College/University Magazine Research

I find this university magazine particularly interesting because of the design on the front cover. It follows an architectural plan of the university, which I think is particularly interesting and would be a good way for new students to start to see the university campus. I think the use of bright colours will also attract students of the university to look at the magazine closer and read it.

The magazine pictured above takes a completely different view on a university magazine, and looks more like a coloured newspaper in my opinion. For a start this magazine has a far more unspecific name as to what the magazine is actually about. It also includes writing on the front about what the magazine article is about, and a photo that is relevant to this and not one that stays the same on each magazine like it does on 'University Magazine'.

Skills Development

Skills development

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The above slideshow is my skills development for both my college magazine front cover and my college magazine contents page. My skills development powerpoint shows all the different adjusments and edits I made to create my final product. It is almost step by step instructions of what I done to create the different pages of my magazine.

College Magazine- Contents Page

The above photo shows my college magazine contents page.
I decided to use the housestyle of the grey boxes and white writing to continue this theme throughout my magazine. I think my contents magazine works particularly well because the boxes of writing are all different sizes.
If I had more time, to improve my college magazine I would add a bit more detail, because I think it looks a bit simple, however this was due to time.
I think overall, even though slightly basic, my college magazine contents page does what a contents page needs too; informs readers where the particular features and articles are in a magazine.

College Magazine Reader Profile

The photo above shows my completed reader profile for my college magazine. The main point in a reader profile is to give an idea of who might read my college magazine, and what sorts of things they may enjoy doing, lesuire activities and their hobbies. I completed my reader profile on photoshop and exported it as a JPEG photo so I could upload it on here.

College Magazine- Contents Page Medium Close Up

I chose to do my main college magazine feature on an interview with a local university student from the University of East Anglia. I chose to ask my model to dress in something 'university related' and so she dressed in a UEA hoody. This works well because it shows clearly where she is studying.
The brighntess of the bright red hoody works well against the background I have chosen and makes the feature really stand out, which is what I needed for the main magazine feature.
Before putting this onto my contents page I plan to photoshop it onto a white background and remove the background from this medium close up photograph.

College Magazine- Medium Close Up

I decided I would use this photograph as my medium close up for the front cover of my college magazine. When I took this photo, I hadn't given much thought to my magazine front cover, and looking back, it would have saved me editing time if I had have thought about it. I decided when editing this photo that it would look better on my magazine front cover if it was just the two girls, or if the boy was in the middle.
After realising that moving the people about would be a lot of work, I decided instead I would just concentrate on keeping the two girls in the medium close up photo. I think this looks much better and much more even as a photograph.

College Magazine

After my first two college magazine designs, I have decided to change the colour scheme. I think the dark grey I have used here works a lot better and adds a more professional feel to the whole front cover of the magazine.
I also felt that the masthead looked too 'squashed' against the top of the magazine, and decided the only way I could improve this was by moving my medium close up photograph down slightly. This then enabled me to move the masthead down and not cover the medium close up.
I also decided to fill in the masthead with the dark grey colour used in the boxes.
I have decided the barcode which I created on an online barcode generator works best in the left hand corner of the magazine front cover next to the medium close up.

College Magazine- Second Design

This photo shows my second design for my college magazine. This magazine follows pretty much the same design as my first design, however because I felt the barcode on the first design looked out of place, I decided I would move it to above the feature box and next to the medium close up photo. I think this works a lot better, however I am still not happy with my front cover for my magazine. 

I think the bright red adds a somewhat 'tacky' look to my front cover, and I think a more neutral colour such as a darker colour would work better. 

College Magazine- First Design

The above photo shows my first design for my college magazine. I used my original flat plan sketched designs to help me chose the design for my magazine. I decided to situate the medium close up photo to the right of the magazine, as not to follow the trend of it being in the middle. I also felt this would make it slightly more interesting and more eye-catching. I decided to remove the background from my medium close-up photo because it wasn't all one colour and so looked more professional and neater with the background removed. I chose red background colours for my 'blocks' with white writing which I feel works well. I added a red strip down the left hand side to make my magazine front cover look more professional.

I decided to put a barcode at the top right hand side of my magazine front cover above the medium-close up photo. I think my magazine front cover could be improved by moving the barcode because I don't feel it really fits in with the magazine.

Masthead for College Magazine

This is my masthead for my college magazine. I chose to call it 'City News' because I felt it was simple and easily explained what people could expect from the magazine. I wanted to keep it black and white so that if I choose a coloured background my masthead will stand out. I felt the overlap in the 'C' and 'N' made the title look more joined and more as if it was a masthead rather than two seperate words. I chose this font style from 'dafont.com' because I thought it was very simple but easily readable and the shadowed letters make it stand out so its easily readable. The design process for this was slightly more difficult than I originally anticipated though because I had to do the 'C' and 'N' seperate to the rest of the word otherwise both words would have had to overlap rather than just the first letter in the word.

