Evaluation 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Making the Double Page Spread

This is one of my other models which will be used for my double page spread. Unfortunately, I wanted to use two models for my double page spread, the other being the same one featured on the front cover, but just like I had feared, our schedules clashed and I was unable to arrange a time for the both of them to join for the picture. This could have been achieved if the deadline was extended a bit longer or I had planned out my double page spread earlier whilst I was working on my contents page or front cover, so that I would already have an idea of what I wanted.
In the absence of my other model, I had to just take a second picture of an arm (pretending to be the original model) and try to use Photoshop to edit it into the first picture. Of course, this way, the image will not look as nice or complete, but I'm trying to make the best of what I have.

This is the product of my editing. Unfortunately, it is very obvious that the arm was edited into the larger picture, and this may make it visually unappealing. I may do a bit of editing on the brightness or colours to try and make it more appealing to the eye.
With regards to the mise-en-scène, I tried to bring out the rock-ish aspects of the model. For example, he's wearing black which the most commonly associated colour with rock stars and rockers. Along with that, given the context of the picture (an argument between the two rock stars), I wanted him to have a bowgun which brings out the violent nature of rock musicians. Linking to the musician lifestyle, a lot of them are seen to be quite artistic people, or people who appreciate art, which is another reason as to why I liked the setting I used, as there are multiple paintings in this setting. Unfortunately, I only saw as I began to edit the pictures that there was a really nice wolf painting that I could have used in the final picture for more symbolism of power or whatever, as wolves are usually nocturnal creatures and rock stars can be nocturnal too, as they have the colour scheme for it and are usually shown to have night-time party lives. The horse painting could represent freedom, and the disbanding of the band in this magazine could represent their own individual freedom from each other.
For the missing model, I just tried to incorporate an arm in there that we can pretend is his, holding a drumstick. Drums are used to great extent in rock music, so drumsticks would be appropriate to use.

I quickly used iPiccy which is a photo editing site to make the picture black and white, and personally I like the picture better this way, but I will experiment with which colours work best for the double page spread on InDesign. Using black and white may be more appropriate simply because of the colour symbolism and the fact that black (and sometimes grey) are colours commonly associated with the audience of the magazine.

I've used rulers to make a rough outline of the layout of my double page spread. I'm trying to go for a similar layout to the ones seen in the double page spreads I analyzed a while ago for the Classic Pop and Kerrang magazines.
It might just be my imagination but the arm/drumstick image is starting to look less edited, which may be due to the size of the image being smaller and also due to the black and white effect being added onto the image. I'm already really liking the black and white effect on the image.
By making the picture spread out onto the two pages, I am creating a bleed effect which is a code and convention used in every music magazine.

It's starting to fill up. On the left, I made a rectangle and changed the colour to the same shade of blue that was used for the semicircle in the contents page and this was mostly done to keep the colour scheme going as blue was the most commonly favoured colour in the results of my survey. Along with that, I have the brand name within that rectangle as well just to refresh the reader's memory of the magazine they're reading, and it also acts as filler. Underneath that, I have the name of the made up band (Son & Heir) to show the reader which band the article is about. I wanted to make the background colour for the band name blue as well as it is a royal colour, but I had already used that colour for the main rectangle background. I couldn't just leave the text by itself or it would not stand out, even with the large font.
In the corners of the pages, I have the page numbers which is a code and convention used in every single book, but is also important for navigation through the pages.

This is my finished double page spread. I am overall quite pleased with it but I still have some slight issues with the colours. As you can see, I gladly changed the colours on the far left side of the screen as one of my peers criticised the colour scheme for it and I agreed with them. I changed it to a grey colour and this allowed me to give "Son & Heir" a royal blue background to fit in with the theme of the band name. The colours on the far right can be unappealing to some people. Personally, my only issue is that yellow wasn't a favoured colour but I have to use it a lot because it fits so well with grey/black backgrounds. 

With the article text, I went for the white background and black/red text colour scheme again because it looks really good and fits in with a lot of things, especially here where grey a dominant colour. I used a drop cap to make the start of the page's text stand out and so that viewers can see where to start reading. It also follows the code and convention where every magazine utilises drop caps. Overall with the text, I tried to link it to music as much as I could, but I ended up giving it a political tone. It's alright though as rock music and politics are rarely ever got along with each other. 

I was originally going to include Benhart a lot more in my double page spread, but unfortunately, the model wasn't available for the picture so it wouldn't make sense to make a page about his character when he isn't even in the picture. However, I put some text indicating that Benhart does get his own double page spread in the next page (which I will never create).

The text started to get a little political about conservative views and social justice warriors, but I did this intentionally to fit in with one of the ideologies of rock musicians to stand out and create social change. 

