Followers

Thursday 15 December 2011

Diary

15th December 2011

In this lesson i arrived late but not to late, however our task as a whole today was to give feedback on front covers so i had to give feedback to frankie,dow and valadirmir.

Main Task - Final Front Cover

Draft Of My Font Cover

Tuesday 13 December 2011

Diary

Monday 11th December 2011


This lesson was short as we only annotated our test results with another peer in the class, from this we portrayed three ways to of made that person more successfull.

Friday 9 December 2011

Double Page Spread - A Bad Example


This is my example of what I wouldn't like my double page spread to look like, no disrespect, but for me I think that this is beyond unprofessional, it's rushed and you can see that there is no plan behind it, it seems to me this encoder has just guessed where everything should go and wanted to get it out of the way.

The text is really hard to read through, alongside with some spelling mistakes, If your creating a music magazine there should be no spelling mistakes! There is also too much 'white space' this is really bad as it looks empty. No typeface skills are used and nothing anchors me in to this DPS at all.
In an overall conclusion to the success of this DPS, I think it's rushed withouht going in to too much negativity i will go on how I would improve this. Firstly, i would make a design plan! After I had done this I would choose a better image to use to create some anchorage. lastly I would use some more eye catching colours for the font text and then create some intertexuality so that would also create some anchorage.

Diary

9th Decemeber 2011

In this lesson I have annotaed some double page spread magazine articles, evaluating too so when i come round to do mine i will have a better end result (hopefully).

Double Page Spread - A Good Example




I really like this double page spread as I like the layout...

The split page of having a main picture makes it really clear and professional, although it may be simple it is really effective and drewe my eyes in straight away.

Feature article: In a magazine the main feature article is one of the most important parts as it is advertised on the front page. The picture acts as an anchorage and with the bold text used this works too hook you in too creating a connontation to the decoder.

Type Face: There is a good sense of type face used within this DPS, the text works together creating a professional result to the decoders eye. As the artists name is at the biggest font size in contrast to the text underneath it, they work intertextuly, this also makes clear to what text is supposed to be more important.

On another note, the interview text is seperated clearly with purple and black colored font. 

In an overall conclusion to the success of this DPS, I do think it's pretty well done, however, it could be better, for me I would suggest maybe using red instead of purple, this would be more eye catching and would then entice the decoder to read it.

Thursday 8 December 2011

Diary

6th December 2011

In this lesson we had an exam about how the encoder portrays the disabled character in the film live flesh, this lasted the whole triple lesson.

Thursday 1 December 2011

Diary

01 December 2011

In this lesson I have again been researching some double page spread ideas for my music magazine, I have also made a small start to the draft copy which will be posted soon.

Friday 25 November 2011

Diary

25th November 2011

In this lesson, I have completed my front cover by edtiting the last bits and bobs...

And i am now going to start researching double page spreads, I do know that my main article text and picture will have to feature in this too. So hopefully by next lesson i will have a better idea of were to start.

Magazine Rate Card - BoomBox

Total Circulation: 50,000
Female: 10%
Male: 90%
ABC1 Profile: 64%
Median Age: 18
Average Page Rate: £2,000

My annual turnover will be: (page of adverts * amount per page + cover price * 26)

50,000 * 2.10 = 105,000...

... 105,000 * 26 = 2,730,000

38 * 2000 * 26 = 1,976,000

1,976,000 + 2,730,000 = 4,706,000 (this is my annual turnover with BoomBox)

Wednesday 23 November 2011

Diary


Week beginning 12th September 2011.

In this lesson I have researched a music magazine (XXL Magazine). This is a high levelled music magazine and is aimed at the target audience genre of Hip – Hop & Rap. It is very clear and catches the eye almost immediately, for these reasons and for my own personal opinion of ‘good music’ I choose this magazine to research for my upcoming project of publishing a music magazine!

I also annotated a school magazine published as 'Fly'. I annotated this magazine to help me research and to design my school front cover for thier magazine... it did help and I got a few ideas and what layout works best.

After I had done that, I then made a draft copy of my school front cover!

Diary

22nd November 2011

As  I missed the lesson of the 21st I had to pick up what I had missed, in this lesson we did an activity that involved Magazine Rate Card, we had to make up realistic figures to make sure this section looked good towards our music magazines. This will be posted up under 'research/planning'.

After this we also studied some of the disababled, and what the encoder constucts them as....

