Print Preliminary Task

Our task was to design and produce our own school magazine front cover and contents page. We had to first of all think who our target market was. As it was for the school I attend it would be students around the age of 14-18. Before designing my magazine I looked at some of my favourite magazines as you can see in my previous post. This gave me inspiration and ideas. I got a better understanding of magazine layouts. I came to learn that magazines follow colour schemes and certain layouts. For example in the previous post the V magazine used 3 main colours which are pink orange and yellow. Using these colours not only make it look more professional but make the magazine eye catching. I now had a good idea that I was going to use three colours on my school magazine. I also knew I was going to use a mid shot picture of a person and have a main header at the top of the page which would be the name of the magazine. 

Pre-production
This is my rough plan of what I wanted my final magazine front cover to look like. I chose the name 'uptodate' as I feel this does not necessarily narrow down the magazine for certain students in the school. I also was not sure at this time what I wanted to base my entire magazine around. I used the idea from a recent Q magazine I had purchased to write Peter's name backwards as I feel it makes the magazine look a bit more interesting and modern making my younger target audience want to read this issue. 

Production
This was the photo I decided to use on my final cover. After taking photos around the school with Catherine, Chloe and Cat I feel the photos were too unnatural and none particularly stuck out as being a front cover kind of photo. This photo was taken just before Peter was aware it was being taken which I feel makes the photo more interesting and less fake. Often when people know photos are being taken they stiffen up and make photos look slightly awkward.

This was one of the few photos I took which I liked. I like the way they all look relaxed and not really aware the camera is there. However after experimenting on photoshop with this picture I feel it didn't look quite right on a front cover because of the way they are positioned. It would be more appropriate for an interview page.

Post production
This is my final front cover. The colour scheme I decided to use was orange white and a very dark blue (almost black) I has originally chosen to use blue however it didn't stand out and grab my attention quite how I liked it to so I decided to use a more brighter colour. When carrying out this task I already had quite a good knowledge of photoshop however I feel like I have developed a better understanding of the programme now. For example I now no the use of the eraser tool and I have a better understanding of how the layers in the programme work.

This is the font I used on my magazine. I think this was a good choice because it is different from your everyday fonts on a computer and  I also think it works well with the colours and character on the front cover. I downloaded this font off http://www.dafont.com/