Music Central - The Final Presentation

This presentation was what signified the end of the project as it was summarising everything we had done and what we had learned from it. I learnt quite a bit mainly the skills needed in order to use Macromedia Fireworks which was what I created my magazine pages on.

Again I did not like doing the PowerPoint Presentation although I believe I did it better this time as I have done presentations in other lessons too which I believe made me feel less nervous although I was still glad when it was over.

I managed to complete this presentation over the course of one weekend. I had lots of other pieces of work to do and managed to complete it all which was something I was really happy about. As with other presentations I began with the title page which told the audience what my magazine was called, I also included some images to make sure that the page did not appear to be to plain. I also made sure that the images did not make the page look too full or cramped, this way the image fill up most of the space but leave a little free so it did not look as though I had images to cover every part of visible space I could see.

My teacher emailed me and the other students mentioning the questions that needed to be answered in our presentations. The first one was talking about my final products and how I have used conventions of rea; magazines to make my own. On this page I talked about each page of my magazine and what convetions I used for each giving the audience an idea of much I have taken into consideration when creating the presentation and, most importantly, the final product.

Next was the toughest questions as I had ot mention what social group my magazine was aimed at and at first I didn't know what the question actually meant which resulted in me being stuck on what to answer, I emailed my teacher and recieved a reply with what it meant so I managed to answer this questions on the sunday before the presentation had to be emailed to my teacher after school on Monday.

The presentation answered all of the questions we were given which I was happy with as I worked really hard on making sure I had given decent and understandable answers before emailing my presentation to my teacher. I also had to makse sure that I understand everything I was saying concentrating mainly on thw questions I had a little trouble with as it was my presentation therefore I had to understand it otherwise the audience wouldn't be able to. All of the slides my presentation includes are below.

Finally, when it came to sending my teacher my presentation it took me a while as whenever I went to send it I would be told that I was unable to send it as I had exceeded my mailbox limit so in order for me to be able to send it I went through some of my older emails and deleted the ones that weren't necessary which included three with attachments. This reduced the amount of space used on me email area and allowed me to easily send my presentation to my teacher. When this was done I had to wait until wednesday before doing mine and after that all I had to do was complete this blog and the project was finished. One this is for sure I did enjoy making my magazine.

Double Page Spread Construction

27/11/08 - Today I began by starting my article for my double page spread and I did this on Microsoft Word. I managed to include the title and sub-title for the page as well as two paragraphs of the actual article. I didn't finish this in the lesson but as I have a long weekend due to teacher training I will try and do some more then.

28/11/08 - I did not have a lesson today as it was teacher training.

1/12/08 - I continued with my double page spread article although I dind't get far I began to understand how I would need to right my article in order to make it conventional to a real magazine.

2/12/08 - Again I continued with my double page spread article. managed to get further which I was pleased with as at the beginning I struggled a bit with how to start off. The story will focus around Dee as this is the person on the cover of my contents page as this would help and amintain house style as well as making my magaine more conventional as more often than not the person that is on the cover of the magazine is who the main story is about.

I also included something that wasn't on the cover of my magazine which was that the artist may be releasing their own clothing line. I even included an example. I thought this would be a goo idea as although articles are about finding the person behind the cleberity it also shows that cleberities can do other things other than what the media reports they are doing i.e. mary-kate and ashley, started off as actresses and developed into their won clothing line which was where I got the idea from.

3/12/08 - Today I finished my double page spread by adding a little extra to the article and completing the Q&A questions for the star interview, tomorrow I will move on to organising the layout for my article as well as deciding on the images that will be included.

4/12/08 - Today I recieved the necessary feedback for my double page spread and was told that it would be a good idea to include a few more questions as well as a closing sentence to the article. I also looked back at my Magazine Pitch presentation, specifically at the layout design section, I decided to try the first layout to see what it looked like which was where one page contained one big image. On the opposite page was where all of the information was to be positioned, the article beginning and Q&A questions. I was unable to finish the article though and I will try and do this tomorrow. If i do finish it tomorrow then I will e-mail it to my teacher to look at over the weekend so she can give me any improvements I could do. These improvements will be made at soon as possible but if i don't finish the article tomorrow this will be done at the beginning of the week and e-mailed to my teacher for feedback as soon as it is completed.

