31 january '10 homework!

As our second homework task we were given the task of choosing a magazine which we would then textually analyse the front cover. The magazine could be of any genre we wished. Our first task was to annotate the front cover, selecting specific features and their intended effect. We were then told to capture out work using a camera. Next we had to upload the image onto our blog and textually analyse our work.

Below is my front cover annotation!

The magazine which i chose to analyse was heat magazine, issue number 507 dated 3-9 January 2009. Heat magazine is a weekly magazine which is aimed at woman, due to its contents and information which is contained within it.

The title heat magazine refers to the idea of hot and hot news and hot gossip. Therefore the name Heat is a metaphorical name referring to the latest news and the latest gossip as it happens. The title heat is written in a bright red large Georgia font which has a heavy dark drop shadow surrounding it. The title is all written in lowercase.

Along the left edge of the "h" vertically is the magazines website URL in black. www.heatworld.com.

Above the title is the weekly statment; this week it happens to say "This week's hottest celebrity news". Each week the magazine editor decide upon a phrase or statement which they apply above the title usally for entertainment factor.

Below the statment or the phrase which is applyed weekly is the pricing for the magazine, in bold is the british uk price though contained next to this within brackets is the irish, spanish and canry islands price.

Next to the price is the date for which the magazine applys.

The main focal story of this issue is about, body image we see the images for this article is of a jaunt tiny frames Cheryl Cole on the left with a more bosoms curvy Beyonce on the right. Each wearing a bikini. The text in between the two images states in one black box "shocking new body image survey" the text is bold and yellow except for the word "new" which is in white. Below this is a vivid red box. In which is contained the largest of all the text which is the two words "skinny" and "curvy" they're in a large white bold font which is the biggest contained within the cover. Between these two is an off alignment black rectangles shape with the word "VS" in bright yellow. Below this again still in the same text box is the word "plus" in bright yellow and then "what men think of your cellulite , tummies and much more!". Finally again off alignment with the text box and slightly overlaying the images also is a black rectangular text box with the phrase "you'll be surprised!" in a bright yellow bold font. This main story focuses on what men really think of woman's bodies, the insecurities which woman have about their own and research which shows whether men really are interested in the sort of woman that most of us think they are, and how celebrities feel about their bodies and their insecurities.

Surrounding the main story and the title are several smaller images and text which informs of inside story's which can be found within the magazine. Above the title is an image of Alexandra Burke within a lilac rectangular box. The text inside the box shows a small blue box with the words "exclusive new interview inside. The word "exclusive is written in yellow and "new interview" is in white. The largest text in this box is the name "Alexandra" which is written in a large black font which has a white drop Shadow surrounding it. With a quote from the article beneath written in blue.

To the right of this article is a n image of Diana Vickers and Eoughen Quigg smooching with the a pink box with the words "Diana's ex:" in capitals in a white font. Overlaying the image in a white font are the words "I'm going to get Diana back" again in capitals. Overlaying the image and beneath the text is an image of Diana Vickers ex looking rather solemn.

Also overlaying the story jsut mentiones is the bar code for the magazine along with the issue number.

Finally at the bottom of the page are four images to the right. From left to right being Fearne Cotton, Victoria Beckham, Agness Deyn and Jodi Marsh. To the left is a Purple outlines box which has a white centre with the text "Fashion extra!" written inside in the same purple as the outline of the box and again in a bold font all in capitals. Below this is the statement "Best (&worst) looks of 2008" the "(&worst)" is written in the same purple as above yet the rest of the statment is written in a bright pink. On top of each of the images is white text which has a bright pink back ground to them. The text say; "bestdresses?", "worsthair?", "toptrend?" and "worstdressed?". This sections is seperated from the rest of the magazine front covine with an edgy double trared paper break up line.

The colour scheme for the magazine is genrally quite white spread however the main colours which are genralised with heat magazine and their logo would be black, red and white. I have assesed many other heat magazine front covers and noted that bright yellow is also a common occurence within the front covers of the magazines.

From the front cover which i havee chosen to analyse i can see that heat magazine focuses on celebrities. The contents is usually based upon celeb gossip, relationships, style, beauty, fashion, diet and image concearns. Heat magazine also refers to celbritys state of health to do with addiction and other such disorders. The magazine is shown to often focus on the misfortunes of celebirities and embarssments which occur within their day to day lives.

The front cover s in general very bold and eye catching with a heavy focus on colour and appealing to its inteded audience. The frontcovers are very busy with alot of images and text all squished onto one page. Overall i would conclude that the magazine is most probably intended for young woman in their teens to their early 20's whom are intersted in the goosip and misfortunes of others which hold a higher status and role in society over thems selves. The woman would be most likely working class and would live in urban areas rather than in the country side.

This is my view of heat magazine, from one front cover.

28 january '10

In todays lesson we analysed and annotated two different school Magazines' these being Newsman and Quad. Newsman is the magazine of Newman higher edication in Birmingham and Quad the magazine of Queen Mary University of London. We were handed a sheet of A4 paper with a capture of the front cover of the Magazine in the center. We were told to annotate arround the outside of the image what we saw contained with the front cover, we were told to consider the connotation and the dennotation of the images present and how relevant the text was to the images.

The first magazine our teacher handed out was Newman's Newsman!
As Mentioned earlier "Newsman" is the magazine of Newman higher education Birmingham. The perticular issue of which we was analysing was that of May 3rd 2007, this is posistioned vertically on the left of the magazine in white text with a red block behind it. The first thing which catches the eye is the magazine title "Newsman" in its bold white font its thr largest text contained within the page and was contrasted from the back ground. A point which i noted about the name of the magazine was the play on Newman to Newsman the two words sounding rather alike and the only difference being the added "S" in "Newsman". The magazine is targeted at university students which would be attending Newman in Birmingham. In the far right top corner of the magazine was Newman's logo it again contrasted against the back ground yet was smaller than the main title of the magazine. The next point which had to be made was how busy the left hand of the page was, the page seemed gorged in images which didnt seem to show much relavance to the purpose of the magazine. In the bottom left corner was an image of a young boy playing a games console crossed leg wearing some form of hempet with a visor. The boys eyes are hidden yet his mouth seems to show a look of happiness and concentration. Beneath this image is a red box which contains Yello dropshadowed text saying "Video games" and then beneath this lack arrows surrounding white drop text which reads, "could they help reduce childhood obesity". Our whole class agreed that this did not show much relavance to the university students. They were all beyond the age of childhood and therefore the article would not be relavant to them selves. Above this images in a circular overlay is an image of a white piggy bank set upon grass with the back ground fiew of a cloudy summers sky, with a hand dropping money into the piggy bank. However this time there is no text to acompany the image we can only guess that the image is refering to the students finaces and maybe suggesting some sort of money saving scheme however due to the lack fo text there is no proof that this is the meaning therefore there is no way of judging whether the image is relavant of not. Lost within the business of the images is a small section of people listening to a male man, though we cannot make out the age of the group of people listening as their backs are turned though we can see the man to be an older black male, weaing some form of cap and a greeny yellow shirt. Again it is hard to make out the relavance of this image to the purpose of the magazine. Above this image is an overlayed image of what appears to be a young girl which is suggested by her school blue summer dress listening to headphones staring at what is expected to be a computer screen, although the green over lay loses the clarity of this image when looking closely we can see the girl in the images hand postistioned as if holding a mouse or some other implament. Like the young boy from the bottom left of the magazine there appears to be no relavance to the purpose of the magazine and again theres no text to suggest the meaning of the image. To the right of this image overlaying the image slightly is a snapshot of a close up of an extract form a book with the only word which can be made out being the word "Eng'lish" which also contains other character which are not avalaible to use with my keyboard. Below this image is an image of what appears to be a middle aged man, the man seems to be speeking or giving some sort of lecture, therfore i suggested that possibly the man was a lecturer hoever oppostite this man we do see and older fraile looking gentleman who looks rather old, tired yet happy. Again as with many of the other image the image is confussing and lacks text to suggest its significance to the magazine and the target audience. Surrounded by these confussment of images to the right of the cover is the text which is contained within the front cover, the text suggests the contents fo the magazine, though is in a simple informal bullet pointed style format. Unlike the images the text does show relavance to the magazine however the font is lost due to its angle and looks un professional and boring. The font should most certainly be changes and possibly consider revising the colour of font which is used. Beneath this text is another image which seems so show no relavance to the contents or purpose of the magazine, in the very bottom right corner is an image of a child toy, which is guessed to be the hulk, however the toy is positioned on its back with the head being the nearest point to the camera, the toy was as if dead. The main text showing contents of the magazine is in the blue font colour in order to try yo match the image the left of a hand scribing mathamatical symbols onto a black board, this explains the use of black behind this text, in order to show the text to look as if its been scribed onto the black board. Overall the images seem to show little relavance to the purpose of the magazine and cause the audience to become confussed. The colour scheeme is bland and the colours dont seem to follow suit. Often aspects of images which may cause the audience to be able to further make out there meaning are lost due to the odd colour scheme. This whole cover, needs rethinking this includes the fonts, the images and the colour scheme.




The second magazine which we had to analyse and annotate was Queen Mary Univeristy of

London's QUAD!

This magazine does not really contain a main focal point however the title is Bold and Contrasts well against the back ground. The title of the magazine is "QUAD" which at first i associated quad with its mathamatical term meaning 4 although it can also be associated as a gatheing or centre square point of a campus. Within this same white box of which the title is contained is the issue number and year of which the magazine in question is published. Within this white box we can also see the target audience stated for this magazine which is the former graduates of the university. This fact is also stated at the far bottom of tha page centered in a small white font which declares "the magazine for the alumni community of queen mart, university of london." Alumni community is a community of former graduates or students. The logo of the university is on the left hand of the front cover towards the bottom, the text and logo are both white on a black background. There are eight images in total contained within the front cover there all . To begin with at the furthest of the top of the page next to the the white block which contains the title and other such information is an image of the queen mary, which correlates to the name of the university. Beaneath this image is another image of what i guess is a class of graduates dressed in their graduate atire, of black and yellow at their graduation throwing their gradution caps in the air in celebaration. The image is take outdoors, and behind them we see an image of trees, in the back ground. This again shows relavance to the magazine as the image is of graduates, and seen as the image is aimed at post graduates. Next to this image to the right is an image of two random people, a black male and female, they are both dressed formally and the male wears a gold coloured garland around his neck. In his hand he seems to be showcasing somthing to the camera, in the background fo the image we see more black males. Though this image seems irrelavant as their is no text to explain their status or their relavance to the purpose. Benath this image is the iage of some sort of stadium all lit up in the night. Again this image shows little relavance to the purpose of the magazine. Benath this image at the bottom of the page is an old photo of back in the day, which would correspond to possibly being an image of members of the Alumni communtity from many many years ago. Beneath the image of the graduates on the elft half is the black box which was mentioned ealrier which contained the names of the three people whose images are contained on the right hand side beneath the graduates picture. The names are in a red font and their reason for being included within the cover in white. The colour scheme for the overall document is red, black and white. Though overall the whole layout is rather simple and block with a contempory theme to it. As with the first the cover ivolves image which show little relavance to the magazines purpose. The editor should consider including some overlay of images and not having every image dead straight horizontal. Although the cover is much clearer than the previous and is therefore a better example than the first.

25 january '10

Audience Profile
In today's lesson we have been asked to create an audience profile for our nature magazine, analysing gender, age, class, price, colours, images, the contents of the magazine and any incentives which may be included within the purchase of the magazine. Once we have identified our target audience we have been asked to suggest where we have applied this in our magazine.

