AS Media Foundation Portfolio/ Madison Coupland

Evaluation
Word Count: 1635

Our main task is to create the front page, contents and double page spread of a new music magazine. All of the images I use will be a minimum of four original, produced and taken by myself, all text will also be original and written by only me.
The genre of the magazine I created is a mixture of indie, rock and alternative music with the target audience age range varying from early teens through to even 30 year olds. However I’d say the main focus would be early 20 something’s or students, student are stereotypically dosser’s, or can be described as lazy and carefree. I wanted the colour scheme to relate to the genre of music I had chosen so I went with mainly dark tones with different shades of orange text to give the pages more energy and life. I also wanted the text font and the colour of the fonts to relate to each other, therefore I used a font called Monotype Corsiva. This font is quite calligraphic and fancy. I think the colour orange and the font type give an exotic cultural vibe to the pages which works well considering I went for an Italian name for the title of the magazine. To vary the colours of the font I used different tools to edited the colour such as drop shadow, inner shadow, outer glow, inner glow and satin, I used these tools to make the text unique and stand out on the page. The name of the magazine is ritmo, ritmo it Italian for rhythm which I think insinuates the rhythm and the beats to music. I decided to have an Italian sort of theme because the artists I used and photographed for my front cover and double page spread is Italian and I thought it fitted in well together. Italians can be perceived in two different stereotypes, the first one is rich, older business men, they can be seen as strong and domineering. The second stereotype which I tried to focus more on is the laid back happy-go-lucky younger men and women. My magazine connotate’s most of the younger generation of Italians factors however I still wanted is to look fairly traditional.
When taking the photograph for the front cover, posted Monday 19th of April of this year, I decided I didn’t want it to be too fussy and I wanted the focus to be on him as an artist considering he is the main feature of the magazine. The technology I used was my own digital camera. I went for simple with casual minimalistic costume and props to again connotate the student type stereotype that is my main target audience therefore his costume was just a t-shirt and jeans. I wanted the pose he did to be relaxed and carefree, therefore I didn’t want him to over pose and look too much like a model. I actually told him on the day to give me a naïve yet quietly confident look. This is because in the article is states that he has come from Italy and is trying to break it in the British market. I think his expression and stance translated with the article and the look I asked him to give me. On Adobe Photoshop I edited the photograph. I wanted to give it a more dark and gloomy effect. To do this I darkened the lightness and increased the contrast, I think this made him stand out on the page. One of my first drafts of the front cover, posted Friday 18th of December 2009, the mast head was in a much smaller font size and the words ‘ritmo magazine’ were the same size and on the same level. I changed this to make the word ‘ritmo’ the focus of the mast head and made it much larger and the word ‘magazine’ slightly smaller. I wanted to use a contrasting colour to orange to make a border for the cover lines. I didn’t want a thick border as I feel that wouldn’t have fitted in with the neutral colours, therefore I decided to use a bright blue colour and used several full stops on each line as not to take the focus away from the text within it.
When making the contents page, posted Monday 19th of April of this year, I used another image of Daniel as the main image. I didn’t want this photograph to look like a stuck on picture so I changed the image to black and white to match the black background and used the blur tool to blend the image in with the background. The mage looked too dark itself so I used the contrast tool to make the white stand out more from the black. When I first made the contents page it was slightly different to the finished design. I could not use my first draft which I feel was better because there was a problem with the settings on the file and I could no longer open it or see the image. After this happened I did not have a lot of time to create a new one so unfortunately it was rushed and due to the fact that I could no longer view the old contents page I could not remember fully what it looked like so unfortunately the finished contents page I feel is not to the best of my abilities. One think that I thought was important to put somewhere within the magazine is a contact address. I think that by doing this it makes the magazine more real. I put this at the bottom of the contents page.
When deciding on the layout and background for the double page, posted Monday 19th of April of this year, spread I knew I didn’t want a plain background with various scattered images on the pages. Instead I used a photograph I had taken of Daniel. The image I used is of Daniel in a bush with the branches covering a vast majority of his face. I think the photograph is really interesting and unusual. I used the brightness and contrast tools to darken the image and then increased the contrast to make the green of the branches really pop and contrast with the redness of his lips. I found it difficult to find a colour for the mast head that would be clear enough to read, stand out against the background but then again not diminish the focus from the main image. I decided on a colour that looked organic and almost matched the colour of the branches, then I added an inner glow to make it be more prominent. I wanted to use two quotes from the article on the opposite make, it was easier said than done to decide on font colour for the two quotes, I wanted them to be each individual as the subject of the quotes are each of different subjects. Considering these elements I chose to make one of them larger and brighter, using the inner glow and outer glow tool, this is because that certain quote relates to the industry and his as an artist, which is what the article is mostly about. The second quote is more about his personal life which I feel is less important to the main feature however I made the text dark and almost transparent with an outer glow to still make it viewable against the fussy main image. I wanted the text box to have a white background, this is because I wanted the text of the article to be one of the most visible features of the page. I also wanted the text box to be unique so I chose one with a sort of glowing effect around the outside and changed the colour to suit the colour theme.
The transition from producing the college magazine to creating the music magazine was very different. The process of constructing the college magazine helped me to understand how to use Adobe Photoshop and to comprehend how connotate through the image.
During my research and planning I looked at various types of published and established music magazines and analysed them. This helped me to figure out what genre I wanted my magazine to be, what type of artist I would use and looking at the magazines helped to figure out how to use certain elements, such as, the camera angle and colour scheme to connotate different effects. The hand drawn and computer created drafts I created helped me to visualise how the final outcome of my magazine would be, this allowed me to go back and rearrange anything I didn’t think would be visually attractive.
I feel that the unique selling point of my magazine is the fact that I went for a more cultured theme. Not many current magazine have done that, also, I think it’s fairly unique to use a foreign, unheard of artist as their main feature whereas most magazines used an already established musician or band. I think this fact would draw my target audience into reading the magazine and buying it more often because it open the audiences eyes to new and interesting performers.
I had some audience feedback, both good and constructive. At first glance their first impressions without knowing about the genre or theme was that it looks like a rock magazine and had a spiritual element to it, the model looked innocent and the yellow and orange backdrop highlighted him as an individual. They said that is was well laid out and looked professional however the lack of capital letters that I used made it look slightly unfinished and one person felt that the barcode should have been placed at the bottom instead of at the top but used a good colour selection.