EVALUATION Q7: Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt from it through the progression from it to a full product?

My preliminary task was to create a magazine front cover and a contents page. I had to work from scratch, picking out a specific model, taking my own photographs using an EOS 400D canon camera and editing my images with a photo editing software which I envision how I wanted it to look it. I found that task quite simple because I wanted the models to show their personalities and look natural. I have used Adobe Photoshop before; therefore I concentrated on getting the best out of my skills. However what I found difficult was setting up the lighting and camera as I was unfamiliar with it. I had to set up the soft box correctly, placing it to get the best lighting effect on how I desire it to be and getting the camera to focus on that subject which didn’t turn out so too bad with a couple of practice shots which the photographs came out decent.

For the main task, I learnt how to set up soft boxes and the triggers around it. I had to be very careful not to touch the bulb as a hazard of working with the soft boxes to avoid injury from electric shock from my preliminary task. I have also learnt the effects soft boxes create which is a diffused light by ‘bouncing’ light off a second surface to diffuse the light which gets rid of the harsh shadows and creates a smooth effect when the light is on the subject. This made it look natural and simple to blend in with my dark background.

During the process I tried to stick to deadlines and get things done as quickly as possible as I realise my organisation of time is limited. I had to work around my other subjects taking it into consideration and work quickly and effectively as I could. The equipment’s and props were already available for me which saved a lot of time. For my model, it was simple as I wanted a young black female with personality in a type of urban street clothing style which was typical for females. I took many photographs of different angles and poses which I could choose the best ones later on.

As I already know how to use Adobe Photoshop CS3 I focused on bringing out the best of my skills. For my main image, I used brightness and contrast adjustments to emphasis the model, making her stand out more. Secondly I used the Lasso tool to cut around her figure and remove the background from her to place her on my dark navy background which I made through Photoshop. It had a lighter glow in the middle in relations to her being a ‘new upcoming artist’ so I wanted to show that she was the star of that months edition of the magazine. I also used ‘smart blur’ to make my models face look flawless and smoother, almost an airbrush effect.

For my magazine, when creating it I used several similar fonts, all sans-serif which is the font without the flicks at the ends apart from the name ‘JOY-ANN’. By doing so, it gives the magazine a sense of a modern feeling. The reason why ‘JOY-ANN’ is in serif (font with the flicks in the ends) instead of sans-serif is because she is a female on the front cover and so I wanted to have a feminine touch to it. For the masthead, I used a large sans-serif font and made it big and bold in the colour white. I also put a shadow inside of the font to make it stand out more as this is important for the audience to recognise and remember the brand. Throughout the magazine I kept the font on different varieties of sans-serif fonts unless it’s to do with the upcoming female artist ‘Joy-Ann’ that I would switch it up to a serif font to have that feminine feel.

Overall, the strength of my magazine is that people liked the look of it and feel as though I have achieved the RnB/Hip-Hop genre for the British audience. I was happy that I was able to complete my products in time, the magazine cover, contents page and double page spread.

The weakness of my product is that I believe I should have made the background more colourful instead of one dark, bold colour to bring more personality to it. Another weakness of it is that I could have added trendier, youthful fonts as it is aimed more to teenagers because the sans-serif font could also be seen as boring.  If I was to do this again I would make sure I add more range of colours and more varieties of fonts that could also be modern yet trendy.

Comparing my preliminary college magazine task and music magazine final product I feel like I have learned from it and have improved. During the making of my college magazine task I imagined what a college magazine would look like and created it out of my out creativity and design abilities. Whereas for my main task I searched in depth on the conventions of magazine, layout and the music genre looking into different magazines such as VIBE as an inspiration. Since creating my preliminary task, I realised I had to work quick therefore my timing improved. My Photoshop skills and setting up the camera equipment also improved and I developed an understanding of the camera and how to focus.  

