Evaluation on Prezi

Khadijah Green
Candidate Number: 8114
Centre Number: 16829

Hello, this is my blog where you will be able to see the different stages that I have done to construct my magazine. This includes my front cover, contents page, double page spread, preliminary task with front cover and contents page and the planning of how I thought of the ideas to make the magazine.

Final Product

This is my front cover of the magazine. This took me the longest amount of time to make out of all the other pages. This was mainly due to the fact that I was having a lot of trouble placing a background onto the page. I had placed the centre image and mostly all of the text at the start then left the background till last to do as I wanted to see which colour would suit the text best. Every time I tried to insert a background the colour kept on clashing with the image.It was making the image turn lighter and distorted. So after 2 hours of attempting to insert a background my friend tried to help me and we found a solution by copying the image, deleting it off the page, then inserting the background and then pasting the image back onto page. I was not satisfied with the colour afterwards because it was a dark cherry pink and you could not read the text clearly. So I tried to change it but photoshop would only let me go to lighter pinks.I changed it to a very light pink that was hardly noticeable and decided I wanted another colour. In the end I used the gradient tool to make the left hand side darker than the right which I thought was a better look.

I think this updated contents page is a lot better than the one I had before. This improved contents page definitely has a lot more design and the use of more images has made the page look more exciting. Also the attention is not focused so much on the one girl now, adding the picture of another artist makes the magazine look like it has more contents inside it rather than it just being focused on my main artist.

I found doing my double page spread a lot easier than my front cover and contents page as I did this page last so I was more used to using photoshop. I took the idea of having a big 'C' from one of Q's double page spreads.

Contents So Far..

This is a print screen of my contents page so far. I have just cut out the image and placed it onto the page, added a background using the gradient tool and added these green shapes in there to make it look more funky. Somehow I think this page looks quite boring and dull compared to my front page. I did want to have a pink and white background to make the page more colorful but pink and red clash so they wouldn't look good together. I need to think of some more ideas to make this page look more interesting.

In the end, I had decided to choose this image because I thought it was more of an eye catching image and I was browsing through some other music magazines on the Internet and quite a lot of the images on the front cover was similar to this picture I had taken.
I have started making the front cover, so this is a rough idea of what it is going to look like.
I thought this image would have been a good image for the front cover because it has a similiar layout to the 'Glamour' magazine above it.

My Planned Questions

In my double page spread, I will be doing a question and answer interview with my solo R'n'B artist 'Chanelle Rose'. I will be asking her questions like:
Q: Chanelle, what a pleasure it is to finally meet you. What have you been getting up to for the past 6 months?
A: Thank you its an honour to be here right now. Well I've just been working on my new album 'Sweet Like Roses' for the past few months. I've just been in the studio mixing the music trying to find all the right sounds.

Q: So we hear things between you and Ramelle Ramone have been getting a bit juicy... care to fill us in?
A: Well. I don't like to kiss and tell but we have admitted that we have feelings for each other. But as you can see I'm a hardworking woman so my music comes first.

Q: That should be a real sweet album, would you like to tell us when its out?
A: Only because this is my favourite magazine; I can tell you that the album will officially be out on the 18th of December.

Q: Who inspired your style of music?
A:  A lot of artists like Alicia Keys, Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey inspire me, but I think my Aunty was a huge influence as she used to play the piano very often when I was younger. Sometimes we would write a few songs together and play them to my mum. As I got older I started listening to different genres of music and later established my own style.

Q: Who would you say is your music icon?
A: I have always adored Rihianna. I love her inspiration for music, her style and how beautiful she is.

Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: I Hope to be going on tour for the new album

Q: Thanks for speaking to us Chanelle, we hope to hear from you soon
A: Thanks for having me, I hope to be back

Magazine Images

These are a few images that I have taken of my model.  We tried to do various different poses and shots so that at the end I could choose the best looking photo. We experimented with different facial expressions and stances so that we could get some decent looking pictures.

I really liked this one here on the left as I thought that it would have suited my magazine name 'Xplicit' because it looks as though she has a lot of attitude and the word 'Xplicit' is associated with forbidden and adult themes.

Music Magazine Pitch

I have decided to call my magazine  name 'Xplicit'. The genre will be based on R'n'B and this will be a monthly magazine so I will charge about £3.50 because if the magazine only comes out once a month it can't be too cheap otherwise it wouldn't be making much profit. Although, if it was too expensive it wouldn't make much profit either because customers would not be willing to pay the price.
My audience will be for females aged from 15-24 year olds. I was going to target it at 13 year old males and females but 'Xplicit' does not sound like a magazine that parents would want their children to buy. Also this magazine should be for people who can afford a disposable income.

