Production Diary

15/02/14 - Creating My Evaluation

 During this week, I have started to change the format of my evaluations into something a bit more interesting. Personally, I believe the best way to do this would be to make my evaluation in a magazine format similar to my actual music magazine. Therefore I will include the same type of fonts, colour scheme and extra pictures of my model I took in my photo shoot. I think this is a good way to organise and present my questions about how I have created my magazine and my ideas throughout the project.

 I have started to create my evaluation on InDesign (the same programme I created my magazine as I have already learnt how to use this programme efficiently) and have started off with a simple cover including a large picture of my model I haven't used before as well as a masthead and a main sell line. I then moved onto the contents page where I made the text bigger than usual to fill up the whole page about where the different questions are in my evaluation magazine.

Production Diary

07/02/14 - Collecting Audience Data

Penultimate Version

Production Diary

30/01/14- Adding To My Blog & Improving My Magazine

 This week, I have continued to organise my blog by adding more posts such as my 'Cover Drafts'. I thought it was appropriate to create a PowerPoint showing the transformation of my cover page from my sketches to the various different drafts as I changed my ideas a lot. For example, I was unsure how to lay out my sell lines as well as being unsure about my cover image. This PowerPoint explains why I have changed my ideas and displays all the other ideas I had (including the selection of images).

 I have also continued to improve my magazine, for example I finally added some social media content to my content page. I added a way my audience can get involved with my magazine via Twitter and Facebook and also added both logos so my readers can clearly identify with the opportunity. I have also started to include headers and footers on each of my double page spreads to make the overall page look more interesting/more typical of a real life magazine.

Cover Drafts

This is the transformation of my cover page including my sketches and previous ideas. As you can see, my ideas about my cover page have changed a lot, yet this is still not the final draft as I feel there is still room for improvement to make it look more like a realistic music magazine.

Image Manipulation/Process: Before and After

 

These are two of the images I used on my third double page spread. The original images were in colour however I edited them in my magazine to make them look more original. On my double page spread, I include five photos of my model with the second and forth image being in black and white to contrast with the other images in colour. I managed this effect in Photoshop by first of all removing the background and then turning the image black and white. To remove the background, I used the magic wand tool and to change the colour I went onto the layers section to create a new fill or adjustment layer. I then selected black and white. I found removing the background the hardest task because of the way my model’s hair was styled – this meant I had to go in between the gaps to remove any excess background.

Production Diary

 
21/01/14 - Organising My Blog

This week, I continued to improve the posts on my blog as well as creating ones I hadn't yet posted. I made sure each blog post had the appropriate label such as 'Audience' or 'Research' and added any relevant information to explain each of my posts.

I also created another survey aimed at my target audience, asking what improvements I could make and what they liked best about my draft magazine. I personally think I still have a lot to add and improve so I will consider all comments and feedback that I receive. Personally I think it is important to contain some sort of social media that my audience can use to get involved with my magazine so I will add this to my contents page.