Images

These are the photo's that I have taken to impliment into my preliminary task using my phone.

Front cover photo plan

During the lesson I was I given the task of taking a picture not from the internet but one that I have specifically taken with a camera or my phone. This picture cannot be copyrighted it has o be 100% a photo that I have taken without a doubt. I was told to take the picture as a Medium Close up. From research I have done it is from the head down to waist of an individual. The photo that I will be taking would be ideal to do inside of school premises as people have a sort of college attire on however not everyone dresses 'smart' so I may have to take the photo at home or outside of school.

Refreshing my knowledge on the shot differences

During todays lesson I was given the task of using my phone take a mid shot  of an individual to be on the front cover of my magazine. However I wasn't sure at the time what a mid shot included e.g. elbows waist or arms and so forth. So because of this I went online and I researched some information about what a mid shot was. On Google images I found this image on what a mid shot looked like and according to this its just a tiny bit below the waist showing arms and elbows and above the head. Seeing this for my magazine front cover I will most likely have to have my individuals waist be at the end of the magazine page e.g. where it ends. Now that I know what kind of photo I'm going to have to take I can now plan  out efficiently what kind of picture I'm going to take along with the general ideas of what I'm going have them pose and so forth. Doing research on what kind of shots that I want is very useful because if I didn't know at the time I would have made a general mistake and most likely have the initial photo that included their knees into the photo.

Everything so far

I feel that the initial designs that I thought up along with the many different names have been quite a difficult task even though they sound so simple to complete. The reason that I found these tasks so difficult is that I tried my best to have a high school name that stood out from the rest. By that I mean I didn't want a name that sounded familiar or a name that sounded like an everyday high school I wanted a name that would essentially mean something to those that go there. The reason behind this is that I wanted to inspire the people that attended the high school even though there is no one actually going because the school isn't actually real but that's the general idea that I had at the time of creating this so called High school.

The colour design also meant a lot because I wanted the colour design to not only be statement but to have some meaning behind it. Which is why I have decided to continue with the initial design that I have chosen on a recent post with the words Red in the colour red along with the word High in red also. The reasoning behind this is that the I wanted the colour and the word Red to stand out from everything else and the way that I pictured it on the magazine front cover would be a great methodical way of doing so. Due to this I think the general ideas that I have had so far are quite good but I do believe with a bit more work I can improve the initial designs that I have had on my work so far.

Doing some research I have looked at other student magazines online to see what kind of typography that they have along with the general colour scheme that they have. Most of them will either have the first letter in a certain colour for example green while everything else is in black and maybe italics. The reasoning behind this could be due to the fact that most of the schools could be trying to reinforce the idea of the school trying to empower their students.

Ideas for a school blazer/jacket

 

 

 

During the weekend a friend came over to my house with a couple of comic books, in the comic books what I noticed was that the main characters that went to Gotham City College all had a school Jersey which is the one I have placed at the top of the page. I found that the school colours that have been used in this comic book for the college can be really iconic and essentially a symbol that can stand out. I found this inspirational and also gave me more ideas on what I could have for my main task as I would have someone be on the front cover of my magazine. Due to this the sort of ideas that I had was to have them wear certain types of clothing such as a possible red and black jacket as the name of the college is Redbrooks high which could also convey the colour connotations of Red and black and also show a college ethic towards the magazine which would be better rather than having a random individual in random clothing which has nothing to do with the magazine.

When I finally decided my initial colour design I thought that it would be better if I decided to have a colour scheme that in a sense represented the schools name and theme. I thought that with the name Red that should be partly coloured in red or at least have some sort of redness in side of it. In the end I have gone with the very last one at the bottom where the word Red is in the colour red and the word High is the  colour red. I believe having the word High in the colour red allows it to stand out and also allows people to acknowledge it from a far off. By doing this I am also gaining the eyes of others as they look at the name of the highschool that I have created.

Developing the name for the magazine

In todays lesson we have been tasked with choosing the font that we want to use for our initial magazine. Doing so we have been told to use Photoshop. At first I initially wanted to use Microsoft Powerpoint as I thought that it would have a better range of fonts. However as I used Photoshop I found there was a much vaster range of font types to use with it.

With coming with 3 names for my initial magazine I had rather big brainstorm of ideas that I wanted to use while coming up with it. The first name Red brooks was pretty much similar to the name of the college that I go to right now called Rooks heath. The reasoning behind it was that the school badge for the middle school below the sixth form students has a picture of a small bird on top of a twig with the school logo attached with it. Initially I thought having  the name to do something with a robin so I tried many similar ideas until I came up with the name Red brooks.

The name Willow speare was along the same lines as Red brooks as I was going along with theme of nature and animals such as robins. During my daily life I walk past a forest/park to get to school and there are a lot of willow trees so that came back to my remembrance so the name Willow was the first part of the name. Further on in the day someone started playing Britney speares so I just combined the two names to get Willowspeare High.

The last name Pillock High was a name that I had in the back of my mind before I started doing the task when we was first told that we was initially going to create a magazine. So I just put the name down as one the three names that we was tasked with. This name is also easy to remember and quite generic rather than other fancy names that I generally thought of at the start of the exercise, however at the end I did come up with these 3 names that I thought was most suitable out of the 10 that I originally had.

House style - school magazine task

The font of text that I will be using for my preliminary task is called  leelawadee .  The reason as to why I will be using the font type leelawadee  is that to me I believe that it stands out from the rest and is more appropriate than other fonts.  Also with some research I found that some font types cause strain on the eyes and because of this I wanted to pick a font type that would strain the eyes for the teens but also was very readable and clear.

As for my magazine the colour scheme that I have in mind to use for it will be Red and black. The reason for this is that the connotations of the two colours complement each other very well especially for teenagers. The colour Red has connotations of Anger and Passion which is very relevant as teenagers tend to be quite passionate about things that they truly like and enjoy. The colour Black has connotations of power. Most teenage boys have dreams and aspirations of becoming powerful and able to fend for themselves.  Because of the connotations of the colour black  and red I do believe that the colour scheme will work together along with it being eye catchy and also coherent to the task at hand.

The Mode of address that I will be carrying out for the magazine will be informal. The reason for this is that I don't want the teenagers to be threatened by the way I approach them through words or feel as if what they are reading is bore but to have a relaxed atmosphere and feel that they are talking to someone  they can relate with. Also by having an informal approach I wont be intimidating them by talking formally and  using large words that they might not understand but at the same time I will try not to use to much of their 'slang' to the point where reading is painful because of the cringe. By doing this I may also gain a positive feedback from the students.

Drawing out the Front cover and Contents page of my initial magazine

During todays lesson I was tasked with the objective of making a rough sketch of the locations of the key concepts of a magazine for example the Mast Head.

We was told that our magazine would be the same length and width as an A4 piece of paper, now this became a slight problem as the magazines we have present with us aren't A4 structured. They had the same length as an A4 piece of paper how the width was much wider and vaster than that of the A4. So as i began to sit down and to compare the differences between the magazine and the A4 paper I began to take down key measurements from the magazine and try my best to transfer that onto the A4 piece of paper.
For example the length of space between the top end of the paper to the Mast head which was 3.4cm and the gap from the start of the Mast head proceeding on to the left end of the page which was much shorter than the top end.Once that was done I began to see and take down  the measurements of the  initial concepts that was present on the magazine front cover. Such as the difficulty that I had faced while using indesign which was getting the photo of the main lead over the mast head. Along with this I  began to allocate certain boxes along the magazine according to the photo present on the top left hand side which would be filled in with information that would be present on the inside of the magazine along with special features.
As you can see on the left here this is the finished product of the Mast head draft design that i was tasked with creating. It was difficult taking down certain measurements and putting it onto paper as the difference between actual physical magazines along with magazines that are just still images on the internet is that the magazines on the internet dont tell you very much about the actual magazine. For example how wide the magazine is or how long it is. So what I did to counter this problem was to enlarge the image on the screen until it was the same size as the A4 piece of paper and place the paper on the screen and trace through the paper the magazine that im looking at. By doing this I could foresee the intial lengths and widths of the concepts that are on the front cover of magazine pages that are on the internet.
Once this was done we had to move onto creating a contents page. I found that the contents page was much easier to draw out in draft than the front cover because even tho there is more detail in a contents page the front cover requires key skills with Ict to pull off such as getting images ontop of each other or having to types of typography contrasting with each other in the same centence. In conclusion I was able to finish the front cover but only needed one or two more blocks on the contents page that I created. This appeared to be a very easy task but in reality had alot more hidden depth to it that I didnt know was there at first before analysing the magazines terminology.

Typography

By experimenting with different fonts with words I can truly see the different affects that it can have with certain words as they typography just like colours have a secret meaning that not all people can understand without studying it.

Education is not preparation for life; education is life  itself.  John Dewey

Education is not preparation for life;


education is life  itself.  John Dewey

Education is not preparation for life; education is life  itself.  John Dewey

by using the different fonts I have tried my bet to try and analyse and create different ways that this quote can convey different meanings. For example by having the words in Bold it could essentially be the word being a loud statement having it stand out for the rest as this is something very important that everyone should know about. By having the word in small fonts and small sizes it could be something silent that most people could skim by and wont acknowledge it .

By doing this I am beginning to train my self to understand different ways that artists can illustrate a different meaning through different fonts and the ways that they have wrote things to try and connect with readers even in books and novels.

 In the course of a week I have only been able to get 3 answers on my survey about the magazine that I am initially trying to create. From now I will try and analyse the information that is present and also try and understand the reason why I may have received such small responses.

The first question of how old are you ? I noticed that from the 3 people that have answered the survey that I most of them are ages 15. Knowing this I can analyze what my potential audience will be like for my initial magazine when I have made it and what type of audience I will have to cater for.

On the next question I realized that the majority of people that answered my question are male, however I did have one female. This may show that  I may need to have more information catering for males than females with the information present but that doesn't mean I shouldn't have any information in my magazine for the opposite sex.