EVALUATION Q6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

As part of constructing this product, technology played a huge part during the process. As an individual making this product I had the chance to explore many different technologies. One of the first many technologies I used was the internet. I was told to make an online account on a blog publishing service called blogger.com where I would be able to produce my work and ideas on it. I have never used a blogging service before but I found that the concept was easily understood and simple to work with. Blogger is also useful for uploading images easily from my computer showing different aspects of my work and ideas which is presented through the blog. I was also able to copy and paste (Ctrl V+P) my typed up work from Microsoft word which was helpful and saved me time. Moreover, as I learnt that I was able to put it on private so I didn’t need to worry about other students copying my work which benefitted me. Although it was straightforward, there were a couple of problems I stumbled by. One problem was that I found that the inconsistency operation when trying to rearrange images amongst the texts difficult which resulted in the blog formatting itself differently when previewing the blog than when it was laid out together. Overall I was able to overcome this problem by spending more time with my blog, although it may not look top notch I was still about to record my ideas and work.

I used search engines such as Google and Wikipedia as part of my research. I used Google as my search engine of choice to search images of magazines relating to my choice of genre which was RnB/Hip-Hop. I found magazine front covers such as XXL to write a textual analysis of it, but also used the web search to go to the magazine company’s direct site for example www.xxlmag.com to learn more about the magazine in depth. I also had to research on a magazine publishing company to write a case study about which Wikipedia was helpful in proving detailed information about the publishing company and other useful researches.

I used Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel which are software’s on the computer to help present my work. Microsoft word is a standard word processor which I used to type up my work and as well as creating my audience research questionnaire. I made use the of the spell check ability to correct my grammar to its best it could be. I used Microsoft Excel 2007, which is a spread sheet application that is capable of creating customised graphs which is displayed from my audience research results where I used it to represent the results instead of typing it out. I did not learn anything from this as I have already experienced how to use these applications.

For taking photographs of my model, I used a Canon EOS 400D 10.1 megapixel camera. I have previously used the camera for my preliminary task but I also do photography a level which was a bonus for me. Although I haven’t used the exact same camera I had an idea of how it works, I was still learning about how the camera works throughout the process of constructing this product. I learnt that there was a guide of red dots that comes up to guide you and show the correct orientation when taking a picture which the eye had to be levelled with the dots. The photograph is usually taken portrait as the magazine would be would also be portrait, fitting in as much of the subject as possible. I figured how I wanted to frame my subject and what type of shot I was going to use which I decided to take of medium shots because I wanted the photo to take up the unnecessary background for the magazine front cover. I learnt about different angles and what they could represent, I shot the model in mainly eye level so the audience would be able to relate to her. In some of my pictures I saw that it was blurry and to avoid it I learnt that the camera button should be held down halfway to get it in focus before pressing it down fully to capture the picture.

 Furthermore I used Adobe Photoshop CS3 to edit my magazine and lay out everything in place. Adobe Photoshop is an advance graphics editing software which I used to edit my photographs and lay out everything on my magazine into place. Firstly, I used it mainly to edit my photographs which I already knew how to work with on Photoshop therefore with that in mind; I concentrated on getting the best out of my skills. For my main image which was off a young teenage female, I used brightness and contrast to adjust the lighting and to make her stand out more as she is featured as the main star for the magazine. Secondly, I used the Lasso tool to cut around her to place her in my own customised background which was dark on the outside with a hint of glow in the middle. I then used smart blur to make my models face clearer and smoother but also have that ‘airbrushed’ look. I did the same for my other images of the model on my double page spread. Throughout this process, I did not learn anything new. Although I did not gain further knowledge on this I did experiment, manipulating and playing around with the photographs and effects that could be achieved.

A Soft box is a type of photographic lighting device which eliminates harsh shadows by diffusing the artificial light source so that it hits the subject softly creating a smooth effect. By having the light come from one side, it gives the image a deeper effect that I wanted to show, representing the star have two sides to her. The soft box made my photographs every natural even when I edited it with brightness and contrast it wasn’t so harsh. I learnt how to set the soft box up, working out the triggers and its use. I was warned about the hazards of working with soft-boxes from my preliminary task that it needs great amount of attention to avoid injury from electric shock. The soft box can be placed at any angle to stimulate the required light source. I also learnt how to position my models correctly between the background, soft box and camera so that I was able to focus the model with the camera.