Photography Planning

 

This is what I've done to plan my photos and how I'm goingto take them. It's important to get the photos right if I want them to look professionaland give off the correct theme and representation of the magazine, to do this I will use all the sources avaiable to my such as studio space and props.

Professional Photography

Now we've moved onto our music magazine and have started planning what we want our presentations, genre of music and house style we want. We need to take photos that would help with those, there are many types of photos we can take such as: background textures, album covers, pop-up figures, feature article photos, editorial photos, background framing shots and inset shots.

 

Magazine Conventions

Now that we've finished the practice task of a college magazine, we are moving on to our real piece and are starting to plan our music magazine. Before we start the planning we need to know what the conventions are needed for a music magazine and how they work and how they make the audience interested in reading the magazine.

Pratice Task College Magazine- Evaluation

Practice Task College Magazine- Final Piece

 

These are the finished copies of my college magazine for our practice task. I created these using inDesign and photoshop. The idea for the practice task was to create a magazine for college students as our target audience and to find out what they wanted for a magazine I did a questionnaire and included on the cover and in the contents page what students said they would like mostly to be included within a college magazine if they were the target audience. I did use the results of my questionniare when thinking f waht need to be included and i used my college reaearch moodboard on prezi to help me decide how I should design and how the cover and contents page layout should be.

 

For the main cover I have made shure that I have included all the necersarry conventions for a magazine cover. Such as a masthead to help the target audience recognise the magazine and know or learn that this magazine applies to them as students. I also used kickers and captions/cover lines to tell the target audience what is in the magazine and to give a little bit of information on what those features are, this helps the target audience find a feature they migh be interested in and encourage them to read the magazine. A secondary lead to give more of an idea of what is included and show different themes are included. I also used a flash and graphic feature to market a brand that part of the target audience might be interested in, this was to gain more interest for the target audience that may be brand loyal to this company. A selling line was used to let the target audience know that this is the colleges offical magazine, this is important as the targets audience will then know that this magazine is catered for them and they can read what they want inside. The central image/feature article photo is of a student purley because the target audience is stuents and they will recognise this as a college magazine if the feature article photo is of someone that looks like they are the right age to be a student. Also it may help get rid of the idea of what people have to look like, as on many magazines when a celebrity is used then that magazine target audience may try to live up to the impossible expectations of an edited celebrity image that used Richard Dyers theory, where as if it is just an ordinary face like any other students may feel they can relate to this magazine and what is included. there is also headline and anchorage to highlight the main article/feature in the magaizine, as this issue is meant to be a new college year issue i went for a story of how a new student felt about first starting college and the highs and lows they went through when settling in, this is could be used by students to relate and feel better if they felt the same way when starting college. Finally there are other conventions such as barcode, plugs and dateline with web address which helps the magazine look more official, proffesional and as if it is sellable.

 

For the contents page I wanted to try and create a helpful page for the target audience, that would help the magazine be more of and easy read and make the magaizne look organised. I did this by labeling page numbers to help the target audience easily find what they are looking for in the magazine by including the page numbers on the right hand side of the page and article/feature titles. I spilt the contents into sections and tried to make it as professional as I possibly could. I used my research from my questinnaire of what the target audience would want to be included in the magazine. I found they wanted to apply uses and gratifications, to use this magazine as a source for helping them with college work also as a source to help them relax when they need time away from their college work. That is why I split the contents page into a work and play sections, the work sections as articles and features to help students with college work, advise for careers and revision and a article about settling into college to go with the new college year issue theme. For the play section I included features and articles that are not based on college work, the articles are about what students are interestd in such as music film and the latest technology, these review tell students about the newest things in their favorite social subjects. I also added a section called Student Corner which is a section that is totally based on student life, this is to help make students feel as if they have a voice and somewhere to express their opinions. Finally I have an editorial section, which is where all the credits are given to those that helped produce the magazine.

 

Altogether I do beliveve that did use all the conventions needed for a magzine cover and did create a contents page that would keep the magazine organised and and be an easy read for the students. I tried to stick to my colour scheme throughout to help keep the college magazine looking professional and organised. Although the magazine may not exactly look a professional magazine that would sell in shops, I did use all the necerssary conventions and kept the target audience in mainf for what they wanted included to be a college magazine made percifically for them.

 

Practice Task College Magazine- Planning

For planning my college magazine I decided to create a mood board of what I need to include, examples and what my ideas are. I decided to use Prezi to deisplay my ideas as this allows my ideas to be explained in both text and images, meaning I can explain and show what my ideas are to the viewers of my blog. The system was an easy use and I think is a better way to present my ideas.

Copy of College Magazine Research on Prezi

Practice Task-College Magazine 1st Draft

Here is the 1st draft of a college magazine for our practice task. To create this magazine I used InDesign to create the main copy and add the convetions of a magzine. I also used Photoshop for editing my central image, which was required to be a mid-shot of the head and shoulders.

I made sure I added all the conventions needed for a magazine cover plus a few more. Such as a masthead for the target audience to identify the magazine, anchorage to say what is included in the magazine, headline for the main story, kickers and cover lines to help show what else is included in the magazine and a central image to help the magazine apply to the target audeince of students aged 16-19. Other conventions that I used that are still but less important than the others are a selling line, amenu strip, secondary lead, barcode and a logo. All these conventions together help target audiences recognise this as a magazine and need to be included if the magazine is going to appeal to the target audience.

This is only my first draft of the college magazine, although I have included many of the needed conventions it still isn't at the right level to sell as a magazine. By the time it comes to making my final copy I hope to improve the cover by including move conventions i.e. a plug/ear and graphic feature. Also I hope to improve how the main copy looks, try to make it look more professional, I could do this by finding a better use of my colour scheme and maybe even changing the colours of the conventions around i.e. changing the kickers colour to the cover lines colour maybe. Changes do have to be made if it is to live up to the standards of an actual magazine that sells in major retailers, even though its just a practice task and this magazine would be aimed at students made by students, the target audience would still want a magazine that catches their eye.

Cover Flat Plans

As we are moving on for our practice task, I've decided what my cover shot is going to be (as it has to be a mid shot of the head and shoulders). I'm going to start planning on what the name of the magazine, colour scheme and what is going to be included but first I wanted to see what my magazine would look like with the cover photo and how I would have it laid out. So I have created a powerpoint using my cover shot and outlines of what I need to include on to my college magazine as there are certain features that need to be included for it to look like an actual magazine.


I've made sure that all the important conventions such as a masthead, anchorage, barcode and knickers are on there. I've also used other conventions of a magazine cover so that students that would read this magazine would apply uses and gratifications.

Although the designs do look similar they all have different kinds of themes and pattererns happening for them. Such as the first draft is very busy and includes everything it needs to includes, but it does seem as if it has all been squased in. The 2nd fraft does seem to make the kicker heasdline and anchorage seem clear although I do think that if I used this design then it would seem very all over the place. I think my 3rd draft would be the best option as the kikers, cover lines follow the path of the central image this would make the magazine seem more neater, organised and more professional and would still allow me to use all the conventions that need to be on a magazine and more.