The audience profile is for people who like to read all the latest news about music, and their dislikes would be boring information like politics etc that the older audiences (35+) might enjoy reading.
The name 'Xplicit' associates with X-rated words. 'XXL' is a similar magazine to mine because the names are similar; but XXL mainly focuses on hip hop music but my magazine is focused on R'n'B so my magazine will have a bit more of a girly twist to it as XXL focuses more on boys/men because most of their front covers have images of men on the front.

The fonts I will be using will be a sharp, stylish, curved font that is in tone to the magazine name. I will use a medium shot of one or two people. For my double page spread, I will have a question and answer theme. It will be an interview, so I will be making and answering all of the questions about the artist.
For the front cover image I plan to have medium shot of one person. I want this image to be very eye-catching so that it will draw the readers attention. The inducements that I plan to have on the front page will be special prizes to be won/special offers or maybe vouchers. This will also help to attract the readers because it would encourage them to buy the magazine as they might have the chance to win some special offers.
My USP will be bright positive colours throughout the magazine.  I hope to have a very bright magazine that will have an enthusiastic look to it. I hope that the bright colours will attract readers as it stand out from many of the other magazines.

Clash And Q Contents Page Analysis

 The magazine uses two images on this contents page.These have been constructed by placing the relevant image next to or on top of the piece of text that it relates to. These support my initial findings about the style of the magazine because it tells me that the magazine is very organised in where they have placed their texts and images. The text is all in line underneath and next to each other which shows that some thought has gone into the style. Some magazines' contents page have text randomly spread out over the page but this one all fits together. My initial findings about the intended audience proves my point about 'Q''s target audience because they have chosen to use both young female and males for their images. Adele is quite young aged 23 and the boys front 'The last shadow puppets' in the image are aged from 25 to 39.

The colours red, white, grey and black are mainly used. This supports the style of the front cover because it is still the same colour scheme and has the 'Q' sign twice on the page so if you was to see the contents page on its own then the audience would be able to recognise this.

The information is organised into different sections with similar content, so that it is easy to access because the audience will be able to look at the section titles and see which articles they would like to read. The different sections are the 'feautures', 'every month', 'women in music' and 'review'. This tells me that that the magazine includes things like crosswords and subscriptions at the end of the magazine every month because they have chosen to name the title 'every month'. This also tells me that the magazine has an appeal to women because they have a section about the women in music which would be a bit more interesting for women to read as the can relate more to this.

The magazine logo is placed twice on the page and always on the left hand side of text. It is quite dominant because it is a different colour to the other pieces of text surrounding it so it makes the logo stand out more.

Clash uses various different images on their content page. These images have been constructed at the bottom of the page to give the page a bit more flare to it. These support my initial findings about the style of the magazine because the contents page is quite stylish but simple. It tells me that the page was intended for 18-26 year olds because the page does not have as many colours compared Q's contents page and it is not as eye catching because their target audience don't need to be drawed into any promotions etc.

Black and white are used for the text and the background. The only colourful colours that are used are in the pictures which focus more attention onto them. This kind of supports the style of the front cover because both the colours of the front cover and contents page's are quite dull and a San Serif font is also used.

The information is organised into subheadings and then titles of the articles and things that are going to be inside so that the reader can look at the sub headings to see which article they would like to read. This makes it accessible because it saves the reader the time of having to skim through all of the articles and looking for which one they would like to read. The different sections are 'Features', 'Regulars' and 'Fashion'.This tells me that the magazine has very a very big range of articles because there are only three sections.

The magazine logo is not placed anywhere on the page because it is probably quite dominant so they thought readers would establish that it is a Clash contents page so they didn't need to put it anywhere. 

Clash And Q Front Cover Analysis

Clash is a bi-monthly British music and fashion magazine which has a range of genres like rock, dance and hip hop. From the front cover, I can tell that articles from music artists like Jay Z and The Beatles are going to be inside as they are advertised on the page. The target audience for this magazine are 18-26 year old city slickers who enjoy live alternative music from a range of genres.

By the central image, the mode of address that the magazine is using is one eye catching image that the audience can see very clearly. The man in the image is faced directly to the audience to catch their attention and his face takes up more than 75% of the front cover. This tells me that the type of relationship it wants with its readers is a very close and intimidating relationship.  

Jay Z is on the front cover because he is a very well known rap star. So if the audience was to take one look at the magazine then they will recognise him and it will persuade them to take a longer look at the magazine and maybe purchase it.