Overall my magazine is aimed at any person with an interest in nature. Although my magazine is aimed at both males and females we do except in some cases the stories are more focused towards females with many of its stories showing more focus on metaphorical meanings such as a comparison of life and growth. The age of my magazine would focus on an audience of younger adults due to its edgy fonts and contrasting colours, it shows an effort of the magazine creators to try and bring the topic of nature to a younger audience and make them aware of its beauty and existence and importance within the world. The magazines front cover portrays an edgy down played view on nature. The readers would most likely be of a middle class background due to the interests being rather focused on planting and the earth around them, and sociologists show that its rare for working class young adults to have interests in these hobbies. By researching into the price of other nature magazines and magazines in general which are currently on the market i have decided to price my magazine at £2.10 as i believe this is a reasonable price for the market which it is to be released into, and i have compared this with others which target theirs magazine to a similar audience. The colours used within the magazine are all colours which would be associated with the idea of nature; greens, browns and creams. The colours used are used against the back ground image to show contrast. To make them more visible amongst the busy background. The magazine reaches out to its target audience by using edgy fonts and using formats, layouts and presentation styled similar to those of other magazines which the age group are known to read. The inside content of the magazine as mentioned focus on metaphorical meanings in relation to the actual meanings. They teach of the beauty of a Natural thing, in today's technological world.The front cover includes a bar code and price, along with issue number and web URL address for the magazine. Again appealing to a method of communication which the target audience intend the magazine to appeal to; the media medium which is known as the Internet. A way in which i could improve the magazine to ensure it was focused upon the target audience intended would be to focus the magazine on other areas and aspects which this age group are known to show interests with. This apply to both the inside content which would therefore be shown in the cover line stories which are included on the front page.

21 january '10 + homework

Nature Magazine!

In todays double lesson, were taking our images which we took last lesson and editing them using photoshop, to create a front cover for a nature magazine.

We began by uploading our images onto the school system and opening them in photoshop

Heres my orignal image:
The next task was to edit our images, to add the given effect and emphasis we wished to create. I began by enhancing the lighting of my image making certain shadows darker but also enhancing selected highlights. My next task was to adjust the saturation of the image using the enhance tool, so to bring out the aspects which i wished to stand out. I then edited the image as a whole by selecting; Filter->Filter Gallery. I spent a while using trial and error methods to test which filter i wished to use i eventually decided upon using the Film Grain filter here is a capture of my image at this point.

Several moament after reaching this point my computer malfunctioned and all further final improvements were lost. I made an effort to retreive them but failed to do so. My computer then completely crashed therefore at a later point when ar home i had to use picnik an online photo editing software to try to complete my front cover. This means that the 2 hours of lesson which were set aside for editing our previously taken images were lost, and therefore in a way wasted.

After uploading my image to picnik, i began by adding the title of my magazine "Spring Watch" to the image, the picnik font i used for this was "prefix", font colour white. The next step was adding main story titles around the page, the font used for this was "arial black", bold, font style white. When reviewing another magazine i noticed another main point of a front cover was the bar code, issue number and price. Therefore this was the next action i made. Lastly i added boxes behind the text so to make them dominent, at first the boxes were horizontal and looked to flat on, therefore i experimented by setting the boxes on diagonals. Which made the image not so flat and boring.

Here is my final completed, front cover: NatureMagazineEvaluation!
The first image at the top of the screen is my original image which was taken on wednesday 20 january 2010 at netswell pond using a cannon digital compact 8.2 mpx camera at around 3.45pm. The image reflects nature from several perspectives with the natural colours of grey and green being of focal point. The image shows, a running stream to the left of the picture and an emerging bush from the right. The effect which i used on the image, allows the water to attract more attention whilst giving it movement and definition. I did also crop my image ever so slightly to hide the bare path which was dim and littered, it showed a different meaning to my image rather than the one which i wished to exspress, the litter reflected negativitiy whereas my magazine aimed to focus on the positivity of nature. The colours i chose are all relativly natural, Greens, Greys, Creams, Black and White.This selection of colours reflect earth and growth, all which are aspects of nature. The editing of adding the filter effect of "FilmGrain" highlighted the bush of the right of the image. When choosing text i made sure the chosen fonts reflected the style of the overall compersistion the main title of the magazines font "SPRINGWATCH" was etchy and unfinished which reflected that although nature is beauty it represents somthing which is never perfect and is a constant life cycle and is therefore unfinshed. The Denotation of an image is what we actually see, in my image we see a river which is flowing in the foreground and stretches forward to the bottom center. The image also has branches with green leaves to the right of the picture. Connotation is the meaning or message which the author or photographer in this case is trying to portray to the audience. The connotation of the orginal document is narrow. All we get from the image is the beauty of nature, it is not clear the message the photographer is trying to portray the season he wishes to exspress. However in the final document after we added text we can understand more clearly by combing the two the image is reflecting beauty of nature but in the sense of the beauty of spring itself, although the image is taken during the period of winter the editing features show the nature to be crisp, new, green as if just in growth. The image shows nature to be bright and full of emotions of happiness. If i was to recreate my final document i would possible think of using a different image which would be more versatile. The image i chose was awkward when adding text as the text was never clear enough no font nor colour would stand out alone to reach my audience which is the reason for which i had to add, blocks behind the text so the text was not lost in the business of the background. I would also wish to use photoshop for the complete of my document. Another point i would improve on would be possibly to impose another image into my image of a living naturistic being, a bird or and animal or possibly a fish.

20 january '10

During todays lesson, we were given a camera between two and sent out to capture images of a photographic nature which represented the theme of nature. The images would be used in the next lesson to create a front page spread of a nature magazine. Before we left to take the images we discussed the layouts of front covers, we were shown a selection of examples and my partner and myself also decided to take to the libabry to search for further examples so to know what sort of attack we needed to have on the task. Once we were satisfied that we knew what we were looking for we then left site to and headed towards netswell pond area. Whilest here we captured a selection of images, which we then reviewed and chose an image each which we wished to use for our front cover in the next lesson. We then returned our cameras to our teacher stating which image we'd chosen. Our teacher then took the SD cards so she could upload the images for us onto the school system. This was then end of todays lesson.

18 january '10

In todays lesson we had a tutorial session in the libary with mark. He taught us how to use photoshop properly, and how to use different techniques.

We began by opening a selected document in photoshop, the next step was to locate the lasso tool. Once we had located this tool our task was to create a preset layer so if any mistakes were made we could always refer to our orignal document. With this task complete mark suggested a few areas we could have a go at adjusting. Janay, Jodi and myself began with enhancing the lighting and then moved onto enhancing the colour, which involved adjusticng the hue/saturation of the image. The next task given to us was to add text which was in a readable font which was then overlayed, over the image. Our final set task was to add dropshadows to the text. After this stage was complete we had our finished demo product. For the rest fo the lesson we was given the chance to look at sample images and exsperiment with the photoshop to see what developments and adjustments we could make.

Below is the initial image(left) and our final image(right):

14 january '10

In todays double lesson we covered, the features of the coursework; AS G321: Foundation portfolio in the media.

We began with the purpose of our coursework. The purpose being to plan and constuct media products using both technical and creative skills, to learn how to evaluate our own work; showing how meanings an responses are created and developing our skills.

The foundation portfolio focus' on process and outcome. Process being to engage in the task, using trial and error methods of progress and learning about print medium. Outcome is deleviring the skills you have learnt.

Discipline and Creativity; this involves research of texts, audiences, awarness and plans. We were advised to go with simple ideas which could be done, rather than trying to make ideas to complex and then causing stress which means our finished piece lacks the quality it should. We were also advised to combine simplicity and originanality in orsder to create a key creative project. Another point which we were told to take into account was that motivation and organisation were very important.

The key themes of the coursework are working with existing forms and conventions, working in media production context, using technology, thinking about audience and representation.

Our final piece shall be the front, contents and center page or a music magazine.

Our first main task was setting up this blog and then follow our teacher so to allow her to track our progress, the purpose of the blog is not just to allow our teacher to track our progress but finally for examiners to be able to track our progress with our coursework, from start to completion. The blog also allows a clear view of developments and progression we made throughout.

The last discussion of the lesson was a brief overview of the assesment criteria.