The production of my final product.

The front cover

After my audience feedback, the girls from my target audience sample chose this image as most effective for a front cover but said they preferred how the other one was black and white because it looked more professional and like a magazine.

So I used the magnetic lasso tool to cut around the artists and I also changed the image to black and white and increased things like the brightness, the contrast and the gamma.

Next to draw in the reader with eye contact in the strong pose my artists are pulling I changed their eye colour to blue, this is the only colour on the image so will draw attention to their eyes and make the audience feel as though they are looking right at them, creating a feeling of direct address. I done this by using the paint brush tool and selected the colour blue and made the paint brush tool very opaque then carefully coloured around the eye and brought it to the front of the image.

For the masthead I chose a typography with serifs so it can be clearly read on a shelf from far away. I selected the colour red to make it stick out and fit in with housestyle of my magazine I then replaced the o with a record to relate to my genre of old fashioned music.

For the other part of my masthead I used an original typography I made I done this by taking apart a tape, explained in greater depth in previous posts, and spelling out the word dated, this relates to my genre and makes the word actually look old fashioned and 'dated' by how I put it in black and white as well as using a cassette tape.

The next element I added to my front cover was a puff with buzz words such as 'win' I put this writing in bright red so it is clear and will draw the reader in by how it also has a blow behind it making it even more noticeable

Next I added a barcode as this is a key element for a consumer magazine as it needs the barcode to sell in most shops.

I then added plenty of cover lines and strap lines, I changed the colours to make them stand out and catch the audiences attention, I also made them glow so they could clearly be read. I made it glow by using the paint tool and making the white very opaque

For the main cover line I used a larger font and put it to the centre of the folio, I also changed the colour to bright red in photo shop and again repeated the skill of making it glow, however this time I also underlined it by using box tool, filling the box red and making an extremely thing rectangle, i done it this way so i could underline it to the exact width and length I wanted.

 Just above the barcode in red I put the date and price this breaks conventions as dates are usually in the top corner, but I decided this key element should be just above the barcode as it is a good way to feel space and is easy to find and see.

At the bottom of the page I included a clear slug line with the buzz word 'exclusive' for this i used a clear black box behind it and white writing with serifs so it is easy to read











The final step of my front cover was bringing part of my image over my masthead, this made the image and text fit together better and made the cover overall impression look more professional. I done this by cutting out their head and pasting just their heads onto a new layer bringing it to the front so it just slightly goes over the masthead but it is still clear what the mast head says.

Contents page

For my masthead I again added a record instead of an O on my contents page, this is to relate it to the genre again but to also relate it to my frontcover and maintain a housestyle throughout the magazine as well as using the same 3 colours throughout

I then used a grid and set columns on Indesign to divide my stories into regulars, features and reviews so it are easy and clear to find the articles my audience is looking for.

I added a red overlay on the titles of the articles to make it clear what was the title. To assure it was easy to read what the article was I made the red opaque so you could see the words through the red.

At the top right corner of the page I inserted a image of the masthead which I made in Photoshop for the front cover. I did this so the masthead works like a logo and is more recognisable because you see it throughout the whole magazine it also helps maintain a housestyle.

Because I have a younger target audience I decided to make a multi-platform magazine and create a convergence between my magazine and these social networks. This is called a flannel panel, I used a red text box and inserted the text, I then took icons of the websites and included them on this to draw in the readers attention with icons they recognise. I then added scan codes- these are codes that can be scanned on most modern mobiles like a barcode and it will take you instantly to the site making it even easier for my audience.

Because it is a contents page and the aim is to make things very easy to find I made the folio numbers a couple font sizes bigger so they stick out and it is easy for the reader to see that page number.

I also used page numbers on the images, for this again I made the red circle opaque so it was easier to see the number and give a nice effect the same reason I chose the shape to put it in to be a circle as a square seemed to much of a harsh shape. Also for this image I chose I actually cut out the background around the image and put in a black background instead so it looked more professional and fitted with my housestyle colours on my contents page.

This is my final product as you can see I also inserted a long rectangle to the edge of my page on the far right to help maintain a layout and a housestyle as I will have this red box on the edge of every page.

Double page spread

For the headline on my double page spread I wanted the font to stick out and make it eye catching so I used a clear font and typed 'interview with upcoming girlband the wallflower' I put this in capitals to make it even more eye catching, then to relate it to my genre I rubbed out bits of it so it look worn out and old- relating to my genre of cover songs - old songs being performed by new artists.

I then decided it looked a bit bland so to make it stand out further I again changed to opacity on paint to make it really opaque and coloured in the writing to give it a glow again making it stand out. I then decided I didn't like it all on one line as I wanted it to fill more white space and look more creative so I split it up and put 'girlband the wallflower' on the line below.

One of the most original but challenging skills I used was type on path- I had to  use a certain tool to draw around the image then click on the text tool and select type on path, this is very effective as it draws attention to the musical instrument remind the audience it is a music magazine while showing originality and drawing the audience in with this creativity.

Next I learnt how to change the order of things, this allowed me to bring the headline over my image so I could fill white space in the image while bringing the image with the text making the magazine look more together.

Also to make the magazine look more together I decided to break up the text by adding images into it, this was because the interview was more in depth and spoke about the girls as a band but also as individuals so these individual images represented that. I selected the text then selected the format 'text wrap' so the text would go around the image making the image look more together with the text and not just randomly thrown on the page.

I decided to include the typical element of a standfirst, to make this look more effective I changed the colour or the text and highlighted the writer and photographers name a different colour to make them stand out again a typical element of magazines.

Next I made a pull quote  I made this by using a larger font and inserting it in the middle of my text, even going over the gutter and into other columns of text so the readers are drawn to read this especially as I put it at the centre of the page.

Overall impression of my double page spreads. Again I used the masthead in the top right corner and the red along the side of the page to maintain a housestyle. Also the images I used all previously had backgrounds but to give a more professional look I cut out the background of the individual images and the main image. here is one example below. 

Overall I learnt many skills in Photoshop and Indesign at the beginning I only knew how to insert text and images as that was very simple and now I know how to wrap text around, change the fonts, type on the path, cut out around the image and so much more.