8/12/08 - On Friday I did not manage to finish the article like I'd hoped to but I did this this morning and sent it for feedback before the lesson began, as this was the case I updated this blog for a bit during the lesson until my teacher managed to look at my draft and send me feedback so I had the chance to improve. These improvements were done during the lesson and in my free time. I also plan to finish these improvements in tomorrow's lesson.

One of the improvements suggested by my teacher was a large quotation to be positioned along the bottom of the image which I thought was an excellent idea.

9/12/08 - I continued with improved today. my teacher suggesting insetting the quotes into the sentence which, at first, i did not understand but it was explained I grasped the idea. As I did this to my magazine I believe it began to look more and more like a magazine. The quotes in the boxes were removed and I'm glad I did this as they weren't very conventional compared to the magazine now. The page numbers have been added but I was unable to make any further changes as the lesson ended before I could do aything further. I will continue this tomorrow.

10/12/08 - I managed to finish the improvements on my double page spread today and the final version I was extremely pleased with. The final vinal is the same as above although the writing may have slightly moved as the changes I made today were very minor and hardly noticeable.

Once all of the changes had been made and it was the best I think I could produce I e-mailed this version to my teacher clearly stating that it was my final version.

Contents Construction

13/11/08 - Today was the beginning of my contents page. From my draft designs I had decided to go for the design with the 'contents' title going verticle down the left hand side of the page.

I began by colouring the background and adding the title as it was the only thing that i knew would be included as no matter which position it is placed in the page will still contain the title 'Contents' therefore it made sense to me that it was the first thing i added, I also made the background the same colour as the title page which I consider using on all of the pages. I then reopened by finished cover and looked at the coverlines I had used and as there were only three off them instead of more as there were on my cover draft I decided to include them all.

The next thing I did to my magazine cover was to include the three coverlines but as the article was only to be a two page spread I needed it to look more conventional therefore I decided to create more stories that people my age, teenagers, would want to see included in a music magazine. I came up with a few good ideas and included them, I just managed to include the coverlines before the lesson ended.

14/11/08 - Today i began by adding an image of myself as in various magazines i had realised that sometimes the editors include a message from themselves to the read which is something i had decided to do. However, with the coverlines down the page and the title down the left hand side this left very little room for me to write.

As this was the case i began to wonder what i could change to give me more room, i decided to move the title to the top of the page, i also changed the font from Bernard MT Condensed to Comic Sans MS, this way i could use the left-hand-side for me to write down. I made sure the title was to the the right at the top of the page and used the space to the left to put my image. Around the image I added a pink lined box so that the image wasn't simply floating in midair as i knew this wasn't allowed. I also moved the coverlines along slightly so I would have enough room. Unfortunately I didn't get the writing done today as the lesson ended before I could.

17/11/08 - I didn't have a lesson today as I was part of an entreperneur task that was going on.

18/11/08 - I began by finishing the writing I started on the friday as missing a lesson meant i was further behind, afterwards I noticed a few things wrong with the changes i had made. The title of the page seemed a little dull so i decided it would be a good idea to surround it with a coloured box and used a fushia colour to do just that which made it stand out much more. I also added underneath, in the same colour, 'January 2009, issue 1/Volume 1' which is what magazines have on them so customers know the dates of certain issues.

I thought the idea I had about adding writing for the readers would be a good idea but once it was done it began to look different. It took me a while to figure it out but I began to understand, it was because of the coverlines as on magazines each coverline usually has a small sentence underneath giving an overview of the story which was something that I hadn't done and, in my opinion, it began to make the page look a bit cramped.

I therefore removed the image of myself and the writing and inserted a picture of 'Dee' the star that was the focus of my magazine, I placed this image in the bottom left corner and placed the coverlines around it. With the writing underneath each one took up more room meaning that i didn't have as much writing as I thought I'd have which reduced the cramped look even more.

19/11/08 - Today I adjusted a few parts of it and finished the coverline changes on the contents page. I didn't have much to do this lesson and as this was the case I merely added and removed different aspects of the page until I thought it was the way it should be. I haven't e-mailed it to my teacher yet as I have another lesson tomorrow and I am waiting incase i come across any further adjustments that need to be made.

