Evaluation

My media product has similarites to a real media product for example the conventions, I have a large image on the front page aswell as text which is similar to a real media product. My magazine is similiar to a real media product becuase it had specific criteria to meet (as specified in the proposal) and used the similar programs to the industry standard.

The audience for my magazine is college students and I feel my magazine will be appropraite for my target audience because the image is on the front page is neutral and doesnt aim to a specific gender. The image on the front has positive connotations because the model has a smile on his face despite being in a mixed colour background (representing the change of the seasons and also the dull feelings/moods that can be present during the autumn/winter months and the challenges faced with college work), the model gives optimism to the negativity in life. The image is likely to attract the audience well because it is a warm, welcoming image on the front cover.

A college would distribute the magazine because it builds the colleges reputation of having good communication with the student because college news and various other information can be easily acknowledged in a magazine because fun and work are being mixed. Also the college is likely to distribute the magazine because it increases the students college experience and may also generate revenue which could be invested and used to improve college.

In this assignment I am dissapointed in the photography because the original photographs taken were lost due to a fault in the technology so more photographs had to be taken which had to be set in different scenery because of the lack of time. Also, time management was an issue with this assignment beacuse of the lack of knowledge/support because of the teachers absence however, I feel overall I completed the task well and I am pleased with the end result. I particularly like the effect on the image with the gradient because I think it looks nice and gets the desired message across, however I feel it would've worked better with the original photographs because of the brighter colouring.

In the next assignment, I would improve the logo used because in the media industry, the logo would be used for years and I don't believe the logo I desgined would be suitable because it is too plain. In the next assignment, I would rather design the logo in Photoshop so I can add styles and effects so it looks more professional and of a higher standard rather than just a text box in InDesign.

InDesign

This is my final front page for my magazine (created in InDesign)

I have opened a blank document and sized it to A4 and have placed the resized final image from Photoshop and "Placed" it in InDesign and moved it to the position I wanted it in.

I have then added text boxes and, refering to my proposed plans, positioned the text in the right place and changed the font and colour of the text using the colour swatch tool. Next, I created the title "BOOM!" and changed the colour and outline.

This is contents page (created in InDesign):

I added another page the same size as the front cover, I refered to my on paper designs and then created two shapes, one a cirle and one a rectangle, I then positioned a circle shape in the corner of the page for the editors letter and the rectangle along the spine of the book.

I used the color swatch toolbox to change the colours of the shapes and then edited the lines surrounding the circle. Next, I added a textbox and typed in the relevent contents from my proposal along with the page numbers.

Editing my photo...

To edit my photo for the front cover of my magazine I used Adobe Photoshop.



This is my final edited photo:

To edit it I have done the following:

Firstly, I have edited the brightness and contrast to get the optimal ...

Next, I have duplicated the layer so the same picture is on top of the origianl layer.

I have now applioed a layer mask to the layers and linked them using "Alt + click" to link the layers with the layer mask. I have now changed the colour saturation to make the photo black and white.



I have used the "gradient" tool with the black and white colour selection to remove part of the top layer so to reveal the bottom layer to show the transition between colour and black and white across the image.


As criteria of the proposal, Ihave decided to add some leaves into the final image. To do this I have sourced a leaf and cropped it from the original image.



To make the leaf original and "my own"I have applied several effects to the image:

I then deleted the background from the leaf image and inserted the leaf in layers in Photoshop and rotated the photos to look as if leaves were fallin across the page. This is my final image: