JL02 – EVALUATION

JL02 was all about creating a magazine which showed off my photography, photo editing and Photoshop skills. I had to create a masthead and a selling line for the magazine as well as producing a front cover, a contents page and a double page spread which contained a Q&A article with a made up actor.

I decided to make mine a film magazine and call it FILM: A.

Initial Research

I created a questionnaire in order to find out information about the magazine preferences of college students. I handed some out in class and some around the college. The questionnaire helped me in several ways with things like – (should it be a real magazine) how often a new issue would come out, how much it will cost, what type of articles I should place more importance on and if they’d prefer to read specifically about British film or involve other countries and cultures too. I also learnt about what competition I’d face from other film magazines and magazines from different genres. It was also important to find out the

core demographic so it could influence me with my decision at the magazine’s target audience (gender and age).

Product Research

For Product Research, I analysed front covers and contents pages. This helped me gain a full understanding of the words and names for things featured in magazines, as well as looking at layouts and designs and trying to spot certain similarities and some of the differences.

Logo Design

This is my logo. I like this logo because I think the metal texture of the text works well with the contrasting wood-like texture of the border. It took a while to create the text because I had to type in out twice, delete half of both of them, add them together while leaving a small gap in between and then edit them both in order to create the metal-like texture. I really like the text and am pleased I persevered with it after nearly giving up. It also has a 3D look to it and to me it looks like someone has stuck the letters onto the border with glue or something.

Image Editing

I didn’t really do too much in terms of changing things when editing my images. All I did do was get rid of the background to all 5 of the photos I took. However, on one of the images, I deleted the background and changed it from looking left-to-right to right-to-left. I think it looked good because I made it look like the ‘actor’ was looking up at the text that was used in the article. This is what it looked like and how I did it.

Magazine Cover

This is the front cover to my magazine. I decided, in order to fit in with the demographic, to only feature one image on the cover. It was enlarged in order to take up the majority of the space. I did this because I felt if there was too much images and not enough information, then it would

attract the wrong audience (like children) – alternatively, I felt like I found the right balance between the image and the text because if there was too much text and just one small image then it would attract adults. I chose the red and gold colour scheme for the front cover (and subsequently for all pages I produced) because red is a popular colour with the target audience, and gold symbolises that my magazine is the best when compared to the competition. I felt it was also important to feature the ‘actor’ in a similar red to the red I used because it fit in perfectly with the colour scheme, especially with the plain white background.

Contents Page

This is my contents page. As you can see, I decided to stick to the colour scheme of the front cover, as well as featuring the logo and the same text

from the logo was used for the ‘CONTENTS’ header. I also repeated the border style from the logo and the front cover for this page. I felt this was important as a way of creating a recognisable identity for FILM: A. The text remains the same style too.

Double Page Spread

This is my double page spread article. It features the article, 2 edited images from the photo-shoot, a header featuring a sentence from the article and an introduction. The article retains the colour scheme of the previous pages, but drops the borders and the metallic style text. What I like about this is how the colours complement each other in regards to the questions and the answers. The font remains the same as from the

other pages and this is important as it keeps a stable theme between the other pages. I also like how I made the images of the ‘actor’ appear like he is reading the article.

Peer Group Feedback

James Picken – “I think the magazine looks quite good but could have certain improvements like more images”

Josh Whipday – “You can kind of tell that it has been rushed so the quality isn’t as high as it would’ve been if you had spent more time on it. Other than that it’s pretty good.”

Nick McCabe – “I think the logo and slogan looks really good. The contents page looks a bit dodgy though.”

Jody Entwistle – “Everything looks pretty good apart from the contents page. Sorry, our kid.”

Matthew Rogero – “I think you’ve done a good job, especially with the logo and the double page spread. The contents page doesn’t look that great though and you could have edited the pictures more.”

Heather Hawthorne – “The logo looks really professional and the front cover looks great. The article is good as well, but, like everyone else is saying, the contents page isn’t as good as the rest.”

Christian Wright – “Everything looks far too good for you to have done it.”

*Some girl in the corridor whose name I have forgotten* - “It doesn’t look too bad to be honest but I think there could have been more pictures in there. Also the contents page isn’t that bad but it’s not as good as the rest because of the white space near the picture.”

Strengths

- I think I created a stylish and professional logo- I think the article was written well- I think I did well to create a recognisable identity for the magazine,

such as using the same font, same colour scheme, same style, etc.

Weaknesses

- I think the contents page looks messy and not as smart as the other pages

- I think I could have used more editing techniques with my photographs

I am quite proud of the work I produced considering the short amount of time I spent on it due to my time on the course coming to an end. I really enjoyed the unit because I am a big fan of using Photoshop. Overall I think a did an okay job – not the best but certainly not the worst.

Alyx Entwistle