Planning the Production
As part of my planning I produced some rough early page designs which showed a rouge layout of where things like text and images were to be placed. The main reason for doing this was to make the construction quick and easy as possible. I had to decide what was going to be good stories to design and compose that would allow me to show off as many media skills I can. I decided on a double page spread on fashion, this would allow me to work with lots of different images that I could edit etc. whilst also allowing me to use creative text. Also a front cover that is compulsory, but still will allow me to show off what I know about the codes and conventions of typical teenage magazines. Lastly I made a single page giving information on a subject to women; in this case the subject was men, something I discovered most women are interested in.
Through doing the research I decided that my magazine genre was going to be based around fashion, men and health, similar to that of COSMOPOLITAN and GLAMOUR. I decided on the name COMPOSURE during the planning because I wanted my magazine to show realism and with this name it does because it is a word linked to calm emotions, something I think the readers will be interested in. There were other things I thought about during the planning stages of the course work, these being the price of the magazine, what are the things I have to put on the magazine like a bar code etc.
Constructing the production – Technical Decisions & Revisions
It was decided that on the front cover I was going to stick to the typical codes and conventions of any teenage magazine. To do this one of the things I did was use a large image of a woman as the main image of the page, this filled most of the space up. Typically this image would have certain codes and conventions including eye contact with the audience and the women/model would look perfect (be pretty, have perfect skin, a nice smile) I have tried to do this to the best of my ability with the technology that is available to me because I want my magazine to have an element of realism so the reader believes it is a real magazine and also to give to give the image a certain voyeur for the viewer. The main tool for getting the image to look how I want it to was a programme called adobe which is on the Apple-Macs; this programme enabled me to crop and alter the contrast of the photo.
There are several other things I did to the front cover to give it more realism, like a bold masthead so that it would easily catch a viewer’s eye. Also still on the subject of the masthead I overlapped it with a promotional add which is a technique used by real magazines, so again it gives the magazine an element of realism.
As well as the masthead I used different text in ways that real magazines use it, for example I have written little subheadings telling the audience what sort of information is inside the magazine, I have done this mainly because this is what entices the audience to but the magazine which is the whole reason for making it. While doing research into magazines I discovered that there always seems to be a subheading on a front cover telling the audience that there is a real life story inside, therefore I have done this in the form of “My friends rejected me because I am gay” this is a connotation of a magazine. I have done this because these are the sort of things that my target audience is interested in, things like this are becoming more and more common and 18/19 year olds like to hear about it.
I included smaller less obvious codes and conventions like a bar code, issue date, price, website etc because again they are connotations of magazines and information the reader or seller needs to have.
There were certain revisions and technical decisions I did to overcome certain problems, for example the main image; I changed the size of it several times so I could fit other subheadings while having it still fit together and look correct. The text colour also was changed a lot because the txt first off was just plain black, but I wanted it to leap out and be in your face, and changing the colour, size and font did this.
The second page, it was decided to make a typical page in any magazine and I decided to make ‘10 things your man never needs to know’ which is a topic that most 18/19 year olds are interested in. this was the main reason for doing this page because the topic of men would appeal to my aimed audience.
Again, like the front cover this page uses a variety of text and images, more so on text, which I made, look more appealing and interesting by overlapping it with repetitive coloured boxes that just gave the page more flair etc. as well as using colour to emphasize certain text I also used different font and sizes.
The images on this page relate to what it says in the text eg. for the bottom image this relates to number 5 of the list, and the top right hand image relates to the title because in thins image the women is meant to be looking a little cheeky and mischievous, which was my aim.
There were a lot of revisions I had to change while making this page. Them being it was decided the after printing off my first draft it looked as though I was trying to fill up space by typing in a big font etc. and that it was not looking to a real teenage magazine standard, therefore I had to add to this page. I did this bye taking more photos and adding an introduction to the page so the reader would understand more of what is really being talked about. It took time until I was happy with the content of the page.
Like the front cover I used the programme adobe to get the images in the state I wanted them to be in, I varied the images from being totally cropped from the photos background or keeping some of the background. This is a convention of a teenage magazine; I did this because it makes the pages look less boring.
Lastly I made a double page spread on fashion; another topic older teenagers are interested in. One of the most obvious techniques used in these pages is overlap, this was essential to get all the information I needed onto the pages, it was also good because this technique is a main code of magazines and is used extensively.
I also made the headline of this page big and bold; this is because it is on of the main stories of the magazine (subheading on front cover) and that is why I wanted to make it stand out as much as possible so it interests the reader.
These pages are packed full with information in the form of images and text. Again all images were altered and made to look near to perfection (another connotation of magazines) as possible using the programme adobe. The models are all looking different, striking different poses etc which is all adding to enticing the audience.
If you look carefully at some of the text you can see certain famous names are used, this would appeal to the target audience because teenagers respect and want to be like celebrities.
The main revision done on these pages was the moving around and sizing of images so that it would all fit while still look appealing.
There is a colour scheme that is present in every page I made and that is of the white background, I did this because it shows that all the pages are from the same magazine.
Evaluation of Finished Production
Compared to a real teenage magazine like GLAMOUR while also considering the technology that I use I feel in some aspects I have done well in, for example the layout of each page, if you were to compare it to that of GLAMOUR I feel that they would look reasonably similar in that of the text and images on the front cover etc. Also the stories and pages I have made could actually be but in a real magazine, meaning that my best dressed celebrities double page spread could infect be in a real magazine.
Of course there is always improvement that could have been made to make my magazine look a bit more realistic, one being that of the main image on the front cover. You can see that it has been cropped because of the hazy uneven line surrounding it, I think this was mostly due to the sharpness of the photo, because I can recall when taking the photo the subject was in motion and the digital camera I used was not capable of capturing this sort of image, and that is why I cannot get rid of the uneven line. I could have corrected this if I went back and retook the photo.
I think the magazine that I have crated has been a success because I feel that it would infect target the audience of 18-19 year olds. It would do this because I have included all the necessary codes and conventions to make it appeal to the targeted audience eg. the images, good use of exciting colours, stimulating text etc.
