Photoshop 4

Very recently I have taken new photos for my contents page which I had to edit for the page. The photo I had decided to use didn't need much editing. Here is the original photo:

As I said, this image didn't need very much editing at all. I only had to perform two steps in order to complete it and make it suitable for my magazine. The first thing I did was crop it in order to get rid of any extra space that was unnecessary and in order to make the image small even for my contents page. This is how it looked:

The lighting at the location of the shoot was perfect for my picture therefore I didn't need to do much colour editing. I was unsure of how to edit it further and asked advice from a fellow pupil in my class. It was suggested that I change the colour contrast. I did this to give me this:

I found that no further editing was needed for my photo and decided to leave it like this and add it to my contents page. This is the finish product:

Photoshoot 3

During the course of the production of my magazine, I decided to have a second look at my contents page. I decided that it looked a bit empty. In response to this I decided to change the format of it around and add more content to the page. To do this I had to take more photos. I got in touch with a friend and made arrangements to take photos of him. I specified that I wanted him to wear jeans, a white t-shirt, a long sleeved coat (colour was optional), and some casual trainers (again, the colour was optional). I used the local town centre as my location as it was close to a canal with both new and old buildings to ensure that the location is good enough to take decent photos against. A lot of my photos turned out to be quite fuzzy, or unfocused  which led to the number of photos that I could have used was greatly reduced. I decided that I would use one of the photos that was set against the canal as the lighting was great in that part of town and the scenery in the background created a nice, calm atmosphere that was added to the photo. I also met a few other friends and decided to take a few shots of them. This shoot was much less successful due to the fact that it wasn't planned and was spontaneous. This meant that the mise-en-scene had not been planned in advance so that the intended girl-band weren't linked in anyway. I couldn't use any of these shots so had to fill the remaining space on my contents page with the a competition to win free subscription. Here are my photos:

Contents Page Production

My contents page was the last page that I had to create. Like with my previous pages, I used the program Quark to create the contents page. I decided to use a certain magazine front cover that was from a real magazine and was very professional and from the same genre to use as inspiration and as a guide of how I wanted my contents page to look. Here is that contents page:

The first thing I decided to do was create boxes and picture boxes on where I plan to place everything that I want on my contents page in. I didn't want the boxes to be all white as I felt it would look boring. Therefore, I decided to make my boxes pink to fit in with the colour scheme I have chosen for my magazine: pink, white, and orange. I also added the title of the contents page and the headline for a small section of the page where the contents of the front cover will be talked about. Here is the first look at my contents page:

When looking at all this again, I decided I didn't really like it. In response to this I decided to get rid of all of the boxes on my contents page- bar the top one with the writing in- and decided to start again. I decided to add new boxes to make it look more similar to the real contents page above as it is effective and professional: 



The next thing I had to do was add a screenshot of my front cover to the contents page. I wanted to do a similar thing to the real contents page. I wanted to attach numbers to the articles and advertisements mentioned on the front cover. This is how it looked:



The next step was to add the numbers. I decided to make the colour of the text pink so it matched the banner at the top of the page. I attached straight pink lines to the articles and advertisements and used my flat planning to find some numbers for my pages. Here is how it looked:

When looking at it again I felt that there is too much pink. I decided that I wanted to change the colour of the numbers and lines and in order to keep in line with the colour scheme I decided to change the colour to orange. This is how the orange looked:

I then decided to do a "message from the editor" which is a common convention of contents pages. This meant that I had to move the front cover section around to allow space for my message. I moved everything to do with the front cover to the left hand side of the page to clear space for the message. This consequently meant that the lines from the numbers to the articles had to be smaller to give more room for this message. This is how it first looked:

The next thing I did was add a photo that I had previously Photoshopped of my model Alex. I decided to add it under the message from the team. Here is how it looked:

After a close review of the progress I had made so far, I realised that my message from the team was much too long and wordy for my young target audience who would find it boring and would not read it. I found some unnecessary parts of the passage and took them out to make it smaller and then made the text larger to fill the extra space. This is how it looked:

I then had to add the number and description of the article that anchored the image. I drew a textbox on the photo and wrote in white text the information needed. I decided to make the number larger than the rest of the text in order to stand out more and bring the readers attention to the page number. This is how it looked:

The next step were to add page numbers and the content of the magazine. I decided to keep with the orange for the numbers and wrote the article title in black (as seen with the "message from the team" section). I included all the content (using my flat planning as guidance) and put it underneath the screenshot of my front cover. This is how it looked:

After looking at the progress I had made I decided that I had put too writing on my contents page. It looked too wordy and too boring for my target audience. This was a problem as it may make my magazine look less professional and people would be less inclined to read it. In response to this I decided that I had to take some of the contents out. I did this and made the text bigger so my contents page looked like this:

I looked again at all my work and thought that the contents page looked empty and boring and that it was not up to the same standard as my other pages. I decided that I wanted to rearrange my contents page and add more to it. In response to this I held another photo shoot and began to rearrange my contents page. I made all my text smaller, I made my images smaller and I split my contents page into thirds. I also decided that the page title was too plain and simple. Therefore, I changed the font of it and added the issue number of the magazine to seem more interesting and so it stood out more. I also changed the font f my message from the editor to look more handwritten to create a more personal relationship between audience and editor. This is a screenshot of how my contents page looked after all the rearranging:

