Unit 6 - Magazine
For this unit, we need to create a 6 page magazine on a given theme. we will work in groups. Primark and secondary research. research photographers.
Task 1:
We need to get research about magazines, and techniques that will be used in out images.
Task 2:
We will need to test ideas and techniques that we have learnt. We will practise shooting some new techniques.
Task 3:
We will use our research to begin building our own magazine. We will need to plan the project and make sure we input into the group work. Reflect on planning.
Task 4:
We will create a six page magazine on a theme and audience. We will need to write the articles and have relevant photography to the theme.
Task 5:
Evaluate the effectiveness of the final outcomes and the rest of the groups research. We will also evaluate our own input and the other members roles.
Types of magazine:
Lifestyle, music, TV, Nature, fashion, Gossip, Hobby, Craft, Photography, art, Teen, Kids, technology, gaming, health, pet, travel, comics, food and drink, Mens Fashion, Womens fashion, beauty.
Analysing Magazine Covers:
Kerrang! - Linkin Park
https://www.lpassociation.com/forum/threads/kerrang-magazine-interview-with-linkin-park.42875/
This is a cover of a kerrang magazine with linkin park on it. They have used a mid purple background, there is certain areas with yellow on it, and the writing is mainly white. The front cover pops very well as purple and yellow are contrasting colours. Mike and Chester are the largest picture on the screen, which subtly informs the viewers that that will be the main feature of the magazine. The whole page is very full with text and images, this shows the viewers what will be inside without saying what is actually going to be inside. Chester and Mike are facing straight ahead which is drawing the viewers into the page.
There is white text which is contrasting against the deep purples, there is a black shadow underneath the text tool which contrasts the bright white against the dark black shades.
Verbs such as "Revealed!" and "Listings!" are used in short 1 word sentences which grab the viewers attention quickly. Certain words are highlighted in the bright yellow which draw the viewers eye towards those words. The word "Everyone" is used which makes the viewer feel socially pressured into finding out what everyone else knows which makes them more likely to buy the magazine.
This magazine is aimed at teens from 14 - 18. This is because they feature bands that teenagers listen too, and the layout is too informal too appeal to adults. They have used cool text which is different to what many adult magazines have.
The theme of this magazine is music. The main theme for this magazine is linkin park but it changes with each magazine.
Vogue Magazine - Adele
http://adele.wikia.com/wiki/File:Adele_vogue_us.jpg
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine. The cover has adele on it, and around it is writing about the contents of the magazine. Adele is the largest part of the page, and she is slightly covering the title. This is making her the main focal point. The image has very strong details, such as her eyes and her cheekbones, this makes the cover of the magazine pop.
They have used a red and white colour scheme on this page. All of the writing is straight and not slanted like the kerrang magazine. This makes it seem more mature and formal than the kerrang magazine. The main feature of the magazines contents will be adele, this is shown as they have an "exclusive" chapter on adele which prompts viewers to buy the magazine.
The magazine is aimed at teenagers and young adults. It is also aimed at high income professionals. I think this is because they are more likely to buy the items inside the magazine as they have more money. They also target their audience at people that shop in designer and more expensive stores, this is because they show a lot of high end clothes so showing it to people with a lower income would be useless. They have used the text and images to show that this is for a more mature audience because the layout is more sophisticated than the previous magazine. The opposite of this magazine would be "Mens Fashion" which is aimed for men who enjoy fashion.
Kids - National geographic
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/677228862688731372/
This is a kids magazine focused on nature and being outside. On the front there is a picture of a lynx.
The theme for this magazine is yellow and blue. these are both very bright colours which makes it stand out to kids. There is writing on the cover of the magazine which is in the same colour theme as the rest of the cover. The writing is a lot bigger in this magazine compared to the others, and they have used much simpler words. there are also shorter sentences which makes it easy for children to read. The free poster inside also appeals to the children and it makes them want to buy the magazine. The text has been manipulated into slanted angles and circles which will appeal to children as it is more fun and interesting than the plain text that was in Vogue. They also use more childish slang such as "super chill" and "One cool cat" which appeal more to their younger target audiences. the target audience for this magazine is children ages 5-11 but i think it is also targeted for new parents who are looking for activities to do with their child.
Planning:
This is my initial mind map and page layout for my website. We have decided to create a lifestyle magazine based on the words that have been given to us. Our words are quite morbid so we have decided to have a dystopian colour scheme with our images. we will have vibrant deep colours in our images, emma will edit these and i will add the text to the pages.
For our front cover, we are going to either have someone covered in flowers, or someone holding the flowers. This will link to our five words because it will be related to the cemetery as the flowers will be a link to the pictures inside the magazine.
Our first double page spread will be a link between refrigerators and advertising. We are planning to take a picture of a fridge full of meat and then a fridge full of veg and the advert will be promoting a healthy change. We will hopefully take this in tesco as they will have a wide variety but we are unsure about how the lighting will turn out.
The second double page spread will be on cemetery and husband. We are planning to take a picture of someone placing flowers on a grave, this will be close up.The second page will be a larger landscape shot with the flowers on the grave. they will be the brightest object on the page and the rest will be a dim colour scheme. It will be promoting that people should sort out funeral care for themselves or their loved ones.
