Introduction to Photoshop

In class, I had to make a front cover on the program Photoshop, as it was my first time using Photoshop and as I had limited time, I struggled quite a lot, However, I am quite pleased with the attempt I made and the amount of effort I put in.

I included a cover star, background colour, different style of fronts, barcode and cost, date and issue, a house style and lastly a skyline.

College magazine front cover analysis

In class, we had to find a college related magazine, as out upcoming project will be a preliminary task on doing a college based magazine. I selected this magazine front cover, because I wanted to analyse the convention which are shown in this front cover as well as to gain an insight on what I can include when I start to prepare my own front cover.

 

 

The masthead is named “College”, this relates to the magazine as it is about college which makes it clear that the target audience are college students, as it is a college magazine. The font of the masthead is bold and big, this makes it clear to read. The masthead is in yellow, and as the background colour of the magazine is black it makes the masthead standout, the colours used also show binary opposition as they contrast well.

In this image, the cover star has props, such as educational book with his hands, this then shows the audience that he is a student and is enjoying his education in college, His facial expression also gives away the fact that he is excited, and ready to learn. His pose is straight, which shows he is a professional student as his posture gives a positive, eccentric atmosphere.

In this magazine there is a skyline, a skyline is a teaser which is the just above the masthead. This is used to give content, names or display competitions/giveaways in the magazine. In this magazine, it talks about giving hints and tips on what’s happening, this entices the audience as it makes them want to know what’s in the magazine.

The cover lines around the magazine is there to entice to audience in to content, it reveals content which would persuade the audience to read it, and as it is a college magazine, it will make students wonder what may be in the magazine. One of the cover lines in the magazine states “Make money on campus”, this engages the audience, as in college everyone wants to know how to make money as it’s a sole purpose of education which then helps students towards getting jobs.

The house style in this magazine contains the 3 colours yellow, black and grey, it is shown through the text which is displayed on the front cover, containing the following cover lines, masthead, skyline and anchorage. The house style is effective, as the colours of text is displayed evenly which gives an illuminating effect throughout the cover. The cover star is also blending in with the house style as he is wearing 2 colours of house style, these colours are white and grey

In the magazine, it shows a barcode, barcodes are important for a magazine, as they’re usually placed next to the cost of the magazine. This is important as it helps navigate towards the price of the magazine.

XXL Magazine analysis.

I have taken pictures, from a real magazine called XXL.

I took pictures of the front cover

2 content pages, as the magazine consisted of the 2 content pages which is important to know, as each content page distributes different information.

While strolling through the magazine I found 4 double sided spread articles, and 2 in particular which linked with the cover star at the front of the cover.

FRONT COVER

This is the front cover of the XXL magazine, as you can see the cover star of this magazine is Jay - Z as it says in the middle in a large font and a colour which stands out. One of the noticeable icon on the page is the logo, the reason why it is in large front and a really effective binary oppositional colour is because, the institution of the magazine, wants to make there publication more noticeable and to also reach out, towards the audience in to getting more buyers/customers, due to the fact this is also a world wide magazine, so it can be bought or viewed from all over the world. In the front of the magazine, in the white space, in the form of cover lines shows different artists, this instantly tells you that there will be other artists featured within this magazine and gives the audience information, as they read in the magazine. The colours used I the background seems to be taken in a studio, the reason it is displayed in black and white is to show contrast as Jay-Z in this image is wearing more black then white, he makes the page stand out, as well as this the composition of the image is mostly taken up by him in the sense of space, as he many cover lines in between his body. In the magazine front cover, Jay-Z's facial expressions are rather fierce and careless, which shows his high status, due to the clothes he is wearing and the attitude he is trying reflect on the audience. In the bottom left corner, there is a barcode, barcodes are a key component in magazines as they usually have the price just above it, and in this front cover it shows the cost of the magazine, the cost of the magazine is $3.25, also as there is a dollar sign in the cost, this tells us that the magazine is an American magazine as it shows a dollar sign as well as an American artist. In he front cover, the magazine somewhat follows a house style, as the main colours used are black, white and yellow, this gives an indication towards the audience which can then be used as a way of identifying the magazine just by the colours used. There doesn't seem to be a skyline visible within this magazine cover. Lastly, in the magazine front cover, there are cover lines, in relation to this publication it tells you what type of information is within this magazine, and from looking at the cover lines it is directed towards a story or article based on Jay -Z.

