Preliminary Coursework

For the past week I have been using Photoshop to produce my front cover.
I have used four of my own images including my own main image and I have found a image of green question marks on the internet which I thought looked really good but i am not allowed to use images that are not mine. I have used different sized text for my coverline, headlines and title they are also in different colours and different sizes.

Preliminary Evaluation

The way my school magazine looks now it is finished compared to how it looked in my head and how i wrote it down on paper. 1 major thing that i changed was the contents page. I designed it to be a double page spread but I realised there where a number of factors as to why i couldnt do that. The main thing was time restrictions as i was quickly running out of time, also I had never used Quark Express before so I decided it would be best to do a single page contents page. I think this was the right decision as I only just had enough things to put on the page.
I found it difficult to use my own images and tried to get away with using images of the internet but it did not work and i decided not to use images that where not mine.

For my front cover i believe I followed my plan almost exactly and did not change much of it. The only thing that changed was where i decided to put the smaller pictures and headlines. Although there was not much difference to where they ended up being and where they where in the plan.
overall i am pleased with how it went although i do believe next time i will have to do more planning and sort out my Images alot sooner.

Preliminary-Codes & Conventions of Magazines

Codes and Conventions:
Front cover:

original masthead
Central picture
smaller images
barcode
price
frequancy of publication
issue number
Date
bold writing
picture is always having eye contact( direct mode of address)
tagline
colourful
Always has a colour scheme
puff
buzzword for example "world exclusive"
image doesn't cover the masthead
mast head in UPPERCASE

contents page:

Picture dominates it.
Set out in columns.
Split into two or three columns.
Normally an editor’s letter.
Have little images to display what they are showing.
There is a page number before the story.
May have a website.
Titles are normally in bold.
Page numbers are a different colour to the stories.
Have contact details and address.
Always have an ‘Regular’ column.
Usually over two pages or a double page.
Line gap between each section.
Subscription details.
Type size 11pt.
Credits for front picture.
Pictures are different sizes and have numbers on them which anchor them to be written in contents.
Regular contents have a page number
the pages are not in order and are normaly in sections for example, Bands
One main picture in some magazines.
Always have bright colours.

Double Page spread:

Drop quotes
small font
lots of writting
one main image
strapline
limited use of colour
short summary at the biggining
first letter is always bigger
head line is always eye catching
artist's name are always big and highlighted
picture of the journalist
always have a byline(who wrote it)
text is in collumns
page number
title of article and Magazine.

Preliminary Design & Ideas

Before I started using photoshop and Quark Express to make my front cover and Contents page I wrote down and sketched out my ideas and what in a ideal world i would like my front cover and contents page to look like.

Lessons

During our lessons we looked at genres and concentrated mainly on sitcoms. We looked at the codes & conventions of sitcoms and watched a episode of Friends and Phoenix Nights. We then wrote a essay about how Phoenix Nights deviates and has the same Codes & conventions to traditional sitcoms.

Preliminary Exercise 1

For my preliminary coursework exercise I have designed and rough sketched the front cover and double page contents page for a school magazine.
I have collected the images I need for both the front page and the contents but i still have 1 0r 2 more pictures to take.

These are just 2 of the pictures i took.

I wrote down ideas for my mis-en-scene for each image I needed.
I also listed all my features and coverlines for my magazing i have thought of my regular contents aswell.

I have taken a picture for my editor team as that will be a regular image on the contents page along with a editors note.