Final Evaluation

Front Cover
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B0QNSAHIClA-ZWJhN2I5MjQtNWU0NS00MjE0LTg4NmYtM2MzNThkNDRlNGRk&hl=en_GB

Contents Page
http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B0QNSAHIClA-NzA0ZWIyNDMtZWRmOC00YmM2LWE3OGItZDRjYzdlMDNiYjlm&hl=en_GB

Double Page spread














I have completed the coursework and overall believe I have been successful in creating an exiting and eye catching magazine. At the top of this blog you will find links to my cover and contents page which can be found in google documents. Unfortunately I had some technical issues with uploading my double page spread into google documents therefore I did a simple screen grab which can be clicked on to make larger.

The basis of my magazine is around the dance music genre. I conducted weeks of research into music magazines comparing the covers,contents and articles as well as trying to establish whether or not there a was a trend between the genres of magazines. I work in a newsagents at the weekend so I found this useful when researching. I noticed that all of the dance music based magazines, contained loud colours, bright pages and lots of packed content. I took two magazines into the staff room at work and asked the opinion of my colleagues to which magazine i should choose as a basis for my study. They guided me towards mix mag magazine which is by far the largest magazine basing itself around the dance music genre. I then looked at past issues of the magazine on blackboard as well as conducting my own research into the monthly issue of the magazine. I choose a similar format which matches mix-mags design. The picture I have put into the blog is the cover which my final piece is most inspired by. I opted to include a large image for my cover star striking the same kind of pose as Calvin Harris in mix mag, as well as a similar colour format choosing two colours and sticking to the design throughout the magazine. I differed it slightly because mix-mag choose black and pink, however I feel that pink and green on a black background matches the genre of clubbing. The colours are based around glow-sticks which obviously can be found in many clubs.I also included a tag-line for my magazine similar to mix-mags. Mix mag chose to use, "The worlds biggest dance music and clubbing magazine", whereas I chose to use "the music magazine that's lighting up the nation". This obviously is a connotation with the title of the magazine which is "Strobe" based on strobe lights.


When designing my cover as well as incorporating ideas from mix-mag I built upon my own ideas. I conducted research through using my facebook page putting two drafts into my photos and requesting comments from my friends and family. The feedback I was received was positive and used it additionally for deciding what to use for my cover shot and double page spread. For the double page spread I decided on using black and white images. This is because I noticed many artists now are being portrayed in black and white images and I felt as if it adds a modern and trendy feel to the article as well as matching the needs of my target audience. I decided to stick with the idea of the green writing on the black background as I believe it works effectively. In the whole of the planning process for my magazine, I have always been considering my target audience when making decisions. I wanted to create a magazine which is perfect for the social grouping I am aiming for. When producing my double page spread, I thought it best to include questions which will be interesting and informative to the social grouping I am aiming for. Subjects such as fellow famous DJ's and the use of social networking sites such as twitter are all touched upon in the interview, things that members of my target audience will want to read about and be familiar with. When deciding on which questions to us in the Q&A, I decided to produce a short-list of questions and allow my class-mates to pick the best 10 questions to go into my magazine. I made this decision because there are some people in the class that are from the target audience I am aiming at. This led me to think that the questions they would like to hear, could more then likely be generalised across my target audience as they all share similar interests.

When choosing the design elements of my magazine I tryed to take into account how it would stand out on the shop floor of a newsagents. I used elements such as bright colours,large photos and contrasting backgrounds to text, making it aesthetically pleasing. When considering what type of newsagents will stock my magazine, I would like to think the magazine would be suitable for most top newsagents and be success full among these stores. As i mentioned earlier on in the blog I worked in WH Smiths which is one of the largest magazine and news retailers in the country. I work within the magazine department and spend a lot of time at weekends doing magazine orders as well as delivery and sending back old issues. I have noticed in terms of dance music magazines, there are not many to choose from, compared with rock and instrument magazines. Therefore I feel a gap in the market is appropriate for a dance magazine aimed at the younger generation. Dance music's fan base is every growing, therefore more magazine should start to be created to appeal to the growing audience it is attracting. To visit WH Smiths website and check there stock list please click this link http://www.whsmith.co.uk/Magazines.aspx.


Over the course of producing this coursework, I feel my skills on both in design and photoshop have improved. When starting the coursework , I had never used either program before and I feel my preliminary reflects this. Throughout the coursework process I have learnt many things such as how to edit my photographs, how to import my own fonts, how to create a pdf file as well as how to upload them into google documents. I found the help-packs provided by my teachers very helpful and used them to teach myself the skills needed to create a piece that I was pleased with. At first I had trouble with the magnetic lasso and cutting out images but after using it a couple of times found it easier and became more efficient. At first it would take me almost half an hour to cut out a simple image. My idea of having a green glow around my front cover image was something I wanted to do from he start of the coursework, after being shown how to do this I was very happy with the outcome and pleased I had been able to incorporate this idea into my work. Since the preliminary coursework I have learnt many other skills which hopefully will be called upon again at some point in my academic career. Also I planned a lot more work before starting it in my final piece. The research I conducted I found helpful and I feel if i had of done this in my preliminary piece, that I would of finished with a better result.

