My Twelfth Mistake

Deadline.


Well I have been taking my time because I thought I had until summer to finish this project, so now I need to actually begin the process of making my publication. 
Since I have decided to stay with the name "The Black Magazine" I started to give some thought into what the front will look like.
After I examined some covers I then had to think about what font, I didn't think any of the fonts suited what I was going for, so I decided to download some different ones and this is what I came up with. 

After a process of elimination I decided that the best choices were the: first, second and fifth fonts as I feel they best represent the look I am going for. 






















Anyway, I will blog more as I actually get things done on my magazine. 

My Elventh Mistake

How I turned normal images into Polariod pictures.

As I said in my previous post, I am going to blog about the process of how I made normal images to look like Polariod pictures.

I started by cropping the image I wanted to use, into a square and took out all the parts of the image I didn’t want.

I was then left with this image of just the part I wanted.

I then expanded the canvas to add the white boarder around the image. I then extended the bottom height of the image to make it look as if it was a Polaroid picture.

I then dropped a shadow to give it an authentic feel.

Opacity: 38%

Distance: 5px

Spread: 0%

Size: 5px

I then dropped an inner Shadow to give it a bit of colour so it doesn’t look like something that was made in haste is paint.

Opacity: 25%

Distance: 5px

Choke: 0%

Size: 57px

This is the result;

Notice the shading around the image

I then highlighted a part of the image I want to add a glossy finish to.

I then added a slanted text to give the image a bit of the boy’s attitude, and as a reference to a personal joke or them being on tour.

That's all folks!

My Tenth Mistake

With the initial planning of my music magazine, I decided to start on the production.

I started by taking various pictures of the people who I wanted as band members.

I then decided that since I am producing a magazine to promote a band's debut album I should also create an album cover for the band, which looked like this;

I started with a simple black background for the album cover then I added large white text over the black background in order to make this.

I then turned the layers I was working on into smart object layers and then I added a filter > Render > Clouds to darken the text then I used a brush tool to add a weathing effect to the text.

I will most likely change some aspects of this at a later stage. I chose a black background because the colour black represented rebellion, power, mystery and the a sense of perspective and depth. The black also represents a sort of blank canvas on which the band will build and grow. Since this is a debut album having a blank canvas seemed to be a fitting start because this is the same with artists, novelists and people, they all start from a blank canvas and then create something from that blank canvas. The white of the text represents the actual meaning of the colour white, which is usually perfection as the colour white represents perfection, but the weathered text denotes that the band is not perfect, it is not trying to be perfect it is simply trying to get its messages across via the music. The weathered white text also represents a sense of perfection stained by society and man kind.
The reason I chose a blank canvas for the album cover rather than a picture of the band is because the simplicity of the album cover is also a deliberate contrast to the complexity of the collaborative nature of the band itself.  

Moving on to the actual pictures I will be using, I am still in the process of reviewing the pictures I will be using for the magazine, but so far I have confirmed that I want to use at least this image:


 I am certain I want to use this image because of the way I managed to capture the text on the ad below them "Elite, Fresh & Hot". I thought this would be a great picture because it describes the band or how I want to represent the band anyway. I want them to be seen as 'Elite' even though they are new to the music scene they already deserve some recognition and respect. 'Fresh' because they will offer a new sound and a new way of attaining that sound, because this is a collaborative band with not just these four boys (although they are the main members) but including other people as well. As for 'Hot' that just happened to be there but it is an attractive photograph so I thought it was fitting.
Also the low angle shot makes them look powerful, representing that the band is in power and will not submit to authority. I am going to turn this image (among others) into polaroid pictures and then scatter them over a section of a page nonchalantly as if the band themselves took the pictures then scattered them over a page, this will represent them not caring and being very nonchalant about the way they present themselves. 
I want my other images to be turned from the one above to the one below:
(I will show the process I used in photoshop to get this effect at a later stage because current I am still learning it) 

My Ninth Mistake

The Seed of an Idea.