20/11/08 - Today i spent the lesson continuing to update this blog and finishing the adjustments to my contents page draft before e-mailing it to my teacher. This is the final lesson of the week and I am gald I managed to finish my contents page and e-mail it to my teacher before th end of the day as if I hadn't then i would have to wait until next week as I don't have macromedia fireworks at home.

24/11/08 - yesterday I emailed my final draft version of my contents page and recieved feedback this morning. I spent today doing these improvements. I recieved a grade C- for my draft but I hope to boost this up to a grade B. It had been noticed that the font for the title on my contents page and title page were not the same therefore this was on something that needed to change as I needed to maintain the magazines 'house style'.

Secondly I was told that the Comic Sans font I had used for the writing on the contents page made the magazine appear to be aimed at a very young audience therefore I changed this and used the same font I had used for the coverlines on the cover page which was Arial and was something I should have to to begin with as this would also maintain the magazines house style.

I was also told that the colour scheme should be kept the same in my magazine as on my cover page I had used green, blue, pink and purple whereas on my contents page I used orange, blue red, yellow and pink which meant I had added another colour but that i had also changed some of the colours. i was able to do this as it meant that the magazine house style had changed therefore I improved my contents page but somehow I forgot to change these colours and used the same ones in my 'final' copy.

After sending the 'final copy to my teacher via e-mail i asked if she could suggest any further improvements as I was still aiming towards my B target grade. She suggested that I change the background colour from blue to white, she thought that by doing this it would make my magazine more professional which was another comment on my feedback as it didn't 'have a professional feel' to it. I recieved that e-mail later tonight but was unable to do the improvements today.

25/11/08 - Today was the day I made the suggested improvements to my contents page and I believe it worked out. Instead of emailing it to my teacher again i asked if it looked better that way and she said it was a huge improvement which was good. Yesterday, although i emailed my teacher about my contents page feedback i also asked what my overall grade was for my front cover and recieved the reply which said a C, although I was partly pleased with this mark I wanted to achieve a B as i know this coursework is 50% of our AS mark. She also sent a cover example (left) with the email which gave me an idea of what I needed to do to improve my cover (right).

My teacher also said she could sit down with me and discuss what the best thing would be to improve it but I didn't do this, instead, today, during my free lesson I took the feedback I had been given for my contents page and applied it to my cover as the background was also blue and though tht by also colouring the background white it would look more conventional to a real magazine.

Today I also changed the colours of the writing on my contents and cover pages using the most popular colours chosen by my questionnaire resposndents which were, blue, green, pink, red and yellow. By doing this I had settled on a house style and made it consistant throughout my magazine so far.

My teacher also showed me the example magazine with duffy on the front, Spin (above left), and told me that it would be a good idea to make my coverlines different sizes and to use two different colours as, using the spin magazine as an example, it would make my magazine more conventional.

Final cover was completed on the 26/11/08

26/11/08 - Today I continued with the changes suggested on my contents page as I used an example focusing around oasis which gave me a good idea as to how to make my contents seem more like it came from a real magazine. I moved things round a bit and changed the number and location of the image on the page to make enough room for the information the way I had decided to position it.

Instead of having the page numbers and stories in one long list I used the example as an icon and positioned my stories a similar way, by splitting them intop differetn sections although instea dof having three I only had two, features and regulars in order to make the page my own and the layout different instead of copying it completely.

Today i also completed the final version of my cover using my free time to make the changes suggested to me in the lesson but I didn't managae to send copies of either of these to my teacher as time ran out but this will be done immediately tomorrow as in tomorrows lesson we are beginning to right our article and as this is the case I would rather have completed and sent of my cover and contents page so that I am able to focus on the task at hand.

27/11/08 - Today i sent my copies of my cover page and contents page to my teacher and will begin my douple page spread article. I will await any possible feedback from my teacher and if there is time make these improvements in order to get the best possible result I can get.

Front Cover Construction

03/11/08 - Today we began creating our front covers, at the beginning of the lesson we were given a list of 30 lessons we have from now until christmas, on specific dates we were told to right down notes, for example, on the 6th lesson we have to hand in a draft of our cover and hand in the final copy on lesson 8. However, I didn't start my magazine today as before the holidays Miss Furness was ill on the day I was supposed to be giving my presentation therefore I did mine today instead.