The anchorage text says ‘JAY-Z the worlds biggest rap star reveals all!’ This implies that Jay-z will be giving a full article on eventful parts in his life. By saying ‘Reveals All’, it makes the readers want to read the article because it seems as though he is going to be revealing truths and secrets about himself that the press don’t really know yet. The overall message that the artist is giving is that he has things to hide and he is now going to reveal the ultimate truth about himself or that he is going to reveal how he became the worlds biggest rap star. The magazine represents the Beatles by having two of their band members ‘McCartney and YOKO’ speak to the magazine.

The design of the title block tells me that the magazine is quite sophisticated and stylish because the ‘a’ and‘s’ has a very significant style the way they are joint together. The title of the magazine tells me that the readership have a clash of people reading as this magazine does a range of genres so it has a variety of different audiences reading. The ‘puffs’ suggest that inside the magazine there will be different bands and music artists doing interviews and articles about upcoming songs and their plans for the future. This tells me that the magazine expects to get audiences that like reading about music bands and artists. The main colours that are used are brown white and black. I don’t really find them attractive because they are quite plain and dull and they don’t stand out much so they don’t draw the reader’s attention. The font used is a heavy San serif font to make the writing big and bold so it stands out from the rest of the image. The magazine uses quite a big image to catch the audiences eyes.

Q is a pop/rock music magazine.From the front cover it looks like articles about Madonna, the Artic Monkeys, Russel Brand , and the Rolling Stones are going to be inside. The target audience for this magazine are music buyers male and female over the ages of 25. I think this magazine is targeted for people who have a passion for reading all about music bands and artists and for getting all the latest gossips and updates on the music industry. Madonna is on the front cover because she is a highly famous singer, songwriter, entrepreneur and actress. By putting Madonna on the front cover this will draw in a lot of readers as she is known by a wide range of people so this will catch the readers attention as they will be able to recognise her. Madonna's eyes are looking directly at the audience and she is looking quite mysterious whilst grabbing onto her clothes very tightly so this shows that the magazine wants an exclusivity type of relationship with the readers and they want the audience to know that they have interviews with Madonna that no other magazine has.

There is a slogan on the magazine saying 'Britains Biggest Music Magazine'. This tells me that the magazine is very popular in Britain and attracts a lot of readers. It helps to attract readers because the word 'biggest' is used so it makes readers want to pick it up and see what exactly is inside that makes it the biggest magazine in Britain. The main colours that are used is red, black and white. I don't really find the black and white attractive because they are quite plain colours that we see everyday in life.But the red is a bright tone which stands out from the rest of the front cover.

The 'puffs' suggest that the magazine will be interviewing different bands like the Girls Aloud, Kaiser chiefs and people like Russel Brand and Michael Stipe. This tells me that the type of audience that the magazine will expect to get is young male and females from around the ages of 17-25.

The title block for 'Q' is extremely short and catchy which shows that the 'Q' must be a very recognisable title for them to have shortened it down from 'Que' to 'Q'.The font style of the title block Q is a serif font which looks similar to the italic look. This makes the title block look quite posh and professional with the little flick on the 'Q' as well. The colour red also suggests the style of rock. The letter Q is an acronym which is short for the male name Quinten Richardson who is the former creator of Q magazine.

Contents Page Analysis

Contents Page on Prezi

The Preliminary Task

This is my school magazine which I have just finished and managed to upload to my Blogger. This took me a bit of time as I had to use Photoshop to edit and cut out the image etc and I'm still not very confident using Photoshop.
At the start, I struggled a lot to use the magnetic lasso tool to cut out the unwanted pieces in the image, I will admit that I was getting stressed because I could not do this and it was taking me extra time, but after putting my mind to it and trying to focus I had done it in the end. The way I had cut pieces out of the image at the top was not exactly perfect so I decided to just use the Eraser to erase the parts of the image that I did not want. After doing all of this I then added all the text to the magazine which was not much of a problem at all.

My first attempt using photoshop

I had attempted to make this nature magazine after being shown how to use photo shop. I had a lot of difficulty trying to cut the swan out and paste it onto the page, but I eventually did it in the end. I think photo shop is quite tricky to use but if I keep using it I will get to know my way around and hopefully end up with a good magazine.

Analysis Of Cosmopolitan Magazine

I found this magazine and textually analysed the front cover.

Photoshop Tutorial Feedback

My class and I had a photoshop tutorial with the technician, showing us how to use all the features on photoshop. It was quite challenging at first trying to use all the designs, cutting out images, and applying colour to text. I could see that a majority of the class was having difficulty using it so I did not feel too bad. But I think that if I put my mind to it then I will be able to work photoshop quite well. I also found it quite difficult trying to cut out images and paste it onto another page so I tried numerous times trying to work it out for myself but I still could not work it out; so in the end I just asked the technician to help me and then I soon knew how to do it.

This is the link to my Prezi

http://prezi.com/0h99pv53su74/magazine-cover/