Technology Evaluation

When creating my foundation production magazine, it was a good chance to learn the different softwares. I started off using 'Pages', this was to learn how to produce a good layout and be able to over lap images. Compared to my music magazine, the school magazine was very basic. This was because i did not know how to use the software correctly, however through practice i have learnt the different techniques on pages such as wrapping, cropping and making objects transparent with this i feel i have produced a professional looking music magazine. Pages was the only programme used, i would of liked to use a more complexed editing software like photoshop but my images didn't require it.

Music Genre Evaluation

When picking my music genre i had to make sure i used the correct house-style to represent it. I also had to make sure my music genre was suitable for my target audience. Firstly i looked at the targeted audience, and what that audience would listen to. To do this i researched the age group and found that most of the girls watch and listen to disney stars, which fits into the 'Pop' genre. I then had to make sure the house-style was applicable to the genre, by doing this i had to look at similar magazines which are targeting the same audience. One magazine i looked at and based my final house - style on was 'Girl Talk Magazine'. I loved how seeing just that bubble font for the main title it automatically appeared to be girly, and i also felt it represented 'Pop'.

Title and Text Evaluation

When designing my music magazine, i needed to think about my targeted audience, and which fonts would suit the genre of the magazine. I researched magazines with a younger target audience, and i also thought about the typical font that may be used to represent 'Pop'. I found a font which was very rounded, this was typically found when researching 'Pop' fonts. I decided that i would use this particular font for my main title of the magazine. However when it came to the other text on the front cover i then looked at similar genre magazines, and they had used a variety of different fonts for the text. This gave a good effect and decided i would use this idea to. On my D.P.S and contents page, i stuck to the same house-style as the front cover, and for main titles i would use the rounded bubble font, and for smaller texts use different fonts. On my D.P.S with in my interview i stuck to the same text the whole way through, this was to avoid confusion. However i included quotes taken from the interview and placed them with in the chunk of text in a much bigger, and different font to allow the quotes to be noticed and stand out. I have seen this technique used before in other professional magazines, and feel it works well.

Improvements

Print professionals - Steve Priddell and Rowland Cowley UWE Print and Design Division I presented my Front Cover, Contents Page and Double Page Spread to the print professionals and then gave me a couple of improvements to make on my magazine. 1) Change the cover of the main mast head 'Pulse'. They felt that the pale pink needed to be a darker pink, as it merged into the other text. 2) Move text overlapping the background image on the front cover, so that the image can be clearly seen. 3) On my double page spread, they suggested i move the coloumns over and possibly add another image with in the page. I have applied all these improvements on to my magazine, images below show the final copies featuring the improvements.

Final Music Magazine 'Pulse'

Front Cover - Pulse

This is my contents page for my music magazine. I took a lot of time deciding on the layout of the magazine, as i was trying to follow a suitable grid. I also looked at 'Girl Talk' magazine, which has quite a busy front cover. I tried to copy this look on my magazine cover as 'Girl Talk' has the same target audience as what my magazine has.

Double page spread - Pulse

This is my double page spread, i have added a faint background image behind the text, and other images. To make the double page spread more realistic, i looked into adding quotes taken from the interview.

Contents Page -

This is my bright contents page, it features an editors note introducing what is in the current issue of 'Pulse' and also images that are included with in the magazine.