Contents Page

Here are the 2 content pages, while looking through the content pages I noticed there was 2 of them, I found this rather unusual as they were continuous pages, but separated by a lot of adverts, I also noticed only article pages have page number on them, and the advert pages and content pages did not have numbers on them, this made it hard for me to navigate through the magazine as I was lost at time when strolling through the magazine. In both content pages they both follow the house style colours, which are black, white and yellow are followed, however one of the content pages show yellow and the other includes red due to the logo being displayed. Furthermore, I noticed that in both of the content pages there is a lot of white space, this encloses the content pages with a lot of white space, which makes the black text around it easier to read. Throughout both content pages, it highlight the article where the cover star Jay-Z is on, it also titles it "Cover story" and is in a text box which makes it clear to the viewers to navigate through on to that page which gives the story about Jay -Z. It also has different options on content pages to find editorial content, featured content and lastly content based on critical breakdowns or in other words "reviews".

Double page spreads -

I found this double page spread rather unusual, as I have never encountered an answer and question format double page spread. This makes the atmosphere lively, as if you are question and answering question which are directed towards Jay-Z also, on the 2nd page of the double side spread it shows Jay-Z taking up a whole page, and wearing a similar outfit in the front cover as well as the double sided spread below. However, his body is turned more towards the camera as if he is looking at the audience, and has an added prop which is the cigar to show him being high status or upper class. The shots in all images of Jay-Z are also medium shots as they display half the body until the head, this makes it clear to the audience that the focus point if the image of Jay-Z.

Here are some Double sided spreads which I found in the magazine...

Conventions of both contents page and double sided spread.

 

In lesson our teacher showed us the types of conventions which are usually found in the contents page and the double page spreads. I found this useful as its really detailed and helps pinpoint the type of information I should look out for while looking at conventions in both of the above displayed sectors.

Production Schedule -

Completed Evaluation

Evaluation    

Target Audience – Ages 13–18

Research Skills -

During the induction assignment, I had to research quite a lot, while doing this I had to receive information about the music industry. My strengths are finding information about the music industry according to my target audience and this was quite successful as I managed to find artists with their opinion based on music piracy.

 A website I found extremely useful was http://www.upvenue.com/article/1590-musician-stances-on-music-piracy.html , this website helped me gather opinions of artists on music piracy, which I then used in my article as the artists on the website were targeted at my target audience.

However, my weakness in my research skills is my timing, as I had to look through many websites to receive valid information on the music industry and piracy, the cause of my misconception was the wording used in the google search bar, this was very time consuming and made me progress slower than I would usually progress.

Many websites, were not related to the information I was looking for, and some websites were not useful as the article published on the websites were published years ago, although the information I needed was there.

Lastly, while researching I managed to find a lot of statistics of music artists, but they were based in the USA and not the UK, this made it difficult for me as I was unable to source for information as the statistics in the UK and USA gave out different facts and figures on artists.

Journalistic and writing skills –

 

Overall for journalistic and writing skills, I found it hard as I struggled with the writing format on my target audience, as a person I am somewhat formal, and as my target audience was based on teenagers, I had to include informal language which was difficult for me. Also during class, our teacher didn’t teach us much about journalistic skills, which caused me to struggle while writing.

On the other hand, I did have some pre-knowledge on what to include from previous journalistic experience, for example using drop caps, captions and images within the article. However, to improve my article I could have included journalistic/writing skills such as using pull quotes, subheadings and more use of colour which was related to my target audience, by using these skills my article would have been improved to a further extent.

In design

Indesign is a program, I used to structure my article layout, while using it I had a lot of problems, first of all I had never used this program before, which meant it took me time to understand how to use it and while being completely new to the program I found it confusing. It was difficult at first, but I managed to overcome it. On indesign, it was quite easy to make an article as the tools were listed on the side of the program, there was a few tools I used in my article, such as a word box, arrow tool and font these were simple tools which helped me produce my article. Also in indesign I had to export my article in a jpeg and this allowed me to publish my article on my blog.

Web publishing skills

My strengths of web publishing skills, is that im good at using certain fonts that will attract my target audience, and with this also comes the use of using colour, because without colour an article doesn’t become eye catching. However, I do have weakness with my web publishing skills and this is whether to include information gathered in my article, sometimes I feel as if I include irrelevant facts or opinions which, may not be a part of the article

Audience feedback

I found the audience feedback useful, as it was to reference where I got my facts and figures from, however I also didn’t find the audience feedback useful because I only received 1 target, so I wouldn’t know how to improve it, from an audiences preference.

Targets

Over all I would set these targets on the work I produced

1. Find relevant information regarding the article
2. Always reference the source of information
3. Be more innovative and in the format and features of an article
4. Use all features e.g pull quotes, subheadings and references

Induction Journalism