Complete Content Page(s)

These are my final versions of the contents page. The reason I have two versions up is because I wanted to show that I was experimenting with colours to see which colour scheme would make the page more visually pleasing, since I felt that the page itself is underwhelming. Along with this, I saw in my research that a lot of music magazines have content pages following the white background and red/black text colour scheme, so that is what I tried to achieve in my second version. Overall, I prefer the black version better just because I feel that the black background makes the page itself look more filled up than it actually is. With the font of the text, I finally changed it up because it was almost impossible to read the 'Impact' font at such a small size. Along with this, I saw that a similar font to the one used in my contents page was used many times in other music magazines where they used a white/black/red colour scheme.
Unsurprisingly, the layout turned out to be much more different from what I had planned, which is the same thing that happened with my front cover. The reason for this is that the crotch shot picture I had planned to use from the very start turned out to take up more space than I thought it would. I could have cropped it, but I wanted the audience to see the full picture. I was aiming for a 'party life' kind of picture as that is the kind of life that most rock stars and other music celebrities have, so I waited until night to take the picture. I tried to be resourceful with my props and I felt that the picture turned out well in the end. I tried to give the model items associated with rockers such as a leather jacket and a bass guitar. I also tried to go down a sociological approach with this, as to try and follow the ideologies of rock music which is to stand out in society, making social change. With her, I used her empowerment for the feminist perspective (aims for equal rights for men and women), to try and say that females should not be ashamed of their bodies.
The placement of the date may seem odd, and is also not where it was in the original layout. I decided to put it in the blue semicircle because I found that there was a lot of space in there, so I could place the date in there and save a bit of space for my list of contents. This also does follow the convention with some magazines as there are some who have done a similar thing with regards to the placement of their edition date.
In the contents list, there are some true events (e.g. Three Days Grace's album 'Human' coming out) and some events made up (e.g. My Chemical Romance reuniting, Nirvana releasing a new album called 'Blowing Out). With Nirvana, there is a pun that probably no one will get, but Nirvana literally means 'blown out' in one of the Indian languages, which is why I used it, but also because I felt I could attract attention with foreshadowing of the well known band breaking up.
At the bottom, I tried to include reader interaction but could not due to the limited amount of space I had, but I also included the fashion segment from the front cover like I wanted to. Unfortunately, I couldn't get more model pictures in, but I'm somewhat pleased with this result. I have noticed that a lot of music magazines have another picture of the front cover model inside the contents page, but not all magazines do this, and that is why I decided to choose the picture crotch shot picture rather than using another picture of Benhart.
In the contents list, there is a piece on 'Son and Heir' which is my made up band. I hope that I will be able to make my double page spread piece based on this "band" but it may not be possible to do soon due to them usually being busy, so they have tight schedules and there may not be an appropriate time to take the pictures that I can choose to use for my main double page spread image.

Making the Contents Page

As I have finished the front cover, I am moving onto the contents page next and I will be using much more for this than I have used for the front cover.
Firstly, this image is not actually what the page will look like, I have just done it like this to show clearly how I have tried to recreate the layout that I sketched and shown in a earlier post.
I decided straight away to make the semicircle and get the masthead inside there. This design idea was taken from the contents page of Kerrang. I was drawn to the way it stood out and the colour scheme for it as well, but I wanted to use a colour such as blue so that the masthead stands out better. Along with that, I also chose that colour taking into consideration how the majority of my survey's respondents selected blue as their most liked colour of the options given, so I have tried to include blue in the colour scheme.
The background paper is black simply because I think it will look better that way but I'm also making this design choice because of the colour symbolism and the link to the representative genre.

Making the Front Cover

I have started making the layout of the magazine using Photoshop. Firstly I just simply opened up the edited image of my main front cover model. Before doing anything else, I wanted to get my masthead onto the picture.
Through my research of codes and conventions, I have found that some magazines have their model front cover model overlapping the masthead, and this convention usually only occurs when the model doesn't take up much of the masthead anyway. Thankfully, I already had this in mind when I uploaded the image and moved the model lower down to make more space for the masthead. This also meant that there was enough space in the end for my masthead to be overlapped, and in the end will give my front cover a more professional look I think. I was able to make them overlap by using the quick-select tool to select the model and copy him onto a separate layer, meaning that he has a separate from the background. Afterwards, I was able to make my masthead on their own layers and place those layers in between the background layer and model layer, which meant that the masthead would end up in between the background and the model, making them overlap.
I think that the use of only rectangles may make it look less professional but I'm afraid that if I try any other shape (such as a semicircle in my layout sketch), it will clutter the main image.
In my layout sketch, I had the fashion model in the left corner, but I had to move her to the right side because the main model takes up more space on the left side due to his pose and positioning, but I am not complaining about this as I think that it makes the image more effective and I know it would look less appealing if he was turned the other way. This also means that the barcode will have to go on the bottom left corner as opposed to nearly every magazine where the barcode is typically on the bottom right corner.
On the top are a pink/red and yellow rectangle. In the pink/red one, I'm going to write the notification for free posters, following the conventions with rock magazines offering free posters for their readers. It also follows another code and convention by being placed in the top left corner, as most magazines have that notification placed in the same area. The yellow rectangle will have the text for the price inside of it. I gave the price it's own rectangle so that it can still stand out from the image and the price can be easily seen by viewers.