Thursday 17 November 2011

Diary

17th November 2011

this lesson was a coursework lesson, so all i did today was carry on with my front page and i also handed out some questionnaires to see if my work was what it should be like.

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Music Magazine Mock Front Cover (Draft)




My mock cover
 

Here is a mock cover of my 'Boombox' music magazine, I am going to use some fonts from da font as CorelDraw X3 doesn't have all of my prefered text fonts... it fits my target audience as the picture will be a bit grungy and hip hop styled, and the text around it will relate too.

I got some ideas from magazines such as XXL & Vibe/Da Vibe... like with some cover lines above the masthead i got from Vibe, I liked the idea and though it would fit well into my magazine!

Font wise i want to have a play around with them, like i said earlier i am using som fonts from dafont.com. However i do like Arial & TW Cen MT, these fonts would suit my thoughts!

My contents page & double page spread will have similar fonts to keep it consistant. I want a fresh hip hop auroa and i will produce this!

Monday 14 November 2011

Diary

14th November 2011

In todays lesson, we recapped on some thoughts of the clip we watched to write an essay of age on... so we went over some camera techniques, mise en scene etc... we then did some research on some magazines such as GQ and Cosmopolitan, seeing how much money they made through advertisments in thier magazines.

Tuesday 8 November 2011

Diary

7th November 2011

In todays lesson, we were mainly talking and planning about todays test/exam for 'age'. So around this question we studied some of the answers for it!

Thursday 3 November 2011

Diary

3rd November 2011

In this double lesson we have started the production of our front cover for our music magazine... I've personally made a decent start, however, it is very hard work but a challenge to be completed! hopefully my end result will be what I pictured in my head!

In the next lesson I will carry on where I left off, adding more text to my cover.

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Diary

18th October 2011

In todays lesson we created an example of 'age' using a sterotypical thing with in a moodboard. I choose to do a typical young lad with a hoody robbing some one to get some money to buy some new clothes.

also learnt there are 3 types of choices for encoders:
1. what to shoot - mise en scene
2. how to shoot - camera work
3. how to present the shot - editing/montage

and lastly, we learnt different types of angle shots/distance shots too...the basic camera techniques!

Diary

17th October

In this single lesson, we carried on with the representation learning...

Encoder - Creates the text
Decoder - absorbs the information

Situated Reality - no expirence
intertexuality - text and picture links together
stereotype - short cut sign
hyper reality - some representations are more real than real

Typology - stuart hall example of 'blacks'
slave
native
entertainer

Thursday 13 October 2011

Mock Design/Ideas for Front Cover (Magazine)

Masthead


My Masthead text 'BOOMBOX'

I choose this text as I thought it seemed quite ‘hipster’ for my masthead. Having the ragged lower edges and distortion in between the letters gives it the look/appearance of a dirty/ghetto/Hip – Hop/Rap feel and aura.


Target Audience
My target audience is an audience who listen to the hip – hop/rap style genre of music. Their age will revolve around 16 – 21yrs. The social class would typically be aimed at a lower to middle class through stereotypical statistics.

Main Cover Photo
I want my cover photo to be of a male cropped at a joint of the body (mid – shot). Why? Well, I think this shot would be good for my magazine as I could get a proper body shot showing what he is wearing and maybe some background would be shown too.
  • Ideas I have had for the main cover photo:
  • Male in front of his car (in a car park) propped up with (flat caps and maybe a microphone)
  • Male swearing in front on the camera (showing some dirty ghetto kid attitude)
  •  Male in front of the microphone (side face shot)


The Notorious B.I.G 'Biggie Smalls' Portrait



 Inspirations
Da Vibe Magazine

I’ve had some inspirations from magazines such as ‘XXL & Da Vibe’.  These two magazines are magazines catered for the hip-hop/rap media! Having fonts like there’s makes me think that mine will automatically fit into this category.


Wednesday 12 October 2011

Diary

October 10th 2011


In this lesson we were talking about 'representation' and how in media it isn't always completely true... we did an exercise on a typical BBC journalist who was the encoder to a lower class story in a different country. We took into account that he was 45years of age, had a family and he was upper middle class himself, so by having all these factors his encoding could be biased/pressured or even budgeted. Taking all of this things into accounts gives a clearer version of why representation isn't always correct.

