Front Cover Research (Music Magazine Covers)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          The task I was given is to look into existing music magazine covers. I analysed three music magazine covers: two from NME and one from XXL. Both of the magazines are completely different from main image to colors schemes and unique in its own way of publishing. All three of the three music magazines are common as they are all about music (artists). I personally think that this task can help me get ideas on how my front cover and my content page will look like with many company inspirations.

Production Log #6 - Feedbacks (School Magazine)

Production Log #5 - Uploading the Video onto YouTube

When I created a video by using 'CamStudio' and then used 'Adobe Premiere Pro CC' to edit it so it looks professional when people watch it. I wanted to upload the video onto YouTube because then it would give me the highest quality which is 1080p and also it will be easier for people to watch it as everyone use YouTube to watch a clip.

I started up by going on YouTube.

YouTube suggested me to sign in if I wanted to upload a video into my channel. So, I signed in and then clicked 'Upload'. This enabled me to upload any videos that are in my desktop onto YouTube.

YouTube told me to select files to upload or to drag and drop video files. So, I clicked the upload button that's in red as it will be easier for me to find the video.

When clicking the upload button, I selected the video I wanted to upload onto YouTube.

After selecting the video, I clicked 'Open'.

By clicking 'Open', it immediately started the uploading process. As you can see in the picture below, I have circled to show that it is uploading onto YouTube.

When the uploading process was completed, I clicked 'Publish' as this will let the public watch my video.

Production Log #4 - Using Adobe Premiere To Render The Video

After recording the video of how the school magazine is designed, I wanted to edit the video so that I can add a song in the background as this will not bore the people who watch it and also, cut the bits where it's irrelevant to what I was doing.

To edit the video, I opened up 'Adobe Premiere Pro CS6'. 

Once 'Adobe Premiere Pro CS6' opened, I clicked on 'New Project'. This will make a new layer where I can cut and edit the bits I don't want people to see when they watch the video on YouTube.

I wanted to import the video I recorded into Premiere Pro CC. So, I clicked 'File' and then clicked 'Import' where this will let all the files appear and choose which one to import.

When I was satisfied with the selection by selecting 'School Magazine Video', I clicked 'Open' and it extracted the video into 'Premiere Pro CS6'.

Even though, the video was on the layer, I had to drag the clip onto the editing track where I'll be able to make changes such as: cutting sections of the video, creating an introduction video at the start, add musics in the background and lots more.

Preliminary Task - Evaluation

In my preliminary task, I'm going to evaluate my front cover and my content page, which were designed in Adobe Photoshop CS6 for the Haydon School. For my front cover, I chose two colours for the title because both of the colours represents the Haydon School and the colours are purple and white. The font I have used for the title is called 'Bernard MT Condensed' which is a bold and simple font which attracts the students' attention from a far distance. However, the texts around the title has a complete different font as I wanted the magazine to look lively and interesting instead of being dull and plain. Furthermore, I added clip arts of everything that is related to Haydon School, for example: dictionary, thesaurus, books, bags and the students' accessories. The main image of the front cover is a student at Haydon School who achieved excellent GCSE grades and the reason why I chose to put a picture of a student is because I wanted the students to be inspired and look up by the student who's on the magazine. Furthermore, the texts around the title are spread all over the front page so that the students have an idea of what the magazine is about and also can focus on the front page too. In the background, I added a picture of the cloud to give the magazine a nature feeling and a picture of the school building behind the title to make the font stand out. At the bottom of the front cover, I added the school website so that the students know where to go to find out more about a topic that's in the magazine.

In my content page, I added an image of the same cloud that's been used in the front cover to show the students that both of them are in the same magazine. At the top of the page, I added the title too so that the students know what the page is really about. Each of the pages' name has a number on the left to guide the students where each pages are. The title is in two colours (Blue and Black) and the reason why I chose those two colours is because they both stood out when I was looking at the title from a far distance. The names and the numbers of the pages are in multi-colours which in other words, it is coded so that the students get a clear understanding of where each pages are and also, I used different colours to attract the students because normally, students are more into colourful pages than plain pages.

The positive thing about my magazine is that I have put in so much effort in it as it was a task given by my Media teacher. The strength about my magazine is that I made the front cover colourful and lively with so much clip arts around the title and texts all over the page. I personally think that I have met the criteria for the preliminary task and have successfully succeeded the task by designing a school magazine for Haydon School. However, I could have improved my front cover by having a school slogan somewhere in the page so that it could influence the students, add more texts at the bottom of the title and make the title bold. I also could have improved the content page by adding social networking sites like: Facebook and Twitter and add special messages of the seniors to influence the students in school.

I will make sure that when I come across a task like this in future, I use the new skills that I have been taught by the experts for my actual task and also make sure that my magazine looks simple but professional when it comes to presenting to the students.