Now I'm starting the add text to the front cover. As you can see, the I mainly used black and white as the colour of the text to make it easily noticeable, and it works because of the coloured rectangles placed behind the text, so I've been using wob to make it stand out for the reader. I also used a barcode generator to make my own barcode and placed it in the bottom left corner.
I also typed up 'steal her look' in reference to the meme that I've seen on social media sites such as Tumblr and Twitter, where users would often have a picture of a person (usually a celebrity or internet sensation) and then write 'steal ___ look' and begin to list down their items of clothing and prices. I typed up 'beginner's' guide because of how the model was dressed simply, and wanting the reader to learn from the basics. Although personally I don't like the amount of makeup that is stereotypically represented on rockers, and that's part of the reason why I decided to go for a simple, black look. I also linked the fashion segment with rock by typing up "rocking out in style" which links both rock music and fashion together.

Now that I have finished what I think is the base of the front cover, I have uploaded the image onto InDesign and will use that program to add the main text onto my front cover. It might just be me, but I think that the image quality on InDesign is slightly worse than the quality on Photoshop.
I have used the rulers to try and figure where to place my text and decide on the length and width of my headlines etc. Overall, it still looks pretty even.

Above the masthead is a skyline which is also exaggerated by saying that this magazine is the most reliable (in the world?), but it is a convention used in many magazines as I have seen during my research.
One thing I fear is that my cover may appear to be more of a gossip magazine rather than a music magazine, but I tried my best to relate all the headlines/coverlines to rock music.
With Anasztázia (made up artist), I tried to make the link between rock artists and the party life (drugs, parties, alcohol etc). I also exaggerated her status within in the rock world (again, still made up) by giving her the title of Queen of Rock. I plan on taking pictures of one of my friends who will act as Anasztázia and use the image as a picture boost for my contents page, filling up more space in that page in the process.
Underneath that, I have information about the rock band 'My Chemical Romance', which are extremely well known. I made up a headline about the disbanded members reuniting, which I know would attract a lot of rock fans. I also gave the headline background colours and different text colours to make it stand out even further. I also point out an interview between the lead vocalist and bassist of the band, meaning that the readers will be able to read the thoughts of some of the band members.
On the right, I made headlines about another rock band, 'Three Days Grace'. I also tried to play around with words and make it rhyme or catchy. I also notified the readers about their new album.
One thing that bothered me at first when I made this cover is that I used the same font throughout. However, I found it extremely difficult to make the page look nice with any other font, and I even asked some of my peers and friends for their opinions, and they all agreed that the magazine looked better with this one font. I used mainly red as my text colour because it was the most eye catching colour to me. I experimented with different colours but found that red stood out the most and was the easiest colour to see, so I used it to make it easy to read. I also think it's somewhat appropriate because of the colour symbolism. Red usually connates death or danger, and rock music is represented to have a violent nature.

Front cover done in INDESIGN

Front cover done in PHOTOSHOP

This is a comparison of the front cover done on the two programs. The reason I did this was because to me, it looked like the quality was reduced when the image was put onto InDesign, and from this comparison, I can see that I was right. The Photoshop version of the front cover is superior in everyway, as InDesign has washed out some of the colour. Personally, I found InDesign more time consuming to use and it was definitely not as fun for me to use. Another small detail I liked about the Photoshop version is that the background coloured rectangles for My Chemical Romance and "Reunite!" were much nicer and easier to make due to Photoshop giving fixed lengths and widths unlike InDesign, and it makes the black rectangle behind "Reunite!" blend in much better than the one on the InDesign version.

After looking back at my front cover, I noticed that there wasn't any headlines relating to the main front cover model, and unfortunately for me, this is a convention used in every music magazine. I had to go back and change the headline about Anasztázia to fit with the male model, but I know that I will definitely be using her for my contents page.
I also had to move down the headlines about My Chemical Romance a bit lower to just to make more space for the new model headline. I further noticed that the bottom of the magazine looks quite empty, and did not the take the rule of thirds into account when making my front cover. To try and fix this, I tried moving the area of My Chemical Romance even lower, but I didn't the model's claws to be hidden due to the symbolism I have with it. Another reason why I did not move it down further is because that it was difficult to read the part about the interview with Gerard and Mikey Way, so I had to keep it high enough to be able to be read. I also did not want to change the colour of that specific text because, just I explained earlier, none of the other colours really went well with the background.