Annotating and deconstructing contents page

This presentation shows the rough and initial points/factors which will lead to giving me ideas for my contents page.

 

What happened

The previous posts based on my music magazine cover are presented to show what I had to do to reach the stage I am at now. After two weeks of constructing my cover together, Photoshop crashed meaning all my work was lost and all I had from this were the screenshots I took during the process. I learnt from this greatly as the only copy I had of my up to date work was on my USB although I was told multiple times by my teachers to continuously save my work in case of this situation. The copy on my USB became corrupt as I was having technical difficulties as I could not open any files on my USB.

Because the deadline of our final cover was due the same afternoon I lost all my work, I was left no choice but to work harder than before and use all my resources to reconstruct my cover. The cover which I had lost comparing to the cover I now created are massively different which is why I blogged the post which will not be counted as my exam piece. Although this left me much less time to complete the task, I gained the advantage of gaining much more feedback on my new and improved cover from my audiences and teachers as it was much more representative of my genre.

My future posts on this  blog will include my new cover and the improvements.

Front cover target audience feedback

The feedback I have gained, like the feedback from my flatplans are all from media students. I decided to only ask media students as they have a better understanding of our specification and know what features make a good magazine cover.

The feedback I gain on my cover will be constructive as it will help me improve my contents page as I will learn from the criticisms from the it.

Sana: I like the use of the colours used in the magazine and the layout is clear. I also like the pullquote used, it makes me want to read more. It looks very appealing and I can tell a lot of work and effort has been out into it.

Maneet: I like the colours and the layout used here, the colour scheme gives off the style of an R&B magazine. Although you could have used a different font for the artists name because this gives off the idea of a different genre of magazine.

Heleni: I like the colours, I think they all work well with each other and they compliment the background colour. I also like the masthead as it's bold and catches the readers attention. I like the effect on it and think it suits your genre. I like it, I think it's good, but I would probably make the graphic a block colour instead of just an outline and make it smaller to be able to move it away form the artists hair.

Kylan: I like the fading effect on the background because it shows your genre more, it relates to the magazine vibe. 

Kaneez:I like the use of the graphic and how the colours all relate and pull together. The layout of the text is also really good but would be even better if you could change the font to make it look more like a magazine of your genre.

Front cover linked to research

This Prezi presentation consists of visual links between my magazine cover and official R&B magazines which I have gained through my previous research and shared on my previous posts, it also contains a few similarities and differences between my magazine and the magazine cover which I chose to analyse.

Front cover features

This presentation shows the stages I carried to complete the main features on the cover of my magazine.  

Masthead and font decisions

This PowerPoint presentation shares the steps which I carried through to create all the fonts used for the text included on the cover for my music magazine This presentation also shares the mistakes I have made and how I will use these to my advantage by learning form them to use in creating my contents page and double page spread. The presentation gives an idea of what I changed on my magazine cover, sharing my improvements through my future posts.

Photograph manipulation

This is the original photo of my cover. To be able to have made this image my cover image, I had to carry out many tasks through Photoshop such as cropping around my artist and attempt adjusting mismatched skin tones in certain areas. Looking back on all my images, I now realise that this image wasn’t the best option as the lighting in the studio wasn’t at my best advantage as her shadow is vivid in the background and the lighting I could have possibly gained could have improved the quality of my artist as the brightness would have ha more of an affect on angle of gaze and her features which are the main attraction of the magazine.

I chose this image because I thought it had the most potential as her facial expression was the same as those of artists on covers of magazine such as Vibe or Billboard, the angle of my artists matches those to official magazines and my flatplan cover image and I was able to manipulate the shot type by cropping it to size. Here we see that I cropped around my artist through Photoshop as I decided to make the background a gradient fill of grey instead of plain white.

In comparison to the original picture, I attempted to get rid of a few flaws on my artists skin such as different coloured  patches on her skin and making the making look sharper as to stand out more to represent her image.

Cover layout/Photoshop

This PowerPoint presentation briefly introduces and explains how I started putting together my cover for my R&B music magazine and why I made the options included.

Mise-en-scene

Here I share the mise-en-scene such as the clothes, make up and props on my artist for the cover of my magazine and why I have decided my choice.

Options for cover

These photos are the options for the cover of my music magazine. I decided to shoot my artist in the studio as this way I had more option to change the lighting with ease. Although these are only my options, they have showed me that I need to improve on the focus of the camera in some of them as I think I could have had some more potential shots but they are blurry which is a downfall. 

Using my shot list, I have kept to my shot types which are mid shot, close up and mid close up and my props as I used the shot list as my guideline to help me take the pictures of my artists with more ease. I have also used various facial expressions with my artist as through my research I have seen that R&B magazines mostly have their artists with their lips slightly parted although sometimes closed with a straight expression or smiling. 

The following picture is an example of which could have been a potential shot for my magazine cover, the problem with this picture is that I did not focus on the eyes or face of my artist. The first thing an audience would concentrate on the most are the eyes of the artist as we can see the angle of gaze which is why it is so important to focus on this better in the future.

Shot list

My shot list consists of which shot types I will use in order to help me take my pictures for my magazine cover and which props and location I will use. This shot list will be my guideline in order for me to be organized while shooting my artists for my cover.

Draft Flatplan Feedback

This is the feedback I have collected from 5 people who completed my questionnaire earlier on during this course. I asked all of the participants to give me their first thoughts on the flatplans of my cover page, contents page and double page spread. All of these participants who gave me feedback on my flatplans are all AS Media students as they share a better understanding of our brief and have a better idea of what features the magazine flatplan should share such as clear layout, colour scheme etc. 

Draft Flatplan

This PowerPoint presentation shows my initial flatplans for my cover page, contents page and double page spread and why I made some of the choices such as colour scheme for taking the first steps into creating my music magazine.

Draft Flatplan

More PowerPoint presentations from Marwa Salama

Visual Magazine Profile

This PowerPoint presentation consists of my rough thoughts for my music magazine through words and pictures. They all share the colour scheme I wish to follow and the mise-en-scene such as style of clothing, colours and fashion in general.
 

Artist Profile

My artists shares a unique style as this is not only portrayed through her personality, but also through her music.  She is described as hipster/street with a cultural edge.

Her genre of music is R&B as she features with fellow R&B artists where most of her music is rap. Although R&B is her main genre, her music consists of elements of dance and electronic.

My artists style is best described as outrageous  as her personality is quite quirky. The props I will use such as jewellery and accessories will be chunky, bold and mostly gold as this is fashionable and contemporary (modern street fashion).  This sense of style is also stereotypically portrayed on people who are from the South London which is also the hometown location I am planning on basing my artists. My artists is very outspoken and bold as she portrays her own sense of style and her personality through her fashion sense. Although, the colours she usually wears most are darker colours she occasionally contrasts her colours such as wearing black and white.

My artists choice of make up is ‘the bolder the better’, thick winged eyeliner is her signature look as she matches it with bright red or deeper colours of lipstick such as purple or maroon.