Fatmagul's AS Media Blog

Recently I started my Question 1 evaluation on PowToon and in today's lesson I carried on working on it. I added one more slide and moved onto writing about my contents page because I have already written about my front cover and contents page. I struggled using PowToon in the beginning although I watched a tutorial however after creating a few slides I got the hang of it. I discovered different transitions I could add as well as editing images on PowToon. I used the 'hand' theme because it looks very cool and eye-catching. As question 1 is the longest question, having an interesting theme could entertain the audience.

Question 1 Draft- My music magazine uses, develops and challenges forms of real media products. For example, looking back at my case studies, we can see many similarities between my magazine and the real magazine itself.

Here, we can see that I used a puff/flash to advertise the posters I have in my magazine just like Kerrang! Magazine. Both have the number of posters in bold the highlight the quantity which would attract many customers. Also, the number of the posters are a different colour compared to the rest of the writing because the audience is interested in the number of posters and it is the first part that attracts them. In addition, Kerrang! Only displayed 4 out of 6 posters and in my magazine I have displayed 3 out of 5 posters. The reason only specific number of posters are displayed is because those specific bands are well-known which means more customers are likely to buy the magazine as they may be a fan of the shown artists. This would increase the sales and the marketing of the magazine.

Earlier on we saw that my cover picture is a mid-shot just like Kerrang! Magazine. Not only is it just a mid-shot, the body language of the model is also similar to Kerrang! Magazines model. Both have their hands open as if they are holding something which makes the main cover line the focal point because they are almost holding the cover line. In addition, both my magazine and Kerrang! Have the main cover line in the bottom centre of the page along with another cover line at the bottom of the main cover line. One thing I decided to do different which challenges this magazine is that instead of adding a different cover line, I added a pull quote which related more to the main cover line.

This is the second case study I have looked at which is 'RockSound' magazine. My magazine has the most similarities with this magazine because whilst creating my own magazine I was mostly inspired by the layout of RockSound. Both of the main cover lines are not just at the bottom centre but also slightly tilted anti-clock wise. I wrote down some of the band names that are featured in the magazine at both the top and the bottom of my magazine just like the RockSound magazine. In the next couple slides I will look more in detail of the similarities and the differences of Thunder magazine and RockSound magazine.

Here, we can see an image of the bottom part of both my magazine and RockSound magazine. It looks very similar because both have a list of band names that are featured in the magazine. Most of the times, it is the well-known bands that are featured in the front cover ad people are more likely to buy them, however he fact that it is at the bottom of the magazine may show that they are not as important as the band names written on top of the magazine. This is because people read from left to right, from top to bottom which means they must have seen many things before they get to the bottom of the page.

As we can see from the images above and on the side, I have tried to make my main cover line very similar to RockSound's main cover line. They are both tilted anti-clock wise and both have a more line writing right at the bottom. RockSound has a skyline at the bottom however like I have stated before, mine is a pull quote. Another similarity we can see here is that I have duplicated the later and added the same font in another colour behind the colour line which gave it a 3D effect. This is similar to RockSound magazine because they have done the same thing using different colours. This trick makes things look visually eye-catching and also makes the writing stand out.

I have challenged other media productions because as we can see from the case studies, they both have a colour scheme of yellow, red, black and white. Red is seen as a gothic colour which is why nearly all rock magazines use it. However, in my magazine I wanted to change the norm of using red and I did not use the colour red in any areas. This is because I wanted my magazine to be different and challenge other rock magazines as they all have similar colour schemes. One colour I did keep the same was yellow because yellow is a bright colour yet it does not take the magazine out of the rock category. Color.Adobe has helped me find the right complimenting colours however one thing I challenged again is using a warmer yellow instead of bright yellow.

Here are some of the other magazine covers I was influenced by whilst creating my front cover for my music magazine. On the first image, I was influenced by the top right side of the magazine cover where a little image of an artist was used as I have added a little image of one my models. On the second image I used the phrase 'Awesome Posters'. On the third image, I liked how the cover lines were in small boxes on both sides of the magazine. On my magazine I added cover lines in boxes just like the Kerrang! Magazine cover we can see on the right.

My contents page relates to the case studies I have studied because I used Kerrang! And Rock sound's layout on my own music magazine. For example Kerrang! Had one grid and had 1 image on the left, and my contents page has 1 grid on the left and I added two images on the right one after the other. Rock sound had 1 grid on the left just like my contents page but had 3 different images on the right. This shows that my contents page relates to both of the layouts of the case studies I looked at. Also, I added a yellow/orange ribbon behind the headings of my magazine like 'Features' & 'Reviews' because Kerrang! Had it too. It is to highlight to headings and separate them from the rest of the text. In addition, RockSound had the same thing but in a different colour which was red.

Here as we can see, both RockSound and Kerrang! Used a colour behind the writing on their contents to highlight the headings. I creates mine in a slightly bow shape to give it an edgy sharp look. Both magazines have used this highlighting method to show the headings so the customers could easily find what they are looking for.

As we can see from these two images, my contents page is strongly similar to RockSound’s contents page. I have the same layout however there are some changes I have made. For example I added a 'Contents' heading because 'Kerrang!' magazine had a heading too. Another different thing is that I only added 2 images instead of three because the top image is a far mid--shot which means it took up a lot of space. I challenged the media production because I did not add an editor's message because of the lack of space I had. If I creates a double page contents page I would have had space however as both of my case studies only had 1 page as contents I created a single page too. Also, RockSound did not have an editor's message which might also be because of the lack of space just like my magazine.

