Preliminary Magazine Task

Pre ProductionFor this task we were asked to create a front cover and a contents page suitable for a school magazine. Included on our magazine had to be a mid shot photo which had to be taken by ourselves. This could be a photo of our self, our someone one else depending on who we wanted to be on the front of our magazine.


The first stage in pre production was to design our front cover on paper. This had to include the photo, each headline and also any extra details. I drew a picture of what i wanted my photo to look like and what expressions i wanted this to include. I also labelled who i wanted my magazine to be aimed at and which type of people would be actually interested in reading my magazine. I thought of many different ideas for my Masthead and finally decided on the name 'Rumour'. The reason i decided to use this name is because i thought that it fitted in well with the concept of a magazine and also the concept of a school.
Skills that i picked up throughout the pre-production process was that my design has to be detailed so i knew exactly what i wanted to do when i got onto creating the cover on Photoshop. I also realised that i had to know what audience i wanted my magazine to be suitable for, so i could then develop coverlines and photos which were appropriate.

ProductionI began the production part of my task by getting into a pair and going off to take photos for each others magazine covers. We had to take a mininum of 12 mid shot photos as this then made us able to choose from a wide selection and not wasting any time having to take new photos. I chose to take photos of one of my friends agaisnt a white background, as when it came to putting the footage onto Photoshop this would allow me to see easily what i had to cut out. This part of the task was fairly straight forward.

After gathering my photos and uploading them to the computer for the next part of my production i started to edit and create my front cover on Photoshop. I began by cutting out my photo using the Magnetic Lasso tool, which i found a simple task. I then began to create layers and started to add detail to my cover. I added the Masthead and chose to colour it in a lightblue, similar to the school colour. The background i filled my cover in with was just plain black, and the reason for chosing this was that it complimented the two other colour i chose to write in. These colours were, light blue and white so overall i stuck to a three colour palet which was black, blue and white. I had to decide on a font that i was going to put my masthead in. I knew i had to choose something thick so it was eye catching and easy to read but also something that looked quite smart and presentable. After i had picked a  font for the Masthead, i then went on to choose to others for the other coverlines that matched well.

So after deciding colours and fonts i then started to use the layers to put my magazine cover together. I added a date, price and bar code to make it look complete. Something i struggled with throughout using Photoshop was forgetting to add a layer with every new thing that i did. Apart from that i feel that i used the program as well as could have as i hadn't had much experience of using it before. The skills that i picked up throughout the production stage were using quite a few of the tools on Photoshop and also how to make my magazine look more proffessional by editing the smallest things. For example making sure that the text is aligned correctly etc. I feel that by doing this task i will have much more knowledge that i can put towards my final product to make as well as i can.

This is what my final product looked like.