With the information present I can see that I have mixed answer as to be expected as most people wont share the same interests. With this information I can see that I will need to have pages that include the hobbies of the people that have answered this question to keep them interested and also to attract other people to my magazine.

With the information present on this question I can see that most of the teens have their parents as motivations for life. So through this I could get a page dedicated to a small speech from a famous older person who is a parent or a famous grandfather to someone in a certain subject to be an inspiration to the youth.

By seeing who some bodies role model is I can layout my magazine in a way that can correlate with the answers that they have given. By seeing who someones role model is I can essentially see what kind of career path or academic structure they are trying to base their lives around and by doing this I can allocate certain pages in my blog to what they have answered with.

By seeing who someones motivation in life is, I can see what kind of career path or what life style they are striving towards and also I can have brief understanding of why these people my be their motivations in life due to the facts of they childhood for the example of their parents or grandparents being the motivations in their life.

Typography in magazines is seen not to be a huge deal but has a massive impact on how someone perceives and reads something by the way the design of certain words are written out. The majority of the answers that I received said that they prefer typography that stands out from other words which could potentially mean that they subconsciously like to stand out from the crowd or make a statement about something which is very useful for the way I could plan out my Mast head on my magazine.

With the question what do you like about high school I presumed that some or most teenagers despised high school but I got a mixed response. Some said that they enjoyed high school because of the teachers and subjects and someone said other but that could be to represent nothing. This lets me know that in my magazine even tho it is aimed at the youth I shouldn't be reluctant to provide pages about school and some academic features or topics that could benefit the youth in the their future such as a guide line to certain jobs.

With the question about contrasting colours I made mistake by not saying no just FYI. some people said they like contrasting colours such as yellow and black and red and blue. I believe that the colours have connotations that could essentially be aimed at the youth of today and the way that they view themselves. Such as the colour blue which has connotations of freedom which could essentially mean that teenagers want to be free and not have anything holding them back in life.

With this question what do you not like about magazines I also got a mixed response of what people didn't like about magazines. According the information present I shouldn't focus on cramming so much writing and information into a page but use small paragraphs which also could have images to correspond with them to allow people to not be bored just reading but can also have a picture to reflect and relate to.

And finally the question what designs do you like I left as an open question to allow people to really give me their real thoughts about what designs they feel really resonate with them. one person said they like words that stand out empower people to feel strong because they are reading the certain magazine I believe this could also relate to the typography. By seeing this I can also adjust my design of what my magazine will finally look like.

 

 

 

 

During lessons we have begun to use indesign which is quite similar to photoshop however quite a bit different. Before we started using indesign we was told to find a magazine front cover that we would like to recreate and try to make them ourselves using indesign. Through this I stumbled across the magazine front cover of attitude featuring Gary barlow from 2012 attitude awards. The reason I chose this front cover over others was due to the fact that it was simple and didnt have that much information on it to add as I have just only begun to use indesign.
However looking at the content of the magazines front cover that I have chosen there is a lot more detail and information going on that meets the eye that i noticed while using indesign. Most things that would appear common and easy seemed to be the more difficult things for me to grasp on indesign. For example one of the most difficult things that I have encountered and that I am still dealing with is trying to get the mast head 'attitude' behind Gary Barlows head without the entire word disappearing.
After picking the front cover magazine that we wanted to recreate we had to watch a video which would train us in a small amount of time in a step by step process of some of the key concepts of indesign that we would need to try and recreate the magazine. The link to the video is here -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9vGs9PqSq&safe=active


When i started the first thing that i did was use construction lines on the blank A4 piece of paper that we start off with on indesign. I made sure that the construction lines on the A4 piece of paper correlated with the original attitude magazine front cover featuring Gary Barlow. As you can see i made sure that the middle section gave enough room for his body and tried my best to line it up within the centre of the page. One misteake that i made was that i made Gary Barlow smaller than he should of been. Gary barlow should be much bigger in the magazine front cover that i have tried to recreate along with the word attitude reaching each end of the magazine page. Further more Gary Barlows name should be bigger along with most of the other wordings in the magazine front cover. However this is not the finished version but where I am currently at.

After watching the different videos that was present of the youtube channel featuring indesign I tried my best to get Gary Barlow behind the text that i had on the front cover but at the same time trying to have attitude behind his head. At the moment I am still struggling with this and i should be able to do this soon. To put something behind a different object or layer it was difficult as before in Gcse we used Photoshop and it was all about layers however on indesign we had to use Ctrl with shift and [ to put something behind something else, and to use this ] to do vice versa.

I tried to use word and publisher to crop the original photo of attitude featuring Gary Barlow to obtain important key objects that aren't present in my recreation of it such as, the bar code at the bottom left hadn corner the text on the right hand side and also the small orange sticker that is above the barcode on the left hand side. however i was unable to do this so i am currently looking for an alternative to this and hopefully find a way around this.


As of now this is as far as i have got using indesign and recreating my chosen attitude magazine front cover of Gary barlow hopefully in the future i will be able to upload the finished product.