In the previous lesson I started to think about what I my magazine is going to incorporate and the features that it will contain.
My basic idea will be that the name of the publication will be "The Black Magazine". This is a reference to a number of different artists/bands who have had a multi-platinum albums with the title of "The Black Album" These artists include; Metallica, The Dandy Warhols, Jay-z, Prince and The Damded. The name of the publication also has a connotation of rebellion and revolutionary.
The band being featured will be called "The Penguin Philosophers"

Here is my initial plan of the magazine, it is a work in progress and I will add more to later.















Here is a list of things I thought of whilst making this and these things aren't concrete yet, I will probably change a lot of the things I did in this plan;

Title: The Black Magazine – as a reference to many artists who have had multi-platinum albums with the same title of “The Black Album” artists such as Metallica, The Dandy Warhols, Prince and Jay-Z.

Genre(s): The publication will focus mainly on alternative/rock but will cover other genres including; nu-metal, indie, rapcore etc.

House Style: The house style will be mainly black and focus around darker colours as a connotation of rebellion and revolutionary.

Comparisons: This publication will be related to other music publications such as, ‘Q’, ‘Kerrang’ and ‘Rock Sound’.

Brand Identity: Logo pending

Language: The language used in this publication will be informal.

Target Audience: the audience targeted will be of an age group of about 16 – 24 year olds. Secondary audiences will include people who listen to certain genres but it is not limited to a niche market.  

The band being featured in the double spread article will be “The Penguin Philosophers”.

My Eighth Mistake

With this blog I intend to be caught up will all my work thus far.

To start of with I have analysed the actual school prospectus, and once again found that a lot of thought goes into every detail of the front cover, such as the colour scheme the angle of the shots, what was shown in the shots etc.

Here is my analysed front cover of the school prospectus.

Sorry It's upside down.

After doing my own front cover of a school prospectus I then did a contents page for the school prospectus and since the actual school prospectus doesn’t have a contents page I had to work independently on this one.

I kept to the St. Marks house style and here is how it turned out.   

My Seventh Mistake

My mistake in this was that I had previously forgotten to post this part of my work up because I was too busy helping other people upload their pictures to their blogs.
Anyway we learned about the theory of the production of magazines.
You have to take a lot of things into consideration and you also have to know that every little detail on the magazine cover has been put there for a reason. It was our task to identify those reason on two different magazines under the theme of education to compare and contrast the elements used on the magazine cover. 
Here are the two magazine covers I annotated and analyzed.

(Refer Above)
Apologizes for rotation of images.  

My Sixth Mistake

I have made a big mistake on this one and that being I forgot to blog about something my teacher had told me to blog about earlier which will mean I will have to work backwards for a while and then continue forward before Friday's lesson. 
I was asked to make a school prospectus for St. Marks, that alone can stand to be difficult seeing how I really have no Idea what I'm doing on photoshop half the time. Another reason this will pose a challenge will be that I will have to explain why I chose the camera angles and font, so I can't just blindly and randomly take pictures and hope it all works out for the best, I need to really think as to why this would be the best choice for the job. 

With the completion of my school prospectus I will explain my reasons for what I chose. 

Firstly, I chose the background image of 3 students because of what can be seen from the picture and what it represents. That being part of St. Marks school will mean that you will not be alone and there will always be help there for you should you need it. Also as represented by the student looking off into space, you can be unsure of what future career path you wish to taken, because this is a place where you can discover that in this school.


Secondly, the center image was chosen for a few reasons one of them being it ties in very well with a previous point made about always being able to find help at St. Marks. Also this picture portrays the meaning well with no ambiguity. The low angle makes the people look powerful and says that education gives you power. The lighting is bright and clear much like the futures of young people at St. Marks, the connotation is learning , sharing, helping all in this Sixth Form.


Finally, I chose the font because it keeps within the house style of St. Marks as Times New Roman looking font, this keep it consistent and also gives it a professional look and feel to it. I then embossed the font and dropped a shadow behind it because it look very plain and dull before this edit was made, I did it so it would add more aesthetic beauty to the overall look. I then added the school logo to the right side of the prospectus.