My final front cover

Here is my completed front cover page. I have made some changes for my front cover page for example put some more cover lines in it, made the letter L become capital letter and put a barcode on the bottom right of my front cover so basically I have changed everything I have mention earlier.

Masthead Designs

Here is my font types that I'm going to use for the name of my magazine but I haven't designed yet which one I should use for the name of my magazine.

Draft of my front cover page

This is how my front cover looks so far. I got told by my teach that I should put more cover lines on it or make the cover lines become bigger. I also got told by my friend that I should put capital L for "life"In my opinion, I think it would be better if I put a barcode on the bottom left of my magazine in order to make looks like it was make by professional.Therefore I have to make change on my front cover page.

My Survey Results

Here is the results from my survey about the student magazine that I'm going to make.

Contents page final design

Here is the final design of my contents page and it looks slightly different from my previous design as the previous design looks similar to most of the student magazine that I have seen so I think it would be better if my one looks different from them.

Contents page design

This is my contents design, however it hasn't completed yet

Front cover final design

Here is my final design of my front cover, it a bit different from my previous design. I have made some changes in it, I moved some of the cover lines from right handside to the left handside and I designed to put the price of my magazine on the top right of the front cover page and add a barcode on the bottom right of the page. 

Front cover design

This is the design of my front cover. It hasn't complete yet so it might be some changes in it.

Learning functions and tools of Photoshop

Here is my evidences to show that I've have been learning and tried to use the functions and tools of the Photoshop in order to be able to make my front cover looks better and looks like professional one. However there are lots of tools and functions that I still don't really know how to use. I've been learned and tried some basic one.

Photoshop

Today we have been learning how to use basic tools, functions and applications in Photoshop. The task was to take the crab and the lemon out of the plate from the original picture (the picture on the left) and put them on our own background (the picture on the right). Then we had to make a text box and type something in it, the text should be on the picture, not under the crab or the lemon. The lesson was really fun because our teach gave me some knowledge on Photoshop software which I don't really know how to use it. I've been tried to use it before when I was young but I didn't really know how to use it so after that I find it really difficult to use, but now I started to know how things work in the Photoshop and what functions it has.

My Questionnaire

Please answer my questionnaire from the link below.

http://freeonlinesurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=tt1rn7f50qeq0rj992304

Content analysis

For this task, we have to compare 3 magazines and have a look at the features of them, what features do each of them contain, what are in common and what are the different in each magazines.

Analysis of a student magazines called  "EDS-UCATION", "STUDENT ID" and "STuDenT iD"

 

For the "EDS-UCATION" student magazine, it contains lots of photos in it even the front cover itself, it is full of the photos. It has some cover line on the front cover which has some useful stuff on it, for example Tips for exam success.

Inside this magazine, it has some fun facts, for example Wordsearching and lots of activities that has happened. It also have some facts on students' feeling and opinions on "Being in Rudiments" it also has some fashions in the magazine and its prices. However this magazine is not just contains fun and enjoyment stuff like activities,games and fashions, it also has some tips to get better results in the exam such as how to revise

The appearance of this magazine in term of colour in each page and the text colour is too simple and normal as it doesn't have much colour, most of text colour in this magazine is in black colour and most of the background colour is in white. The mainly colours come from the photos, except the last 2 pages and the back cover, it started to be more colourful. In my opinion, the magazine should have some more colour in it, just like the last 2 pages which some text boxes with different colour background in it.

Textual analysis

For the textual analysis task, we have to analyse one cover and one content of a student magazine.

Here is an example of a front cover of a college magazine:

We could see that they used black as the background colour and the at middle of the background, it has a grey colour glow up this was put in order to make the magazine's background colour become brighter and not too dark. They also put  a very big bright yellow colour for the masthead on the top of the magazine which make it looks stand out to get the audiences' attention. They used a photo of a man with a black jacket for the front cover without the title, sub-title and the books in his hand, we wouldn't recognise that it is a college magazine because of the way he dressed but they put books, the title and the sub-title on it so we could know that it is a college magazine. It would be easier the use a photo of a student with they college's uniform which we could see straight away that it is a college magazine but it would be or might be boring for the audience as most of the audience of this magazine would be students. The way he dressed also represents his college, it shows the audiences that his college doesn't care much about the dressing which make him looks chilled out so the magazine would be more interesting. For the layout of this front cover, it is surrounded the model, the student in this front cover, this layout is typical layout and it was put like this so the text on the front cover don't cover the whole body of the model. As we could we on this front cover which is really stand out is the bright pink bit where it says "Splat!" They also used the "!" sign which get the audience attention, this bit on the front cover is the most stand out thing as the colour used was different from the other colour on the front cover page as most of the colours are black, yellow-green, white and grey.

Here is an example of content page of a student magazine.

As the content page is one of the most important page as it shows the audience which page contain what topic therefore it has to get its audience attention so they can see the most interesting topic for themselve because most people buy magazines which relate to themselve. Therefore now I'm going to say what should be change on this content page. First thing that could be change is the colour. The colours of this content page are mostly in black and white except the yellow at the middle of the magazine. The content page is colourless because black and white don't count as colour because when you print out the content page, it can be either in black and white or in colours but in this case we know that it was printed out in colour as we could see that the photo and the middle bit is in colours not in black and white. This content page looks really boring as it's colour doesn't get much the attention of its audience and it really looks different when compare with the front cover. As we know that the most important thing on the content page is the yellow bit that shows us what is on which page. However I think it would be better if it has more colours in it and change the colour of the text and the background in order to make it looks more colourful and attractive for the audience. For the second thing that can be change in order to make the content page looks better is the font of the text and the title of this magazine looks too formal as we know that student and college magazines have their target mostly on students, therefore the font of the text and the size of it should be change so it could get more attention from the audience.

The layout of this content page is excellent as it devided in 3 columes and in each colume has its own features for example the first colume on the left is about the letter from  the ed..., the second colume in the middle shows the topic on each page and the last colume shows photos and each photo has its own explanation.

My Action Plan

We were told in our class that we have four weeks in order to finish this coursework, so in order to finish it on time, I have to make my action plan which plan what to do in each week.

Here is My Action Plan:

7th of November

• Create my own blog.
• Choose the tone colour for the background which suits with the colour of the font (Text).
• Take a medium close up photo from a student.
• Try to use and learn the applications on the site.

14th of November

• Textual analysis
• Content analysis
• Make Questionnaire about the student/college magazine
• Learn the tools and applications from photoshop

21st of November

• Catch up with a medium close up photo from a student that I planned to do on first week.
• Catch up with content analysis that I haven't done on the second week.
• Design front cover page and contents page
• Check my survey result and make them as graphs to present the results

28th of November

• Choose appropriate font style, font size and colour for the masthead
• Make front cover
• Create contents page

Introduction

        Hi everyone, today we have been set a task which is about producing the front page of a new school/college magazine, the magazine has to have a medium close up shot of a student, some laid-out text and a masthead. We have to use some software such as DTP and Photoshop for making the magazine. In order to get better marks, we have to show some skills and knowledge on the software, understanding of layout, graphics, colour and page design.