Our back page will be on the lake. We are going to go to vinters nature reserve and take pictures of their lakes and we will advertise the nature reserve.
Mark Menjivar
Mark Menjivar takes pictures of refrigerators. I have decided to look at his work because one of the words that we have been given for a theme for our magazine is refrigerator so the two themes link. Our plan is too create an advert for healthy living and by using the refrigerator theme we are going to take a picture of a refrigerator full of meats and grease and unhealthy items, and then a contrasting refrigerator full of vegetables and juice and fruits. We will make the meat side look unhealthy by adding a warm tint. The red tones that manufacturing companies use in their packaging will add to the warm feel in the unhealthy refrigerator. we will then add a blue tint to the healthy refrigerator, the brighter colours found naturally in the fruits will add to a more refreshing feel to that side of the magazine. The aim of that double spread will be to advertise healthy eating and promoting a healthier change amongst adults. It will be adults because that is what the theme for our overall magazine is. the advert would not be suitable for children because they would not find it interesting and they would prefer something more colourful and exciting for them.
Michal Huniewicz
Michal Huniewicz took pictures of famous London cemeteries. I am looking at this photographer because his theme links with one of my words for the magazine. We are going to use this style to make an advert about funeral care. We are planning to shoot someone putting down some flowers onto a grave. This will link in with our adult target audience because they need to start thinking about funeral plans wheras kids will not care about that.
I like the image to the left the most. he uses the rule of thirds to make the image look aesthetically pleasing. We are going to take images in a similar style, the images will be used to create a funeral advert for loved ones. This will fit under the theme "cemetery" and "husband". We will add text around the page about how to sort out funeral plans. We plan to edit the image so that the greens and other colours are slightly muted, but the red roses that we will lay on the grave will be the brightest part of the page. This will show the "husbands" love and it will link to the theme as we will be putting the flowers on a mans grave. I like the colour scheme in these images and I will use this style of muted colours in my entire magazine. The landscape shots are effective for this double page spread because it will show a large amount of the cemetery and the aesthetically pleasing features of the colours and layout makes it calming
Test Shoot - Refrigerator
These were two pictures that I took in Tescos with my phone. I took these so that I could decide if we liked these enough to continue our idea. we have a bit of a problem in the meat isle as the lights have broken inside the freezers, so it is less lit. We are going to bring a camera flash to attach to the camera which will help light up the area, and we will also be able to lighten up the exposure in Photoshop. We were originally going to bring the vegetables into a freezer so that the layout of the two areas are the same however I prefer the crate layout of the vegetables. We will also need to open the freezer doors because there was too much reflection from the glass on the meat picture.
Specific Magazine Research
"A catalogue is a book or magazine containing details and pictures of items currently being offered for sale, especially as used by companies that do much of their business by mail order. Collins English Dictionary" - Collins english Dictionary
Since researching photographers and talking to emma about the project, we felt that since all of the pages incorporste advertising, which was one of our words, we thought that it would make sense to create a magazine/lifestyle themed magazine instead of just lifestyle. We added the theme of catalogue into ouur theme because all of our pages show us selling or promoting a certain item or service. This would make our magazine have more of a clear theme because I felt that typical lifestyle magazines are quite different about the sort of topics that they have compared to us.
The magazine above is a type of catalog. It is promoting different brands of food. This is similar to the type of magazine that we will create because for our cemetery page we will be promoting different types of funerals and the plans available for people. We will be making our magazine photography based so it will be important that our pictures relate to the products that we are promoting well. Both magazines include numbers and statistics so this would be important so that viewers will be able to understand what they will be buying.
We could not get enough responses from a wide variety of people to make our research reliable. we only had a very brief amount of peoplle do our survey and they were all in a similar category which we predictted would be different to what our magazine would actually be aimed at. However a lot of young people (the people who filled this out) all said that they enjoyed exploring nature which means that our nature page will appeal to more people than we thought it would. Not many people said that they read a magazine, which is why we predictred that our magazine will appeal to slightly older people because they are more likely to read one than young people.
Graham Owen
Graham own is a nature photographer. he takes pictures of ducks in their natural habitat. I have chosen to look at this photographer because the ducks that they photograph are on lakes, which is one of the themes for my magazine. The ducks also link to my theme because we are considering making the lake page about the wildlife at the nature reserve that we are going to. There are ducks on the lake so it would show the habitat well.
I like his vibrancy in the images. It brings out the colours and markings on the ducks. We will use this strong saturation to make the colours in our picture pop and make them stand out as the back page of a magazine will be seen very wuickly by visitors that are browsing through magazines. If it wasnt colourful then viewers would not be drawn into the page and they would not be prompted to buy the product.
Peer Feedback
I don't agree with the feedback that has been given to me. We didn't have much time to create the presentation because we had work experience on the Friday.
We have a time plan but we didnt add it to the presentation because we did not have as much time as everyone else.
Contact Sheets
these are the contact sheets that we shot on Wednesday.
We shot on location for all of these pictures. We found a grave that we could access to take pictures of and then put flowers on. It was hard to take pictures because people kept giving us odd looks. We then went to vinters on the bus. We went to take pictures but all of the ducks were on the ground and one goose was very hostile. This made it hard to get the right shot because we didn't want to get attacked.
We then went to tesco and took pictures of their food. Some areas were badly lit so we will have to edit those images a lot so there is good exposure and lighting.
Choosing Pictures to edit:
These are a few of the best pictures that I have picked from my contact sheets. I have chosen the four grave ones because I like the angles and the position of the roses on the page. I think I will need to go back to the graveyard because we did not get any landscape shots of the place and I think that two pictures of the same grave for the double page spread will make the page look boring. For the front cover, we took pictures of the roses that we had out on the grave. I took the picture slightly under exposed, this means I can edit it and enhance the highlights, but the darker background will still remain the same. This will make the red roses pop more and the text will look brighter on the cover. For the lake shooot, we have decided to have a mashup of pictures for the back cover. the original plan was to have a landscape shot, however once we had taken it it looked too boring and plain and the animal shots had come out much better and they had more potential. The refrigerator shots were the hardest because there was poor lighting in tesco and we had forgotten to bring an off camera flash. We took the images underexposed because if we used a longer shutter speed to allow more light then there would be the risk of blur and the image would not be in focus.
Creating the front cover
Peer feedback
I received feedback for the pictures that I took on Wednesday.
The main piece of positive feedback that i received was that I had a good colour contrast in my pictures. The roses were very vibrant and this made the images pop well.
I need to improve my composition in my images. I am going to edit the duck pictures that people didn't like because there was too much water, i will crop it to make sure the duck can be seen clearly.
I edited this in photoshop. I chose the rose photo because I liked the composition. There was a black strip at the top which would make the title pop. I added the title at the top and then I looked at magazine styles to see how they set out the text on their cover. I added the text at the sides so that it didn't obscure the roses too much as this is the main focal point. I added the main points in the same red shade that is in the flowers because it pops the most on the page as red is the first colour that the human eye sees. This makes our magazine more likely to be noticed by potential buyers. I then used the advanced text tool to add the writing onto the page.
Recreating the Front Cover
The picture to the left is the first front cover that we made, and the image on the right is the second front cover that we made. We originally were going to change the vegetarian cuisine part because we realised that it had nothing to do with our pictures for that page. I didn't save the photoshop file so we had to recreate the whole cover again however I think that the other one is better. I did not like how thick and squashed the writing was in the first cover. I also prefer the font style on the second page. I think it is better as it is easier to read and it looks more professional than the squashy text in the first cover.
I also made the flowers brighter so that the colours would pop more on them. I used the same red statement text to highlight certain words which draw the viewers eye to them.
Articles for the Magazine
Above is an article about becoming a vegetarian. I will edit this writing to add into our double page spread about vegetarianism. I will have the left page about why becoming a veggie is a good idea and then the second page will be about ways you can start becoming a vegetarian.
The link above is for the co op funeral care. we used this to base our funeral care pages on because we did not know much about it. We copied their funeral covers like the different types of pre paid funeral plans that were available for clients. This helped us to make the page as proffessional looking as possible.
Final Magazine:
Evaluation
Overall i think the project went really well.
Emma and I had very similar initial ideas which helped us to create a rough plan very early on. Some of our original ideas were too hard for us too achieve so we had to change some of our plans quite early on. One of our plans for the refrigerator was to go to a junkyard and take pictures of a fridge there, however we thought that it would be very unlikely that we would find a refrigerator in a good enough condition for the picture. We had also planned to cook meals and do a page on cuisine but me and Emma found out we could not cook to save our lives so we decided to go with our back up plan which was to do a comparison between meat and vegetables.
My favorite part of this project was shooting the pictures. The photo shoots that we did were quite different to the images that I had taken in previous projects so it was quite interesting to see how the photos turned out. It was very hard to get more than one test shoot in though. This was because it cost Emma £5.20 to get to the shoot locations and she was not willing to spend that kind of money multiple times so we had to make sure that we had everything in one shoot. This meant however that we didn't have much of a selection of photos, and for the cemetery shoot and the lake shoot it meant that there wasn't as much choice as I had liked.
I think the hardest part of the project was the layout. Emma and I both had very clear visions of what we wanted the magazine to look like, however we found it very hard to make it look how we had wanted.
I would like to learn how to take softer images and how to edit images in different ways. This is because i want to be able to manipulate images to make them different to what they were before.
I looked at photographers that influenced how i would take my pictures. I found it quite hard to get the same effect as we did not have any lighting equipment with us. Next time we do a shoot like this I will need to be better prepared with more equipment so that the images come out brighter. I also found it hard to get the grungy feel in the green shades from the funeral photographer. The images that we used were quite bright and I felt like they suited the theme okay but i would have preferred if they had darker tones.
If i had the chance to do this project again I think I would have made sure that we took the correct lighting equipment and i would have liked to do more shoots so that we had more choice in the final images. The lighting would mean that the images would not have to be as altered and they would be easier to see.