Media studies music cover research

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Before I started designing my CD front cover and CD back cover I carried out some research into other CD album covers. By doing this, I was able to effectively design my CD album cover. My research also helped me choose appropriate fonts and images. The research I carried out also enabled me to look at the normal styles for particular genres of music, and encorporate these into my CD album cover designs.

Magazine Research- 'Freeq'

I chose to research this magazine because when I first saw it, it really caught my eye. I like the use of images and colours and think these will attract people to this magazine.
It is very 'cartoon' but only on the front page and the 2 page spread pictured below.

The content pictured above it about McDonalds, however the magazine is mostly otherwise about fashion and music. I think the variety of subject topics covered in this magazine means almost anyone could buy it and find something they found interesting in it.

The design of this magazine all works really well together, despite there not really being one consistent theme throughout. It is quite a long magazine, having 48 pages, but I think this works well providing different people with different subjects they want to read about.

Magazine Research- Heat

I chose this as part of my magazine research because it is a well known magazine and I feel the bright colours on the front page attract people towards the magazine and catch the eye of the target audience. I also think the front stories have been chosen for the same reason- to attract people towards buying it.
The content is mostly celebrity gossip, but the magazine is the majority photos. When looking through this magazine compared to other magazines, I realised this lacks in text, but fills the pages with images of which people should aspire too.
Throughout this magazine, bright colours have been used.

I think the double page spread pictured above is the most interesting, as I feel it looks at a different aspect of celebrities, one we often don't see. I think articles like this make the readers really think about what most celebrities are underneath all the makeup, and because its something different to the 'norms' makes people more shocked so more likely to buy it.

Magazine Research- Glossy

I really like the design of this magazine because it uses lots of photos which relate to what the articles are about. The content is mostly about fashion, and its main feature is ‘2 minutes with Alexa Chung’. My favourite part of the magazine is the 2 page spread pictured below. The reason I like this is due the ‘retro’ background images behind the main image. I think this works well with the style of magazine and the photos used.

Media Moodboard

This is my moodboard for my CD cover design. I included lots of pink things, because my CD cover is designed for a band called 'The Sunnies' which is aimed at teenage girls. I used this mood board to help me find different font styles that I liked and used it to help me design my CD front and back covers

Design Brief

Design brief.

Band name:

I am going to call my band ’The Sunnies’ because I feel although its simple it is short and effective and will work well on my album cover.

Target audience demographic:

The age range of my album will target older teenagers and young adults. People who listen to my album’s other interests are shopping, socialising, social networking, parties, and listening to other music. People who listen to my album would stereotypically wear modern, fashionable and casual clothing and would enjoy dressing up on certain special occasions. Other music my target audience would listen to would probably be R&B, dance, hip-hop and other pop artists.

What is their age range? What other music do they listen to? What other interests might they have? What style of clothing do they wear?

Imagery and colour schemes.

Create a Photoshop document of imagery you have found on the internet (mood board)

What images are likely to appear on the front cover? (Would the sugar babes use a picture of an eagle eating worms out of a rotting skull?) Should you expect to see darker colours, bright colours, pastels or black and whites?

Type face/font styles.

Create a Photoshop document of typefaces that would be appropriate.

What typefaces have you found that could be appropriate? Which ones would be way off the mark?

CD Front Cover- Writing Too Thin

This shows another version of my CD front cover, on which I used a very thin font style. Due to my background being quite busy I realised this font merged into the background too much, making it unclear who's CD it was, therefore I decided I would need a much thicker font that stood out more.

CD Front Cover- Diagonal Shadowed Text

After deciding the vertical text didn't look as good as I had expected, I decided to try a diagonal arrangement. I find this to be a much more professional way to arrange the text, however i feel the shadow around the letters is too shadowed for the rest of my CD front cover.

CD Front Cover- Vertical Font

This is one of my design ideas for my CD Front Cover. After writing the front vertically down the side of my CD cover I decided it looked cluttered and slightly too organised and planned, therefore I decided to try other ways of arranging my front on my front cover.

CD Back Cover- Final

This is the back cover of my CD cover for 'The Sunnies'. The genre of music is pop and I feel this works well with the back cover. I included a barcode in the corner to make it more realistic and used different colour pastel backgrounds for the sunglasses to make them stand out from the clouds on the background.

CD Front Cover- Final

This is the front cover of my CD cover for 'The Sunnies'. The genre of music is pop and I feel this works well with the front cover. The front cover is a 'ground' background whilst works well with the 'sky' background for the back cover. I used the same background for 'The Sunnies' wording as I used as the whole back image for the back cover.