In this lesson I will be drafting 3 alternative ideas upon my magazine’s tittle name, when selecting my tittle name I must find a balanced name that will be recognizable as well as informative upon what my magazine is about. I will be stating 3 different ideas as this will give me a good variety and a large selection when finally choosing my last magazine tittle template. Each of my three titles will be a different genre as this will again give me diversity and a unique selling point. 

This will gain me a larger audience as although my magazine is strictly a school magazine my title can give a hint/indication as too what is inside my magazine, after looking at existing magazines i have came up with the following five magazine names;

• AHS Intake

I have chosen this as a possible option as it would be a very direct title that would grab the readers attention. It would also indicate that through the magazine the consumer would intake information. I have also chosen the initials to be on the start of the title as it would make the magazine more representable of my target audience. 

• Acton NewsFlash

I have chosen Acton NewsFlash as it would show that my magazine would educate the consumers as to what is going on inside of the school. "News flash" would also infer that the news would be fast and the consumer would be able to be up to date quickly.

• AHS MIX

AHS would once again stand for the name of my school. "Mix" would show the wide variety of news topics that the magazine would cover during the magazine entireity. Topics such as Sports, grades and social life will Al be featured in the magazine and therefore "Mix" would be fitting.

• Pupil Forum

The pupil forum would traditional allow students to converse and reflect with each other, this may mean that my magazine would allow the consumers to be actively involved in the magazine and with each other. The "pupil" would be more direct and would attract the consumer.

• Educate

A short title that would be both catchy and recognisable. The word could mean two things, one being that the magazine would educate them in what is happening inside of school and could also mean in a schooling term as that it what the consumers would be in school to do. Overall I belive that this is the title I would choose as the length and meaning of the word would be both different and would be aesthetically pleasing when being looked at by my target audience. 

Having five names will give me a vast array of people to choose from, this would allow me to choose the suitable name from the selected few i have chosen. overall this would help me create the best name for my magazine.

In this lesson I have taken a couple of photos that would showcase my photography skills, I have a lack of knowledge when it comes to gating photos so this would be a new experience for me and would mean  my photos would not be those of a high standard, however the photos I have taken would help me develop my skills in the future and hopefully will make my magazine overall better. From these photos I have learnt that I would need a professional camera to make my photographs look much more professional, This would make my end product very worthwhile as all of the shots would be those of a high standard. Making my magazine look very clean and precise.

From this attempt at a medium close up shot it is clear to see that my photography skill are not at a peak. I have chosen to take the photograph with a black backdrop, this would be due to me trying to experiment with alternative backdrops that I believe would be effective while making my preliminary task. The equipment I have used would be a DSLR camera which allows me to take high quality pictures that I would be able to use in my making of the preliminary task. I found the organisation of models to be easy, this would be due to me using models that would be willing to participate. I found re creating different shots difficult as this would be my first time using a DSLR camera. I would develop my skills by practising taking photos at similar angles using a range of models and poses.

In this attempt I have chosen an alternative camera angle and pose, this would be to add a variety of images to test my abilities in taking photographs. The equipment I have chosen throughout the shoot would be the same DSLR camera. I n my opinion this image would look worse due to the fact that the background is not completed properly and therefore looks sloppy and un professional. In the next photograph I take I will remove the backdrop entirely to create variance once again. However, I think this is a more accurate attempt at a medium shot as it shows more of the upper body of my actor and allows a pose to be used effectively as the viewer can see more of the models body.









This is attempt number 3 which entails another medium close up which i believe is more successful when compared to previous attempts. However I believe that this is a weaker attempt as no backdrop is used and therefore would make the photograph look unprofessional and unworthy to be used in the making of a magazine. Depth of field has been used in this specific photograph and looks effective as the background around the model is not the main focus of the image and would look effective due to no backdrop being present. I believe that this photograph was the easiest to be taken as it would take less organisation and is more natural compared to the previous two images. I found difficult to get good lighting. In the future I must ensure that I use studio lighting to get the perfect image, as this image would be underexposed in my opinion.

NOV

5

From my print screens you can see that I have made and designed two surveys that will hopefully enable me to create a better understanding of what I need to do in order to create a successful magazine that my target audience will enjoy and hopefully find entertaining. Above is an online survey using the website Surveymonkey.co.uk whilst the second is exactly the same question wise but then printed out so that I can receive a hard copy of the data I will receive from the online surveys. I did this to eliminate any for of weakness one may have compared to the other. It was more time consuming, however, the results I believe will be more accurate due to this.

In addition to this I also interviewed an ex-student of the school in order to achieve a greater understanding on what the students of the school would have liked when they were here now that they do not have the opportunity to help us in creating the product of a magazine for the school. In the interview I asked the same questions that I asked the current students in order to get a set of results that were compatible with the rest. This in turn will aid in the collection of results when I use all of them to describe what form of target audience I have. 

In order to gain information on my target audience and actually gain a target audience I believe that the best course of action is to hand out a survey to individuals to understand what they want me to create in order to build a set of conventions I can use later on throughout the course whenever I need help with deciding what will be best for the magazine. Another step I could take is that I could interview someone from the target audiences age range, in order to delve deeper into the subject and find out even further what they want from a new product.

In order to create a survey I decided to use an online one as I believe in has a advantage over a hand written one in that it can be created and released to people at an instant that can then be given back at the same speed. In order to create an online survey I turned to the website www.surveymonkey.co.uk. This website will enable me to create a survey that I can use to gain information about my target audience upon what they would like to see in  my magazine. I will use ten questions to narrow down my specific audience and furthermore know what to include in my own magazine. This is because I do not believe people would be willing to answer more than ten in a short amount of time. I believe survey monkey will be easy to use because it allows the responses to be on my account and then I can see them without the use of any external forces. However, there is a con to online surveys in that people may click any response and not worry about the resulting actions taken due to them not writing the questions down. People may also misunderstand the questions put forward to them.

The question I have been thinking about asking are ones surrounding the target audience such as, an age range question; one that incorporates the gender of the individuals; the extracurricular activities of them and also that of their personal preference and interests. I believe that these will be suitable for my questionnaires as it will allow me to have a more specific idea of what my target audience wants me to create and how I can implement them.

As you can see Ihave re-created my initial magazine cover in indesign, I have done this by adding a similar image as well as re-creating all of the individual text on the side of the page. I believe I have used the tutorials well to recreate a decent first attempt of making a magazine cover this would be my first time making a magazine cover and I could improve it by spending more time on this particular project.

I first traced out the magazine front cover to gain accurate measurements. These measurements combined with the guidelines has helped me construct a magazine that is near identical to the actual copy. My tracing of the magazine was quite accurate, I drew all that I could see on the page, I found it easy to trace the magazine however I found I quite difficult to apply what I have drawn into adobe indesign which is a new software that I was unfamiliar with. however I used youtube videos which would help me allot to learn some tricks that I could use to make my magazine look professional in the future.

During this task I have learnt various techniques whilst watching the YouTube videos. I have learnt how to add images into InDesign, this would be an establishing feature that would allow me to create the first layer which would consist of the image that I have chosen of my Celebrity couple. I have chosen a image and have been able to learn from the video how to place the image on the left hand side of the file. I found this very easy as having used photoshop which is a similar software to InDesign. I was then able to learn from the video how to add text as well as change the colour of the text which you can see I have done in the image. 

I found to add effects to the text was quite difficult. This would be due to the fact I was learning a new software and was unfamiliar as to where to choose these options

Recreating the Chosen article

In the lesson I have just been in, I have seen many magazine examples and have chosen a specific article that I will be recreating next lesson on a program called indesign. This will be the first time I have used this new piece of software and will be a learning experience as it unlike other programs I have used in the past when dealing with creating pieces on a piece of technology. I hope to gain experience in this application in order to add skills that I did not have before hand when I started the course. In order to prepare for the next lesson I have watched several YouTube videos to gain a better understanding of the program. The video I watched that offered the most for me as a beginner is the one linked below.

The video showed me how to set up a new document and also to prepare myself when making a new piece of work that includes the preparation of images and documents and also items such as guidelines.

The magazine cover I will attempt to recreate in the new piece of software; InDesign is the following image of celebrity couple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie for OK magazine. I decided to attempt the recreation of this magazine cover due to the features it puts forward using the regular codes and conventions of existing magazine covers that successfully reach their target audience. By doing this I hope to both gain understanding of reaching my target audience using conventions, and to also gain experience in the new piece of software.

Introduction

In this Blog I will be showing my progression through my AS Media studies, I will be using programs such as, PowerPoint, Photoshop, In Design Using these program's will allow me too create a magazine that is based upon school life, During this year I will be also using photography to create a magazine that could be shown to represent school and sixth form in general.

My preliminary task would consist of me creating a magazine upon school life and more specifically sixth form life in general, this task would involve me making a front cover and also a contents page for this magazine, I will be using school resources such as In Design and school equipment such as the camera.

My main task will involve me creating a Music themed magazines, I will research in many different ways to create a replica of a magazine that can look professional, I have been asked to make a front cover a double page spread and also a contents page, this would be easily made by using in design and other photo manipulation software.

During this course I will be hoping to expand my knowledge upon using different softwares to create a very professional end product. I hope to learn various skills that would help me when making my final product, I will be learning this from the experience of my preliminary task which would prepare me well to later on create my music magazine. I hope to gain a level of understanding of the codes and conventions of a existing music magazine. In order to acheive this I must firstly be prepared in lesson and fully cooperating in class. Some barriers to this may be time management and getting all of my coursework complete in the time given to me by my teacher. This would be crucial however I believe that I am up for the challenge.