I decided to move the photograph into the middle column and make the end column pink. This allowed more space to be filled and it allowed me to make some things stand out more and have more authority than other parts of the page. At this point I hadn't yet done my new photo shoot so went to the internet to find similar photos of what I wanted on the page to be in place of these new photos until I had my own original photography. I used these internet photos as a basis of the article title and information. I put all of the photos into the middle column and wrote in white text over the pink column the page numbers and the information about the article. This is how it looked:

I only managed to get one of the photos that I wanted at my photo shoot so I decided to get rid of the bottom photo and piece of text. I replaced the internet photo of Ed Sheeran with a photo of my own that I had taken and edited and replaced the photo and text for the bottom of the page with a pink box. I decided to write up a competition that my readers can get involved in that would allow them to win free subscription to my magazine. I wrote it in white text. This is how it looked:

I then noticed the small gap under my editors message so decided to add contact details for the magazine and the page number. I used the colours orange and pink to do this:

Finally, I realised that these things looked wrong in this position so had to change the page number and contact details round. I left the contact details where they were in that corner and moved the page number to the other side of the page and put it in a white colour. I also shortened the competition piece as it was too wordy for my target audience (This screenshot does not have the correct fonts due to an issue with the computer):











Double Page Spread Production.

I have started to produce my double page spread using quark. The first thing that I decided to do was add the masthead of my magazine to one of the pages of my double page spread. I also decided to put my main image on one of the pages and also include the name of the artists I was going to write about. I copied my masthead from my front cover so that it would be the same throughout and it would be recognisable to the readers of my magazine. I took the name of the artist layout from my front cover as I felt it would make a good link between the front cover and the double page spread. Here is how it looked:

The next thing I decided to do was put my masthead on the other page of my double page spread. I also decided to number my pages before writing any of my article so I knew how much space that I would have for when I decided to start writing my article. I copied over my masthead so it was exactly the same as on the other page and the front cover- again, making it recognisable to the readers of my magazine- and put my numbers in. Here is how it looked:

When I looked at it again I decided that I wanted to add more colour to my double page spread as it would make it stand out more to my audience. I also found that the masthead was irrelevant so removed both the mastheads. I decided that in order to add more colour I would have to change the background colour of my pages. I drew boxes on the pages and made them pink. This links up with my front cover as the main colours were pink and orange. I had orange on my double page spread on the artists name, again, making the pages and the colours schemes consistent which consequently makes it look more professional.  I had to also change the colour of my page numbers so that they didn't blend in to the page and they could be seen by the readers of my magazine. Here is how it looked:

As you can see here the background image on my double page spread is white. This is not what I wanted. Therefore, I had to get rid of the background using both Photoshop and Quark. This is how it looked:

The next step in the production of my magazine was to add an article title and a subheadings. I decided that my text was going to be in white so that it was easy to see against the pink background. Here is how my double page spread then looked:

Then I had to make my columns. I had decided to split my page into thirds for the text and have another image on the page with the text. I liked this idea as I had seen it on another double page spread of the same genre and it worked well.

I then had to add my next photo. I used Photoshop to edit it and then added it to my middle column. I had an issue with the box at first because it was white. I wasn't originally planning for it to be white so I tried to edit the image again but was unsuccessful. I then took another look on the page and decided that the white actually did fit in with the pages as the main colour scheme of the whole magazine is pink, orange and white. Here is how my page looked with the image:

The next step was to start adding my interview/article. This proved to be very difficult as I was having trouble saving my work. I wrote almost my whole article and then went to save my work but my computer crashed. This seemed to happen on numerous occasions in the production of my double page spread especially when it came to writing my article onto the page. To prevent this from happening again I decided to write my article on Microsoft Word and then copy it up onto Quark. Along with making it easier to save, this also allowed me to spellcheck all my work and ensure the grammar and spellings in my article are correct. After typing up my article and coping it over onto Quark, I found I had too much writing. I deleted some unnecessary parts of my article and then I hadn't enough text. I decided to add a pull quote in order to fill the extra space. Here is how my double page spread looked: (these are a few screenshots of me constantly editing my article to try to fit the space)

The next adjustments I made was to add the name of my magazine to the bottom of my pages and also add a bubble that shows the fact that this is an exclusive interview to attract the audiences attention.

I then made a final few adjustments. I moved around the second page of my double page spread in order to add more pull quotes. I also edited the boxes of text. I decided that I wanted to add more orange to my double page spread in order to link all of my pages of my magazine together with the colour scheme of pink, orange and white. I tried to put the orange text against the pink background and found that the pink background made the orange text difficult to see. That meant I had to either change the colour of my text, change the colour of my pages, or change the colour of the text book to a colour that would allow the orange text to be read. I decided to change the colour of the text book; I changed it to the colour of white so that it fit in with my chosen colour scheme of pink, orange and white. It also allowed the orange text to be seen and able to be read. Here is the final double page spread: