Working with existing forms and conventions
Firstly my collage & music magazines had to be conventinal in terms of target audience and if they would find it appropirate or not depending on who our target audience was. In terms of collage magazine, i would say that it my target predominantly is student at collage or 6th form between the ages of 16-19. And for my music magazine in my case it was for pop and hip hop lovers. I had thought about carefully about what age i would like and i chose it to be for like 13-25 year olds becuase those ages are more aware and frantic about music. This relates to other magazines, i had analysed what they had done in terms of house style and layout.
Predominantly in the images of the magazine i looked at the mode of adress, how the text was presented and if it was to informal or too formal. I also looked at the images to see if they where compatable. All of these where taken into cosideration with mine and i had asked my piers if my mode of address and my images where compateble and on many occasions i had changed my front cover picture so that it is conventianl.
Working in media production contexts
In my collage magazine, i approached it in ways of me asking different people of what they thought of my name and what they thought of my house colour style of the magazine it self. In terms of time management, i had me own copy of photoshop at home but i decided to take it slowly so i could do abit and upload it to my blog and ask my teacher and what the class thought about it. And when i had gatherd all my final peices of information i then sat down after i got home and done the whole front and contents page taking into consideration of the feedback i had been given by everyone else e.g. logo & name of the magazine. A very good example of something that i had to keep adjusting would be the main front cover. the 1st pictre i had, there was too many things going on in the background that where not conventinal and had nothing to do with my collage. At many occasions i had tried to edit it but decided to take a whole new picture that had nothing in the background. in terms of organizing the people i wanted involved like the girl on my front cover, i took the pictures of her during collage in my spare periods, we took many different pictures before i chose out wihch one would be good enough.
In terms of my music magazine, they way i had apprached i was much more dificult. I thought of the denotatin and contations of the pictures i had taken and what my target audience would think and whether it would be approriate for my target reader. i had read many different magazines to get examples and in my front cover and contents page i went with the style of a clash magazine that i liked. in terms of time i had made sure i had made all my reasearch and then began to design my front and contents page. I think time became on my side with the double page spread, becuase i didnt have any ideas of what to do. but i finally came up with something in the last couple of days. I had to redesign it many times to that it was conventinal and that the font was readable in my second page of my double page spread. in terms of all my images used i had to edit them to make it look prefessional and glossy enough for it to look like a bevliable magazine. I organized the someone to take pictures of the featured artist on my front cover, at the end of the school day in our dark room. I had to orgazine the rooms and see if they would be free.
To me, doing drafts of both magazines was a good thing becuase as i had mentioned before, it would be good to get feed back from class mates and people in school to see what they think and what could be improved. I had learnt that if i had submitted my 1st dratfs of both magazines, they would not have gotten any good marks. Time management was soomthing that i learnt that was significant becuase, without it i wouldnt have been able to manage the different photoshoots that i needed for both magazines and the text that i used etc, let alone the editing of the different pages.
Using technology
In terms of DTP, this enaabled me to do many creative things, even things that i did not now how to use. I think it. I had noticed that using DTP was different in some aspect becuase the ideas that innatially came up with either came out better than what i wanted or i just changed my mind in ideas and decided to do something much more better. Something that did stop me from suceeding what i wanted was the fact i had to use 3 different types of photoshops in order to choose what effect looked better on what but at the end of the day, they all helped me achive my final product.
Thinking about audience
Thinking about the audiences i had to make different decisions in both tasks. In my music magazine, i had to read different types of magazines and look at how they addressed their audiences. I looked at top selling magazines to see what made them to be top selling magazines and how i could relate their ideas to my project. In terms of my collage magazine, it was much more easier in a way becuase i was sorrounded my collage students and i could easily ask them what their opnion on my work would be and how they would like for the magazine to adress them. Through the feedback of my adueience i think i was able to come out with a better product and in terms of my music magazine i think it shocked alot of people and may have hit my expectations.