04/11/08 - Today I began my magazine, I began on microsoft publisher using a 'program' template in order to get the two single pages and the double page I needed for my magazine. The first thing I did was create the magazines background which, according to my questionnaire results, was to be green and blue. I used a shape drawer to draw a large square around the page and used the programs tools to fill it in with two colours in a fade effect. The colours came front the centre, they started in green and spread into blue around the edges. I then added on the magazines title which was to be 'Music Central' in the font Badoni MT Black using wordart on Microsoft Publisher.





05/11/08 - Today I decided that I wanted my magazine to have a logo so it was easy to differentiate it from others if, perhaps, some of its features were slightly similar. At first I chose a shape that I was going to surround the mian logo with and settled on a diamond, at first I settled on a musical note as the main shape as it is soemthing that is most commonly associated with music but once I had put it together it seemed to plain.
I then came across a guitar image with a bubble underneath it and fortunately it was in the same colours as my colour scheme, blue and green, so I decided to use this image as my logo although after a little though i decided not to go with the diamound shape surrounding it as it didn't go too well with it.

I also changed the background of my magazine today, I found that my current background didn't stand out as much as i wanted it to and therefore decided to change it. I thought back to when we created the school magazine and remebered the school's new logo which got me thinking. I eventually created a background for my magazine that was similar to the logo but with less colours, I kept the green and blue colour scheme but after looking back at my questionnaire results I noticed that pink and blue tied at four votes each , so I adjusted it slightly so that the background included three colours instead of just two.

Finally, today was bonfires night and every year me and my family go around to either my step-dads sisters or my grandas and set off fireworks, this year we went to my grandas and it was there that I managed to take the pictures I needed for my magazine (these images can be seen on 'The Photos' page).

06/11/08 - I changed the font of my magazines title today as found that the font caused the letters to be very close together and made it harder to read, I changed it to 'Berlin Sans FB Demi'. I also added an image to the front cover, it is of my brother. Unfortunately the way the image was taken you were able to see the contents of his jacket pocket therefore I had to edit the image just above the waste in order to hide the contents and make the image as professional as possible. I added the artists name 'Chriz' to the size of the image, that too was in 'Berlin Sans FB Demi' font, I added this using wordart on microsoft publisher and the positioned it so that it was on a slant. Today was the day I also thought of the coverlines that were to go my magazine cover, I used the same font but didn't use wordart, I used the shape drawing tool on microsoft publisher instead and used them to write in, these boxes were coloured the three colours of my colour scheme, green, blue and pink and the writing was coloured white to make sure that they were still readible.

10/11/08 - Today I was told that I was unable to have an image where the body was floating in the middle of the cover which is what is happening in the image in the above magazine cover. As cutting this image any lower would mean showing the contents of the pocket I decided to change the picture and use one where it was possible to cut lower.

I was also told today that it would be better to do my magazine in macromedia fireworks instead of powerpoint to give it that sense of professionalism. I therefore began to move things onto fireworks and plan to finish this next lesson.

11/11/08 - Today is the deadline for our cover draft, I was still adding things onto fireworks and once I finished this I had to e-mail my teacher my magazine cover so she can review it and give us feedback and improvements to be made the following lesson.
When adding things the layout slightly changed from what it looks like above as the image was moved from the middle to the far right and the boxes surrounding the coverlines were taken away. The title and logo were also moved slightly as instead of being spread along the top the title was moved to the the left hand side with the words beneath each other and the logo went in the small gap to the right of 'Music' and was minimised slightly in order for it to fit. I also changed the position of the artists name 'Chriz' as instead of being diagonal next the image the letters were positioned below each other and the whole name was moved so that it was reading from top to bottom over the top of the image but I made sure that doing this didn't constrict the view of the image.

During the day I recieved feedback on my magazine front cover and was told that a variety of things on it don't work and were given suggestions in order to fix it. However, instead of making these slight improvements I understood myself that nothing about the cover seemed conventional with a true magazine which is why I decided to create a whole new cover conventional to its requirements. I replaced the picture with a picture of a friend as well as changing the background and removing the logo. After completing it I then e-mailed my final, improved, cover to my teacher.

