply was too dull. The colour scheme was yellow and the image had a lot of orange in it. It made the cover not as attractive or eye-catching as previous ones. The colours simply worked too well and didn't really suit the magazine front cover. 

Typography: typography was good throughout most of the magazine. I used appropriate fonts for my masthead from my survey results. However I didn't do a survey for the font for the rest of the magazine. This meant I used fonts for my cover lines etc that perhaps weren't appropriate for the rest of the magazine! 

Codes and conventions: I could of used more codes and conventions such as puffs and pugs in my front cover

Contents page: the contents page was quite basic and was plain. There was much to improve on the contents page. For example the back ground that was used could of carried onto the contents page whichever would of showed a direct link to the cover and the cover star.  The organisation of the page too could of been improved and perhaps made more complex and interesting. 

Interview: interview was a bit short but it was a good start for a first draft! I could analyse other interviews in other magazines which could influence my interview 

Independent post

For my final draft I have decided to use a instrument for my cover star. This helps the ethos of my cover star and the genre of the magazine! The magazine genre is pop and a common instrument for a magazine of this genre is a guitar which I have! This could also help influnce future decisions for my house style depending on the shape and colour of the guitar which is a shade of red. I will be doing another mise - en - scene post in the future to show what my cover star will be wearing. I will include the guitar in this post!

First Draft

Here is my front cover for my magazine! I have stuck to the appropriate colour scheme and house style which i have chosen. however i do feel that the picture used and the overall colour scheme worked too well and didn't really make the cover stand out. overall i feel this is a good first draft. i have clear things to improve on like colour scheme and use of colour. fonts and styles etc but apart from that this is a good place to start.

This is a very basic design for my content page!  however i kept the logo and added it to the top which gives a direct link to the cover. i feel there is much to improve upon and more i can add but its a good place to start with my contents. i could of added a background to my page which would of help in making my page stand out. also the organisation of the page too is something to be improved upon! adding to the colour scheme or changing it a little would help make certain areas of the magazine stand out more, 

 The double page spread uses the appropriate house style and colour scheme. I took inspiration from Q magazine and added the first letter of my work in a large font size and coloured it yellow to go with the colour scheme. An improvement would be to add more text into the interview its self and make the shape of the text more interesting by fitting it around my main cover star instead of having it as a block of text. this would help me fit the text more effectively and use more of the space effectively. another style i could use for my double page would be one that q magazine also did where they put a black and white image on the left and the full article on the right. This makes the article look more effective and organised.

photoshoot

here are a few photos i have taken for my front cover. i am doing another photoshoot this weekend for my double page spread!