Tuesday 4 October 2011

Diary

3rd & 4th October 2011

In these lessons I have studied multiple things within social stratification. Mainly, I have studied 'Panda, Mode of address, Interpretation, Encoding & decoding, Imaginary entity & life style profile'. All of which have been covered in a reasonable depth. Once we had leaned about each topic I then had to put this to practice by creating a life style profile for my music magazine. I made a questionnaire of 29 seperate questions for a the mind of a 17year old male to answer. Answers of which will then decide the front cover of my music magazine.

Life Style Profile (Task)

In this task I have had to step into the thinking shoes of a typical 17year old male, I have made a small questionnaire for him to answer, why did  I make him this? Well, doing this is going to help me with my target audience of my music magazine to come...

And here is the questionnaire:

1. Are you male or female? Male
2. How old are you? 17 years of age
3. What social class category do you fall into? Middle class
4. Favorite idol? Eminem
5. Do you own a car? No I do not
6. Did you achieve good GCSE grades? I achieved average/satisfactory grades
7. What music do you listen to? Hip – Hop/Rap/Grime/Grimestep/Dubstep
8. Favorite music artist? Hmm, either; Eminem/Asher Roth/Professor Green/Devlin/Rizzle Kicks
9. Favorite car? Ford Mustang GT or Mitsubishi Evo Lancer
10. Favorite song? Like Toy Soldiers (Eminem) or Down With the Trumpets (Rizzle Kicks)
11. What do you eat for breakfast? I normally have a bowl of cereal
12. Favorite subject in school? Hard question, I would properly say IT
13. Ever been in a fight/scrap? Yes a few times
14. Ever lied? Yes
15. Do you own a mobile phone? Yes, a BlackBerry Curve
16. Are you in further education? Yes, I am studying a – levels at my sixth form school/college
17. Have a girlfriend? Nope
18. Do you have friends of ethical backgrounds? Yes, I have loads
19. What ethnicity are you? White British
20. What do you want to be when you’re older? I’d like to be either a music video editor for film/music, or an artist
21. What television do you watch? I don’t watch too much television, but I watch Eastenders, Fresh Prince, South Park, Football when it’s on & 4music
22. Indoor or Outdoor person? Outdoor
23. Social or shy? Social
24. Care about fashion? Oh yeah I love clothing
25. Have mates who do drugs? Yes
26. Go to or ever been to a party? I try to go to as many as I can!
27. Had sex? Yeah
28. Name me a music artist you hate… I hate Justin Bieber
29. What brands of clothing do you wear mostly? I wear, Nike, Adidas, Franklin & Marshall & Fred Perry mainly

Thursday 29 September 2011

Rolling Stone Music Magazine Annotation



  



Rolling Stone Magazine
  












The masthead it self holds a lot of semiotics for me to discover, the masthead is one of the main parts of a magazine as it holds the main image of the magazine itself. So that is the visual part of semiotic system.  The main feature article photo is another important thing, you can tell what this magazine will involve, and from my own knowledge I know that ‘Wiz Khalifia’ is a Hip – Hop artist so I now know that this music magazine will mainly about the genre ‘Hip – Hop’. The target audience of this magazine will most properly be aimed at the people who listen to rap and hip – hop styled music and to maybe the younger generation who are more stereo typically into this sort of music style.  Plugs are a very crucial thing within a magazine, e.g. they draw you in even further, and they purposely make the text linguistic to succeed in this. Connation’s are used in this magazine but not over the top, for instance, the ‘new faces’ text suggests a small connotation of making the reader want out find out what happens.


Digital Mock Up (Contents Page)

Here is my contents page for the preliminary task, I created this page on the corel draw software, I also made the contents page text refered to my front cover!

Here it is:
Contents Page

Diary

29th September 2011

In this lesson, I have completed my preliminary task for the school front cover. I did exactly what I wanted to do with my planning draft one. It was very interesting using corel draw for the first proper task so I look forward to doing my music one!

I am now starting my digital mock up contents page for this task on corel draw, this shouldn't take too long to do, but I should hopefully have it finished by the end of this lesson.

I have now completed the contents page, you can now see this under the 'Preliminary Task' label section.

The School Font Cover (Preliminary Task)



My School Front Cover
After my planning and research towards school magazines, here is my front cover of my own school magazine for the preliminary task. It has everything on it from which I planned. And overall, I think that it is very eye - catching!