After finishing my coursework, I again used my facebook page to upload the images into an album and ask for reviews from my friends on the social networking site. Here are some of the reviews I received...

"Decent work Luke, you should be really pleased"
"I would definitely buy that magazine mate, looks awesome"
"Colours are great, love the green and the pink together"
"Photos are brilliant, look really professional"

Unfortunatley I did not recieve a large amount of feedback of my facebook, therefore I decided to create a questionnaire to hand around the class. The feedback I recieved from the magazine was really pleasing and I was thrilled with the results I was getting. Overall in my own opinion, I am happy with the magazine as a whole, due to it being my first time using the programs required. As well as my own opinion, it has been supported by my friends and family who also believe the magazine is of a high standard and would be succesful in the magazine industry. I have really enjoyed completing this coursework and have learnt a lot about the industry as a whole as well as the differing target audiences. I believe that hopefully the final piece represents the amount of effort I have put into this coursework and has potential success as a magazine.

Planning and evaluation of the article

This is a double page spread design taken from the dance music magazine "mix-mag". I have chosen to use mix mag because it is a magazine of the same genre and target audience as the magazine I am creating. The first page element which stands out to me is the fact that the article, which is interview format, has a large picture of the artist being interviewed which takes up a whole page. This is an element used by the writer of the article to obviously show the reader who is being interviewed and also put a face to the person they are reading about. The large picture is also accompanied by a small caption which takes a small passage of text from the article. This caption, i have noticed whilst researching double page spreads, is usually something an artist has said throughout the interview which is either inspiring, informational or shares an opinion. Usually a caption is put into place to make the reader want to read on, therefore I should consider what part of my double page spread to use which follows the same format as other articles i have previously seen. The text almost takes backstage in this article because it is very picture orientated. This is possibly because of the fact that the artist pictured is considered to be attractive or simply because they are a big star in the industry. The language takes an informal tone and is easy to read and digest, without too many facts or polysyllabic phrases clumping up the article. Phrases such as, "She invites mix-mag into her mini studio, hardware hogs most of the space", this is a phrase which i feel follows an informal approach, this allows the reader to feel more comfortable when reading it. The interview follows an informal approach and is not a Q&A styled piece of writing, it is unstructured and takes the form of more of a conversation then a formal interview. This could potentially allow the interviewee to be more at ease and reveal more information to the interviewer.

The next magazine double page spread i have analysed is again taken from an earlier issue of mixmag. It follows the same format as the other article I looked at from the same magazine however its picture focus is even larger then the earlier double page spread. This specific article is based around a two artists and dosen't focus entirely a specific artist. The language does take a more formal approach due to the fact it is based on being informative therefore dosen't use the informative interview tone as the other article. It dosen't contain captions like the previous article and its section of texts are smaller. I believe mix-mag as a magazine focuses more on image and presentation then the actual wording within the article.

I have started to consider ideas for my double page spread, i conducted a small survey within the class and my group of friends to aid me in deciding what format of article to choose. I settled upon the Q&A format with the interviewer asking the questions and the artist (DJ Fortune) answering them. The reason i have chosen to do this is not only because i was recommended to through my survey, but also because when reading magazines such as music magazines, if i see a star on the cover I want to read the article to learn more about them. My opinion is that the Q&A format is the best type of article to adopt when looking to find out information about an artist. My language choices will be informal because I want the Q&A to feel more like a conversation and conservations are not usually conducted through using formal language. I plan to do some drafts of my article then get feedback through asking the same people who recommended me to choose this type of format. I will then use the feedback to make additional changes to the draft before producing it.

Photo editing

This is a image that i edited to go into my magazine. I basically took the original image and added an outer glow to allow the image to stand out more against a black background. It also fits in with the connotation throughout the magazine with a strobe light. Due to the magazine being named strobe I chose to incorparate this design into my work on my front cover and my contents page. The front cover image is the same design as I felt it necessary to include the same colour schemes throughout the magazine.

My cover image was exactly the same as this image only larger and had the same green glow but a bit thicker. To create this effect I first used the magnetic lasso tool to cut around the edges of my image. I then dragged the image onto a new page and created a new layer. I changed the background colour to black and then selected my image and clicked the layer tab, then selected layer style and outer glow. I experimented with different colours and sizes for the outer glow, eventually settling on the one used in my article. This was the same process I went through for my front cover image and my contents page.

For this image it was more simple to edit. I wanted my double page spread to take a modern feel and through research noticed that some magazines used the black and white imagery in thier articles when interviewing. I used two images in my double page spread, both were in grayscale, however to keep with the theme of the magazine the font was in green. For this image I simply opened the image in photoshop, then click the image tab, click the mode button then down to grayscale. For the second image however, I used the magnetic lasso to cut the picture out onto a different background before applying grayscale.