12/11/08 - Today I was off school ill so i was unable to do any further work today.

Magazine Presentation

This was the part of the project that i didn't enjoy. I don't like standing up in front of people but I was glad that my teacher had split the class up into smaller groups.

For the presentation each person put together a powerpoint presentation with all of their thoughts an ideas somewhere in it.

In my presentation I included the magazines name, genre and why i chose that genre, the target audience, magazine layout ideas and finally i mentioned my questionnaire results and how i may change things if I were to do this project again from the beginning.

The presentation began with the front cover (top right) consisting of the title of my magazine and who it was created by, I also included a few images as you can see in order to make the title page appealing which is something that needs to be done for the final product.

The second page was about the magazines genre and again I included a few images on this slide to make it more appealing as if the slide was only filled with writing then the audience wouldn't be interested and are more likely to ignore what your saying therefore it is always important to capture your audiences attention right at the beginning before going any further which is what the images and colourful backgrounds are there to do.

The layout section of my presentation (below) carries on like this up until the magazines layout designs are introduced (follow the link 'planning' and these designs will be shown there). It then goes onto the questionnaire results and how the audiences opinion takes presidence over my own as I am going to use all of the feedback they give me in my magazine.

Music Central is the title of my magazine and is one of the things chosen for me by my target audience showing that market research does in fact help you make decisions as well as helping you create something that the audience are going to be interested in.

The results included in my questionnaire show that 12 females and 8 males responded to my questionnaire which could mean that my results are slightly bias in a females perspective as more females answered the questionnaires than males. If this was to be done again I would ensure that the same number of both genders answered my questionnaires in order to get a set of results that is equal on both sides.

The same problem occured with the age groups as 7 respondents were 21+, 6 were 15-17, 4 were under 12, 2 were 18-20 and 1 was12-14 meaning that, again, my results could be bias and in favour of the 21+ year olds.

I believe that the results are this way as I didn't create my questionnaires straight away which limited the amount of time I had to get them filled out. Perhaps the results came out this way because I was hurrying in order to get each of them filled in and didn't watch the number of each male and female as closely as I should.

If I were to this again I would create the questionnaires first and get tje filled out before we finished researching exisiting texts as doing it this way would have meant that I had all of the results I needed and could begin to create my magazine straight away without any problems.

Planning

Drafts

After researching existing music magazines it was time to begin planning my own magazine. I began by making very brief drafts of my cover, contents page and double page spread. All these drafts tell me is where I plan to put everything such as the title, coverlines and images. It gives me as well as you the chance to see my designs before the final version.

For my magazine cover I have decided to go with design two as from the design to your right hand side you can see that the bands/singers name has been included which is something that may attract more people's attention than just an image. It also allows more room for the coverlines meaning that the magazines contents will be easily noticed.

My contents page is also going to follow design number two as the title for this page is running down the side of the page instead of across the top which is something automatically thought of when using the word 'title'. Including this in my magazine will strengthen its unique entity even more and the more unique my magazine is the more I think it is likely to be purchased. I also chose this deisgn as it left plenty of room for me to include at least one image.

Design one for my double page spread isn't the strongest one as I am unsure about devoting a whole page to an image as it means there will be less room to put information and quotes which are whats included in a music magazine. As you can see from this design the left page also includes an image which to me is too many images and would decrease the amount of space for facts even further.


This design is the one I am going to use for my double page spread as althought it includes two medium sized images it also allows plenty of room for all of the neccessary pieces of information and quotes meaning that there will be an equal balance of each. Another reason I have chosen this design is that everything is spaced out meaning that when the reader opens the magazine to read it it won't look as though too much as been squeezed onto one page.

Genre

I have decided to focus my magazine around the genre of Rock and R&B. I deciced on this genre as I am personlly interested in this genre of music and thought that I would enjoy creating something that appeals to my own tastes as well as my target audiences. I also chose this genre as they were the two most popular types of music on my questionnaire.

Content

The ideas I have had for the content of my magazine is that the singer/band it is focused on is either going on a new tour or giving up their career to be with their family. I chose these stories as they are realistic and can therefore happen in realife showing that the magazine is all about finding the truth behind the celebrity.