Progess of making the front cover for the School Magazine

 

Final look of the front cover for the School Magazine
 

Progress of making the contents page for the School Magazine
 

Final look of the contents page for the School Magazine

Preliminary Task - Front Cover & Content Page

Front cover



Content page

Preliminary Task - Video of the Magazine Process

Preliminary Task Ideas

Evaluation of Geeta Gohil's Blog

Production Log #3 - Creating A Video Using CamStudio

To create a video to show how I designed the School Magazine, I had to use 'CamStudio' which is a software that records everything that's on the screen.

To make the software record the screen, I clicked on the red circle and it began to record what I was doing which in this case, showing how I designed the School Magazine.

When I was finished with recording, I then clicked on the blue square which is the pause button and it asked me where I wanted it save it, so I selected 'Desktop' and clicked 'Save'.

Once I clicked 'Save', this video properties window popped up. I didn't make any changes because it seemed fine to me so I pressed 'OK'.

By clicking 'OK', it saved the video on my desktop as a window player file.

Production Log #2 - Producing My Preliminary Task

In school, I completed my preliminary task, which was to design a front cover and content page of the school’s magazine. The software I used to design the school magazine was ‘Adobe Photoshop CS6’ and I opened up my document as I continued to edit the front cover. On the front cover, I made changes which include changing the name of the magazine to ‘School Magazine’. I decided this to be the name of the magazine as it is easy to recognize when the students see the magazine and also it is suitable for the theme and genre of the magazine. I used a purple colour text to represent the Haydon School and white to represent the students’ shirt. I placed the ‘Haydon Magazine’ text in the middle as students normally look in the middle when they see a magazine. I continued with my front cover in my media lessons by adding texts around the title like: ‘Results Day’, ‘Comedy Night!’ and also add photos of everything the school provides and what the students bring to school, for example: dictionary, thesaurus, healthy foods, bags, books and all the accessories. All the clip arts around the title are linked with Haydon School. Adding the clip arts around the title took me quite a long time because I had to think where it would look better and also, I came across an issue which was taking up my time as all the layers were all over the place and I had to put them in order so that it will be easier for me to edit it again when I come back to improve it. Some of the texts have an image so that the front cover looks lively and interesting and more focused on the news that’s added on the magazine. When it came to picking a main image of a student, I couldn’t think of a pose to give them as I wanted the image to be placed in the middle, above the magazine text so I’m going to leave it without a main picture for now and come back when I have chosen the pose to give to the student.

After putting the front cover onto one side, I started with the content page and for that, I used the same software I used when I designed the front cover. I placed the title of the content page at the top of the page but in the middle so it look professional. Next to the title, I added the Haydon School logo to symbolize that the magazine is published by the Haydon School. I decided that the content text should be in blue and the page text should be in black. The reason why I chose both colours is because it stood out when I was looking at it from a far distance. The names and the numbers of the pages were lined underneath the content page title with multi-colours (red, purple, blue, turquoise, turquoise/green, green and light green). Beneath the names and the numbers of the pages, I added three photos of the Haydon School to show how it looks from the outside. This task took me time as I had to look at different photos of the school and decide which one would best suit the content page.

 

I really enjoyed designing the front cover and the content page but it was worrying me that I couldn’t think of a pose to give to the student so it would suit the front cover but, I’m happy that I finished it in a double lesson with a bit of difficulties in making the front cover and the content page look professional. I’m also really confident in using the Adobe Photoshop CS6 and sonly hope that I will be able to use it in my next future task.

Production Log #1 - Preliminary Task

For the preliminary task, I was told to design a school magazine for Haydon School where all the news from school will be in pages including the front cover and the content page. When I was told about the task, I had a rough idea on my mind of how it is going to be which in this case, it is going to be colourful and related to school students. The magazine I am going to design will be targeted at the students who are aged 13-18 because that is the age all the students stay at school and when they become 18, they either go through the apprenticeship route or go university. I have decided that this school magazine has to grab the students' attention by using colourful texts and making the title bold so that the students can notice it from a far distance and will be keen to read it and not just put it in their bags and not see it ever again. In addition, I want the school magazine to be related to the school students like for example: after school activities, the statistic diagram of last year's GCSE/GCE results, pictures of the new buildings in school, the timetable of the meals the canteen distributes and other things around school. I  also want this school magazine to be based on everything that is related or involved with the students in school for instance: the results day, new year 7s, the canteen and also the new buildings. After taking in all the ideas, I was then told to create a power point and put all my ideas in a spider diagram so that I could come back and change it if I am not satisfied with it, just before I upload the power point onto my blog. As I gathered and saved all my ideas on a power point with the following headings such as: front page, content page, colour scheme and news, my next task is to draw the front cover and the content page in much details as possible and colour them to make it look realistic.

The ideas I came up with for the school magazine.