Table of Contents Plan

Table of Contents Plan

I planned my contents page on Microsoft Publisher, just as I did for my front cover plan, placing where my main image will be, where the page numbers will be and how a design will be alligned on the side of my contents page. Also, I will be using a primary image, so that, like my front cover, is more unique and different to other magazines. I am using a very classic and monochrome theme, using black and white colours but also experimenting aswell.

Xpress Front Cover

Xpress Front Cover

For the front cover of Xpress, I chose red, white and black as the key colours, having connotations of being a very classic and sophisticated magazine, whilst looking very attractive and bold to the core buyers eye. I edited the picture of Nik on photoshop, adding my Xpress title and adding kickers and explanatory lines, downloading different fonts to diffrentiate the cover, according to my magazine plan, making the cover look organised and orderly.

Cover Plan

Media Cover Plan
I made a front magazine cover plan, labelling and placing out positions for the kickers, explanatory lines, masthead and cover images. This plan assissted me with designing my actual front cover on Photoshop, organising the front cover, making all the different kicker articles neat, positioned properly.

Front Cover Photoshoot

School Magazine Photoshoot
I found this lesson the most entertaining and thought provoking because I experimented with a range of pictures, even though I found it very difficult to take a medium close up picture, because my model, Nick, had to play basketball, jumping to throw a ball into the hoop, so the picture would look very blurry if I had taken a medium close up. I had asked my model and substitute model to wear black and white specifically for the shoot because I did not want the clothes to attract the reader, but the model’s facial expressions and emotions. However, I wanted my image to match my magazine’s name Xpress, expressing feelings or talents, which is why I took a picture of him jumping and playnig basketball. The connotations of the basketball image are expressing happiness, excitement and freedom, jumping and reaching ambitions and goals.

Preliminary Task

Researching and Planning your preliminary task-School Magazine
I plan to design a front cover for a specialists performing arts school, which specialise in dance, drama and music, because then I can be more creative with the colours I decide to pick and the fonts I use, so that it relates to the school’s speciality. I will use fonts, colours and images to embellish the school cover and help it match the school’s profile and criteria. My main idea revolves around increasing the profile of the school’s speciality, which is performing arts, so I can use fantasy and the theme of escapism to make this magazine a source of diversion and entertainment, for all the young, ambitious people who attend this school and are subsequently other post modernists, hedonists or post-traditionalists.

Cover Analysis

Cover Analysis, 17/10/08
For this lesson, we analysed the front cover of a magazine, using “The Secrets of Magazine Covers”, talking about every aspect of the cover and how it relates to its target audience and how it relates to the magazine itself. I discussed the connotations and denotations of the cover and how the colour green is significant because it relates to “nature” and Mother Nature, and how women can be seen as Mother Natures, looking after their habitat. I mentioned the use of advertisements and how they are all aimed at ageing women, who want to look younger and enjoy life, which is why Susan Sarandon was chosen to model for the front cover, being a voice and image of all ageing women.

Brushes, Logo, Banner

Using Brushes, Logo and Banner
In this lesson, we used more advanced skills on photoshop and learnt how to colourize and saturize the hue and saturation of colours to make our own logo and banner for our coursework blog. We used a variety of different brushes to embellish our logos and make them look as unique and individual as possible, reflecting our own personalities and matching our own criteria of work. We also use our previously learnt skills to download fonts and write our own names, using different shapes and brushes to decorate our logos and banners, preparing them for our blogs.

Signs, Semiotics, Rule Of Thirds

Iconic

Symobllic

Signs, Semiotics and Rule Of Thirds
Indexical- Suggestive and is connected to what they represent

Iconic- Looks like what they represent
Symbollic- Must be learnt culturally as they do not look like what they represent.

In this lesson, we were asked to get into groups and take pictures of various things that are related to the topic of signs, symbols and semiotics. We were told about the three types of signs; indexical signs, symbollic signs and iconic. We were given a digital camera and asked to take pictures of things that were any of those three signs, using the rule of thirds, to make our picture look more organised and focused on the main point of the image. The image above is an indexical image, meaning that the meaning of this image would be understood through society and growing up.

Air Brushing Techniques

Air Brushing Techniques
This llesson was very interesting because we learnt how to play with appearances and change them completely. We were given two images to play around with, for example we learnt how to get rid of blemishes by using the Gaussian Blur tool and we learnt how to change eye colour by using the brush tool and then the Overlay tool. We learnt how to change hair colour, which was more complicated than changing eye colour, however it turned out to be a very exciting lesson which I learnt a lot from.

Colour Effects

Colouring Effects
In our fifth lesson of Photoshop skills, we took photos of ouselves, having a set piece of criteria to follow, for example in this picture, we can see all of the students peparing for a Skins photoshoot, we are all really squashed together and are linking in some way.
We did airbrushing and colour effects on Photoshop, using radiant and vibrant colours such as blue, red and green to make the picture look more effective and attractive to look at.

Fonts

Fonts
A-Lucinda Calligraphy(Serif)
B-Bahaus 93(Decorative)
C-Myriad Web(Sans Serif)
For our fourth lesson, we had to look at three different types of fonts. Serif fonts, Sans Serif fonts and Decorative fonts.

These printscreems are from http://www.1001freefonts.com/, which provide all sorts of fonts, one of which I used for my Global Warming image. We learnt how to downloads fonts and use them in Photoshop.

Colour Popping/Filtering

Colour Filtering/Colour Popping Image
In lesson 3, we learnt how to colour pop our images, which makes an image look very effective. We learnt how to colour pop in Adobe Photoshop, making the bold colors stand out whilst everything else is in black and white. This is a significant way to edit your image because it makes everything that is in colour important.
To do this, you had to turn the saturation down to -100. We then had to click on brishes then colour correction. Then, the picture will be in black and white, with all the iportant key features in colour.

Cloning

Cloning
In the second lesson, we learnt how to clone images on Adobe Photoshop. It is important to learn this because it makes an image seem more unbiased and can then be aimed at a larger audience. For this image of St Marylebone School students, we had to erase the “Zara” and “Chanel” signs off the plastic bags the girls are carrying because then it would promote these stores, making the image biased. We also had to erase the lady walking up the stairs because we want the image to look more focused on the girls and not anyone or anything else.

Image Analysis

Image Analysis
At the start of the course, we learnt how to analyse our pictures. To analyse your pictures you need to know how to describe the connotations, things that link to what is within the picture. Also, denotations, what is in the picture. Finally, mise en scene of the image, which is what is in the background. For example, the image below has denotations of a big group of boys and girls standing on the stairs and celebrating their GCSE results. The connotations of the image are that everyone is smiling which indicates happiness and joy. The mise en scene of the picture is that it was taken in the playground, the sun is shining and there is a lot of greenery, which is significant because the school’s colour and theme is green. It is important to know how to analyse pictures because there are inner meanings within images.

Blog Introduction

Blog Introduction
This blog's purpose is for us to evaluate and show all the variety of skills and techniques we have learnt over the last 6 weeks, whether it was on Photoshop or using digital cameras.