Some celebrities also, somehow, managed to hide their personal lives from the camera therefore another story idea could be that the artist has done just this but everything has came out and they are being constantly bombarded by paparzzi.

I have also decided to start the double page spread off as an article and then develop it into a Q&A session with the artist.

The Photos

In order to make my magazine the best it could be I took a variety of photos in order to keep my options open and allow me to chose the images that would suit the pages layout more than others. All of the images I took for this purpose are below.

The Photo Shoot

Images are one of the main things that draw a person towards a magazine, images and the cover lines as someone is much more likely to buy a magazine if the images and the stories within the magazine appeal to their tastes and interests about a specific artist. In order to make my magazine appeal to my target audience I had to use my own initiative and gather images of the artist that was going to be mentioned in my magazine.

My brother has been playing the guitar for some time now and plays different types of music so as soon as I found out our task was to create a music magazine I immediately thought of my brother as the image to go on the cover. He also has a son that is going on two years old so it was then that I also thought of one of my cover lines, "will son follow in father's firststeps." I thought that this would interest my target audience as whenever a celebrity becomes a parents it is big news.

Before I could put the images i had to take them so when me and my family were together I asked my brother if he would mind being the focus of my magazine and it was then that I managed to take the necessary photos.

To begin with this wasn't the image I was going to use for my magazine cover (left) i was going to use the image below where his arms were crossed as some of the images I have come across when researching existing magazines were images like this (below right).

When it came to putting the image onto the cover however I realised that in the image (right) you could see something in the jacket pocket and I couldn't cut it out as if the image was like this it would look like the body was floating in the air and you weren't able to do this. This problem is shown below.

The black arrow in this image shows where the image has been edited also showing that the image does seem to be floating. As this was the case I had to come up with an alternative so this wouldn't happen so I started looking through all of the photos I had taken in order to find an image where this problem could be rectified and that is where I came across the image where his hands are in his pockets (above left). Even after editing it allowed most of the body to be included therefore I was able to use this image and make the front cover look like a front cover.

Although the problems with the images had been resolved I began to think that the cover of this magazine didn't look like one. When researching existing magzines i came across numerous different ones some of which surrounded the genre my magazine was going to be about but as I thought and looked back none of the magazine covers I had seen had a cover like this but I understood that doing a magazine cover like this, the way i wanted it would make it unique. Therefore I decided to keep my cover the way it was and see how things went and if the cover became a further problem then i would fix it when it happened.

Follow this page to 'The Photos' as this is the page containing all of the images I may have used in my magazine.

Creating a Logo

Many things nowadays have a logo that differentiates them from other businesses or products, it is something that makes them unique and this is something I wanted to do for my music magazine. I wanted to make it one of a kind to give the reader a new experience when delving into the world of celebrities.

Step 1: Over my years as a student I have become familiar with all of the computer programmes we use regularly and notice that isn’t as easy to improve image in Microsoft word as it is in either Microsoft Publisher or PowerPoint therefore I decided to use Microsoft Publisher when putting my logo together using a second page on the same document when putting my logo together. The first thing I needed to decide on was what shape would go around my logo as a circle and square were common shapes and it took me a while to decide.

Step 2: I was unsure what the main feature of my logo would be. I had already decided on the surrounding image but I didn’t have any idea what I was going to include inside. I started to think that the whole of the magazine would be about music and what items were associated with it, it was then that I had the idea to have a music note as my logo.

To begin with I was pleased with this but as I did a little more research I began to think it was a little plain, instead I started to think of different instruments used in the genre of music I have chosen which is Rock and R&B and immediately thought of a guitar, as it is rock i thought an electric guitar would be more likely than an acoustic as it would emphasise the music and give the loud sounds associated with rock therefore I started looking for images and found the following.
I believe it was simply look that led me to this image as it is the same colours as the colour scheme chosen for my magazine.

Step 3: After settling on a centre image I began to wonder if the image needed a surrounding shape.




I thought that the style of the image looking unusual with the diamond around it and therefore decided not to use it and just use the image of the guitar.

This resulted in a front cover with a very noticeable and unique logo which is something I was aiming and for and something I have succeeded in getting.





Front Cover with Logo