TEXT ARRANGEMENT AND EDITING:
From my draft (left) and my current fonts (right) it is clear the improvement I have made by using the effects to my advantage. Whereas I only increased the kerning of the fonts on my school magazine draft, on my current music magazine I used shadows and text height. This allowed me to have the same style of font but control the different sizes and differentiate each coverline. I also improved on changing the colour of the font to contrast each other as well as abide to the colour palette. This is shown in the light blue and dark blue contrast on my second magazine. I learnt therefore that by adding simple effects like these of Photoshop I was able to improve the appearance to suit my genre, which the shadow and sans serif font imitated well (50s/60s theme).
MISE-EN-SCENE
In terms of clothing I have improved drastically. For my school magazine no clothing was used to indicate the school magazine genre (such as a uniform etc) whereas in my draft I used this scarf to represent the American flag in my final (far right). This makes my music magazine more appealing and is then easily recognisable for the audience as it conveys the style of music artists and fashion. The black shirt for my school magazine was very simplistic and does not portray any specific social group which is needed for a music magazine. Whereas I thought long about what clothing would be appropriate for my artist profile. In the end I went for an American flag as I was trying to aim for a pin-up inspiration and think it would also correlates well with the colour palette of red white and blue which I wanted to achieve.
However for all I learnt that the most successful magazines cut out their artists in order to get a clean and finished look to the cover. Therefore all images are cut out but I learnt from the tutorial (see previous post) on how to refine the edges more effectively by using the magic wand tool. By selecting the background and then refining edges it enables the selective tool on the hair line to be more accurate and realistic, especially when the masthead was placed behind her. Whereas in my draft, I used the polygon tool only and manually selected the edges of my subject. This was ineffective as some edges were straight and did not look natural; the process also took up a considerable amount of time which was not efficient.
I think I have improved throughout the progression of looking at several magazines and really analysing what makes a sucessful house style. For example, in my preliminary magazine the font size for the listing of the numbers, the sub title and the draw in text was considerably large. This made the contents page look empty and would easily put the audience off as it looked amateur and not full of enough information. Whereas on my final contents page this improved drastically. You can see that the font size is drastically smaller which allowed me to fit in more content. I learnt that I must include more content in order for it to visually appear more appealing. I also added bold and colour to the sub-titles to each feature here which made it stand out more. I also think my choice of font improved as I think that the serif font used for the information was more modern and look good when reduced in size. Whereas using a sans serif font for the information (on the right) made it appear more bulky and less professional. Therefore I only used sans serif font for the sub-heading here to conform to my 50s/60s era of my magazine and contrasted well with the more modern and present day font. There is also considerable difference in the amount of information given for each page number. For my draft I tended to use rhetorical questions and exclamatory sentences to engage my reader. However I learnt to balance this by making page subject interesting by using persuasive techniques such as alliteration "rebel rider" to make my content appear more interesting.
I also learnt the importance of magazine features such as pull-quotes. I adopted a pull-quote in my double page spread between my article to show that this was an interesting topic raised by my artist. This was important as it meant that my reader was more likely to read the article. I did not use any pull-quotes on my draft which I learnt afterwards could have done with some.
MAGAZINE SHOTS
I learnt the variety of different shots of my subject was important to engage the reader otherwise it would look repetitive and uninteresting. On my draft I had only decided to use mid-shots which allowed my audience to see the body language and emotions of my character. However, I improved from this on my final product by using a long-shot on my contents so that the personality of my artist was conveyed better and my audience would be able to form a bond with them. For example, on the left is from my draft. This was one of several mid-shots but the only thing varied was the camera angle to appear like a natural polaroid shot which I had scanned in afterwards and edited the picture into it. Whereas on the right, I incorporated the long-shot to reinforce the representation of my artist that she is innocent and sweet.
APPLYING GENERIC CONVENTIONS AND MANIPULATING THEM
For me personally, the advancement I had achieved in terms of creating generic conventions in my draft to then applying these conventions but then manipulating them for the genre of the music magazine was very significant. Like what has already been raised, the typography for my draft was bland and was suitably laid out but did not have any extreme interest to it. Whereas in my final product I learnt that my adopting more interesting fonts such as Art Deco style and hand-drawn style I was able to have a more unique magazine that would be niche on the current market. This was evident in simple features such as the developing in my border lines, such as on my contents page. Whereas I had only used a thin plain black line for my draft I used it in the same systematic way but changed it to light blue to match my house style and had a thinner width to match the Art Deco. There is a clear difference from the unmatching lines from my draft on the right, to the neat and clear line dividers on my final product. (See below)
Another convention which I had manipulated was my own house style through the use of selective colour and photo filter on my final product. On my draft I did not use any selective colour or photo filters so it is clear that the cover is very bland and that the photo does not balance well with the text. The only surface editing that I did to the picture was increase the saturation and levels to improve brightness and more vivid colour. However this does not entirely bring the photo out alongside the text. Whereas on my final product, I manipulated the selective colour so that the reds changed to a slightly hot pink/red and the dark blues to become a lighter shade of blue. The application of a photo filter then supplied a consistant tone across the all font colours as well as the picture so that they were fluent in their colour balance. This progress enabled my final product to have a professional look and made my colour palette more effective to match my genre. Here is my final product alongside my draft:
There is a clear distintion in the tone. My draft is certainly more neautral and does not stand out in comparison to my final product.
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