Wednesday 28 September 2011

Diary

26th September 2011.

In this triple lesson we have started the study of semiology. A sign is split into two parts a 'signified' & a 'signify'. The 5 semiotic systems are; linguistic, visual, audio, gestural & spatial. This then breaks down to 3 parts 'Iconic', 'Index' & 'Symbolic'. We practiced this on two images, one being a dove image and the other being a black raven image. We did this to practice how we think about things and what images and signs have power. For example; everyone in the class beileved that the dove resembled peace and love. Whereas, the raven represented evil.  

Diary

 Week ending 26th September 2011.

During this time I have played around with the Coral draw software, only to get to grips with it. Having Mr. Bocahek there made it a lot easier as I was able to ask him questions about how to do specific things, like over lapping text over a picture.

I have also started the creation of my preliminary task, adding just the 'mast head' and 'main article photo'. This task was set for the next coursework lesson so that in that lesson we could finish off this task of the school front cover magazine.

Friday 23 September 2011

Choosing the 'perfect' photos!

 Here are the outcome of my shots around the school! I mainly focused on students/teachers as the school itself looked a bit messy due to some reconstructioning... However I have to select 2-3 pictures for my front cover so below these pictures will be my final photos!








How did I eliminate these photos to a choosen 2-3? Well I did this by thinking which ones would look the nicest (in my eyes) on the magazine... I looked for action and good lighting, this would then make my magazine more eye catching! I decided I would have the 'Mr. Morris & students' why? I think its important to show the relationship between the teacher & his students! I also decided that the 'hall' picture would also be a good photo to be used in the magazine! And lastly, I decided the 'piano' picture would be good picture to use as it signifies 'skill' 'passion' and 'creativity'.

'Going Around The School' (Photoshoot For Magazine)

Today is the day for me to venture around the school to look for some interesting opportunities to take photos for my school magazine!

I am looking for some action shots (for example, a student at work). I am also going to take some architectual shots (E.g. School Building, Class room or objects within the school etc...). And lastly, I would like to maybe get a group shot of some students smiling!

Shots like these will make my magazine stand out & it will make it look just that little bit more eye - catching! From these shots, I will choose a select few to be in my magazine!

Tuesday 13 September 2011

Diary


Week beginning 12th September 2011.

In this lesson I have researched a music magazine (XXL Magazine). This is a high levelled music magazine and is aimed at the target audience genre of Hip – Hop & Rap. It is very clear and catches the eye almost immediately, for these reasons and for my own personal opinion of ‘good music’ I choose this magazine to research for my upcoming project of publishing a music magazine!

I also annotated a school magazine published as 'Fly'. I annotated this magazine to help me research and to design my school front cover for thier magazine... it did help and I got a few ideas and what layout works best.

After I had done that, I then made a draft copy of my school front cover!

Front Cover Of The School Magazine (Draft)

My Draft Front Cover

Monday 12 September 2011

School (Random Choice) Magazine Annotation



 

Fly School Magazine
This is a typical school magazine, randomly chosen by me to annotate in preparation of creating my own schools magazines front cover... it does indeed have its advantages and dis - advantages.


Advantages would be:
ü  Has a strong article picture
ü  Clear mast headline
ü  Good use of ‘Puff’
ü  Good use of contrasting colours
ü  Clear date headline
ü  Plug is used
ü  Different text sizes means that it is a bit more eye – catching
ü  Has a main cover line
Dis – advantages would be:
û  Lack of font use
û  No typeface used
û  No issue number
û  Some text could have been arranged to make room for a few more things such as maybe another picture or an issue number etc…


XXL Magazine Annotation

XXL Music Magazine

This music magazine appealed to me as I am a big fan of the ‘Hip – Hop/Rap’ genre… so I thought it would be a wise move for me to annotate it for my future publishing of a music magazine consisting of a: Front cover/Contents page/Double page spread.
Advantages of this magazine would be:
ü  Clear brand logo (Masthead)
ü  Good choice of the main feature article photo
ü  Lots of point sizes means that this front page is a lot more eye – catching
ü  Clear barcode
ü  Use of issue number
ü  Good use of ‘Puffs’
ü  Again, good use of ‘Plugs’ too
ü  Cover lines are also made bold + clear
Dis – advantages would be:
û  Cover price could be a lot more clearer to the reader
û  ‘Typeface’ isn’t really used in this front cover