My Double page spread both challenges and uses forms of media productions. As we can see there are many similarities between my DPS and the case studies I have looked at. Some of them are the layout of my magazine, the body language and the facial expressions of the model. The props used and the makeup other denotations. I was not only just inspired by these pages, but also inspired by some of the other DPS in the case studies I looked at. To create the gradient effect on the right top side of my magazine, I used Photoshop and applied the same techniques that RockSound magazine used on one of their DPS that I will show later on another slide. Next couple slides will show you how I used and challenges other media productions.

Here, as we can see the facial expressions are very similar. Both Mallory Knox, Andy Sixx and my models face is scrunched up, and looks like they are screaming. The denotation this holds is that they might be in pain. It could also that as they are singing they might be very passionate about what they are doing. As Metal/Rock is a type of screamo music, this might be why magazines decide to use natural images and not planned out images. They are not posing for the camera but doing what they are passionate about which might also attract customers because they seem more down to earth.

Here we can see that I used a convention of a real media production. Kerrang! And my magazine Thunder have the same layout. There are three grids along with an intro at the top of the magazine. I decided to use three grids instead of two because I had a lot to write about. RockSound only had 2 grids which means I did not use their layout. However, in RockSound DPS the writing was not in Q&A form whereas Kerrang! Had a Q&A form just like my magazine which is also another reason why I used their layout. I challenged the convention by adding a pull quote in the centre of my magazine. Both Kerrang! And RockSound did not use a pull quote in the centre however I did because the centre is almost the focal point of the whole page and I thought adding an eye-catching pull quote would make the reader want to read more to find out more.

After posting my front cover, contents page and DPS on my blog i received many comments. Majority of the comments were good which meant I did not have to change a lot of things on my magazine however there were some fair improvement points.

Mark Rivas- 'I like the colour scheme of the front cover and the layout of the cover line is really unique. However some the text on the left is cut off so that should be adjusted.'
Mark made a very fair point about the text that was cut off on the side. Because I was rushing to finish off my finished draft and post it I did not notice it however after seeing the comment I moved the second layer of 'BANDS!' (purple text) more to the right so that it would be more closer to the first layer which is the white writing. Also I got rid of the '!' on the purple layer to make things look clear which has made a massive difference in my opinion. In addition, I moved the writing 'Disturbing' more to the left because it was also on the line of the yellow text box which looked unprofessional.

Adrija Steniukinaite- 'your front cover looks professional! I like the layout and the font of the text. The colours you have used work well together. Maybe you could add the issue date at the top of the cover.'

Adrija pointed out that my colours that I have used work well together. I used colours on color.adobe that complimented each other and I also chose to use yellow because Kerrang! and Rocksound have used yellow too. Another thing that Adrija said is that I could add the issue date at the top of the cover. However, I placed the issue number and the date on my contents page rather than the front cover because Kerrang! magazine had the issue number and the date on contents page. There reason for this might be to not make a crowd of writing as people are usually not interested because the eye-catching part of the front cover is everything else excluding the price and other details like issue number.

Serena B- 'As someone who would read an alternative magazine, your colour scheme doesn't really appeal to me, have a look at Kerrang! and RockSound, there's just a bit too much yellow on yours'.
The reason I chose to use yellow was because both Kerrang! and Rocksound have used yellow many times before in many different magazines. The reason it may not appeal to some people might be because yellow is not necessarily a 'gothic' or a 'dark' colour. However, my model on the front cover is not a metal singer, he has moved on from metal to rock which means it was a good opportunity to use yellow rather than basic colours such as black and red. The purple next to yellow was my addition. I would have used navy blue however I did not want to copy Kerrang! directly.

Serena B- 'On your cover just refine your aligning like on the pull quote it's more slanted than the 'Fallen Angel' so put them on the same diagonal and with the 'Emerging Bands' on the right hand side.'
This is a really good point because I noticed this before I poster my draft too. The main cover line is diagonally not same as the cover lines which does not look appealing. I have made this mistake because of the lack of time as I missed many little details like this. To improve my magazine, I have diagonally made the main cover line the same as the cover lines. I also increased the size of the text to fill in negative place and added an extra cover line to also fill in the space on the left.

Serena B-'I don't really like the white background on the contents and cover, in my opinion your work is really awesome then the background is quite bland? It needs something but i'm not sure what :s'
I have tried different background colours such as grey, black and yellow and the colours I changed to did not look good on my contents page. The most suitable colour ended up being white which is why I made the background white. Black was the second option however as my front cover's background is white, and very colourful, going from vibrant colours to black was a bit too much of a difference and the contrast was not good to see.

Mark Rivas- 'I like the colour scheme of the magazine and it conveys the genre well and the images are also very good, however there is a grammatical error in the DPS as it should say 'fell into depression'. Overall it looks very professional and well done.'

I made a grammatical mistake by writing 'Fell in depression' rather than ' Fell into depression. I have fixed this mistake by correcting it. It also looked even better because it filled in the extra space next to the images.

My changes- I have noticed that in magazines the website of their page is in every page. After Vanessa commenting on this I decided to change my contents page and add the website link at the bottom of the page, along with moving the page number from centre to the right side of the page. This made the contents page look a lot more professional and realistic.

Other than these improvements, majority of the comments were positive. A lot of people commented on how they liked my colour scheme and the layout of my magazine. Here are some of the comments:
Adrija: I like the colour scheme that you have used and that it remained the same through out the cover, contents page and DPS. The genre is clear from you design
Seema- I really like your magazine as the colour scheme works nicely and it all comes together very well. the font that you have chosen links to the genre and it looks good. for now i cant think of anything you could change or fix because it looks very professional and actually looks like a rock magazine.
Anieska- I really like your magazine colour scheme as it fits nicely with the genre.I think on a hold your magazine looks very professional.