Thursday, 11 February 2010

Final Design: Double Page Spread

For my double page spread I used the programme Quark Express, as it is a publishing program closer to that used by genuine magazine publisher.
The colour theme for these two pages is different to that of the rest of the magazine, as I wanted to establish a new theme for the article and, as red was the most striking colour from the photos - my friend's red hair and the red guitar, I continued the theme, the red also adding connotations of danger and violence associated with the word "war". As I had imagined a "special" containing many articles on the Amplified competition, I created a top bar which I imagined would appear on all articles, including the magazine's name, and the name of the competition, then added the proper Amplified logo I created. I then continued the colour scheme in my font colours.

Final Piece - Double Page Spread
The article itself was an interview with members of different bands, a scenario often covered by other magazine articles, and I picked out a major quote to break up the columns of text. I also added a competition, a popular magazine convention, and used a picture I took at a local gig last year as a last minute extra to add interest. The bottom bar I had intended to use as an "extra news" section, but instead used it to incorporate the element of fashion that people had liked in the moodboard I created at the start of the project.

Monday, 8 February 2010

Final Piece: Contents Page

I made my final contents page in Photoshop - though I had initially designed it in QuarkExpress, there were too many elements which I wanted to manipulate/change in ways only Photoshop could. I also used a photo I initially hadn't intended on using as it was very overexposed and slightly blurred. However, using the special filters and editing, I was able to rectify quite a lot of this, and make the image more normal in colour, and clearer.

Final Piece - Contents Page
I changed the colouring slightly, as it had been pointed out to me that the colour scheme didn't quite match that of the front page. This time, I used the eyedropper tool on Photoshop between the two pages to ensure they were both the same colour. I wanted the layout to be more minimal than ones I had previously reviewed, like Kerrang, so I only included one main photo, and made sure there were white spaces. However, my page did become crowded with the page details, so I was unable to add an Editor's Letter, something I had hoped to feature. Overall, I am pleased with this page and feel it keeps to the theme already set by my front cover well.

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

Front Cover: Feedback and Changes

Having completed my front cover, I posted it up on facebook to gain some final critique and clear up any errors. One point made was the relevance of the bottom photos, which I had intended to be pull out posters, so I went back and labelled them to make it more obvious. I also added a small barcode which wouldn't obscure anything important on the page, and the price, which I had previously missed, putting it as £2.00 as this was the average price that people had said they would pay in previous comments.




Final Piece - Front Cover

Final Piece with added barcode, price and poster screamer