Here is my final copy of the magazine cover. I began by trying to make my heading stand out as much as possible, and I think that the effect that I put on the heading, that it was coming off the wall makes it stand out quite alot. Like i said, I didn't want my front cover to seem over-crowded, so I therefore tried to include few bit of information, but obviously the most important bits, that I thought may really capture the costumers eye. The only problem that I think I had was that colour wise, it may be seen as a bit bland. So if I were to do it again, I would try to use a range of different colours because that would really catch the eye of the constumers. I wanted my magazine do be different, bring something new to the market and appeal to the people who enjoy this type of music, I think I did do this, but I thought that I should have shown that it was specifically a Jazz music magazine, and therefore really emphasise that.

Fusion Magazine

Here is my first take on my front cover picture. I wanted him to stand out so i put what he was wearing against quite a bland coloured background.
I didn't like this picture because he was too central in my image. I wanted him to be closer the left hand side to give me space to work around him.

I liked the proportions in this picture. It gave me a good amount of room to fill around him. My main aim was to not overfill my front cover, I wanted information to be displayed but I didn't want it to look overcrowded. So I felt Ineeded quite a bit of room to do this. The only thing I didn't like about this pictuire was the expression on my models face.

This was my final picture. It was similar to the last, the only improvement being expression on his face. I wanted my magazine to come across as funny and full of information. Therefore I tried to make it formal. I think the expression on his face helps portray this for the rest of the magazine.

Music Magazine

Preliminary Production - Written Production

Our first production was to create a new magazine cover, the cover had to include a Medium close-up (MCU) of a single person. We then had to upload the picture onto photoshop adapt and change the picture to make it better. From there on we used Adobe photoshop to creat and finalise our front covers. We then had to create a mock-up of our contents page. I used ther publisher programme to create this and I got a positive outcome.

My primary audience was he school in general. It was not aimed at a specific year or age group. I just aimed it at those who were at the school and those who were connected to the schhol. I.e parents/guardians. My plan was for the magazine to contain information and upcoming events of the school I wanted to keep it unique to the people of Sheldon school and the people linked to it. I tried to keep the front cover exciting, but quite formal as well. I kept the main heading font black and attempted to keep it concise and crisp. My main problem was trying hard not to make it fall either side of the formal and informal line, so to speak.


For our front cover we had to draw sketches of what we were going to attempt to create. I used 'thirds rule'. I didn't want to overcrowd my front cover so I tried to keep it filled with enough information for the consumer to want to read on, but i didn't want to take the focus away from the main picture by overcrowding the cover. My sketch was, I would say, a fair outline of how my cover went. I kept my picture in the same place, but moved some things around. I kept the sixth from block as my background because the main article read 'Sheldon's sixth form named England's Best!'. So I wanted to keep the relation. Personally I didn't think that my sketches were useful seeing as I changed my cover completely from what I was planning to do. Although it did help me to realise how I wanted my cover to look, and what I wanted show.

I personally found the pictures very hard to get right. Wather it made it very hard to get the right lighting and background colour. I found it very difficult to get the right amount of background in, because I had the 'Sheldon Sixth Form' writing on the wall of the building, I had to think about how much I was going to have to crop and if I was going to get all of the writing in. I managed to get nearly all of the writing in. Although some of it was cut out. Adapting the photo on Adobe photoshop I found particularly challenging because I hadn't used it before so I wasn't sure what tools did what. For my photo I had to use a tripod to keep the camera straight. It would have been disaster if it was wonky at all.

When I used photshop I had to manipulate the colour of my models skin because it was particularly pale and I wanted him to look bright and good looking. I also tried to exclude some blemishes to make my model seem more attractive. It took me a long time to finish manipulating and adapting my picture due to my naivety of photoshop and my lack of experience of photshop.

I tried to make the cover attractive, not only for pupils of the school, but also adults. I did this by trying to make the main heading fairly formal, using a smart font and keeping it in the original colour of black. I made it fairly big so that it would stand out. I also included on my front cover, competition boxes that stood out because it was a different shape. This was aimed at the younger generation to try and make them read into the magazine.

Overall I think that the frint cover went well. For my forst time using photshop and other programmes I feel that it was a fair attempt. If I could have done something better, I would have tried to think about my draft more so that it helped me more when I went onto photoshop and bgean making it. Also if my knowledge of Adobe photoshop was broader and I new mor it would have helped also. I thihnk that my preliminary production was a success and will help me as I begin my main production.

Preliminary Contents Page

Here is my draft of my contents page. I have tried to make it attractive to the viewer by changing the format and the layout of page. I have tried to include a fair amount of pictures so
that it is not all writing. I think there is alot of room for change, due to the amount of space. I think I can include alot more information. I will try to use various colours, my main colours being the traditional school colours of purple and gold to show the uniqueness of the magazine. The use of brightness and colours on my contents page should help to make it less boring and more interesting to read.

My Magazine Cover

Here you can see the final outcome of my school magazine cover. I feel that on the whole, the process was good. Seeing as it was my first time using photsop. I had to change my draft as I progressed due to the fact that I wasn't sure what to do at times, and where to find templates. Also my use of effects were clearly naive, cos on the print out my model's face appears to brighter, and un-realistic. I think that my next cover will be better, I will have more understanding of photoshop, and will find it easier to manipulate the picture and make it better.

Original Photos

This is my first picture I took for my front cover. I liked my models facial expression, its exactly the look that I wanted. Sadly I wanted all of the background writing to fit into the picture so I could not use this picture. The lighting was not great at the time when I took the picture due to the weather conditions, so I will use and improve the picture I select using photoshop.

This is my second picture. Again I could not get all of the writing in. This became an issue with all of my pictures, I couldn't take the picture any further away otherwise the picture would not be a medium close up, which is needed in the criteria of my magazine. Also the picture was not straight due to me not holding the camera straight.

My third picture was clearly my most successful, I captured all of the backgroun writing, and also his facial expression is what I wanted to capture. As you can see, the colour seems different, this is because I have changed the lighting to make the picture and colour seem more defined. When I attempted to resize the picture I lost some of the writing in the background. So I played around and when I cropped the image I managed to only partially lose the writing, so it was okay.