31st January 2013

Today I decided that I wanted to completely change the front cover for my magazine.

This was my previous front cover:

I decided that I wanted to change the picture on my front cover as there was too much white space, and I thought that the picture should take up more space, however when i tried to make the picture bigger, it didn't look good or how I wanted it to look.

So in today's lesson, i picked another picture and edited it using Adobe photoshop.

First, I used the magic eraser to take away a majority of the background. Then, When i had to edit the background away fron the hair, I found that simply zooming in and using a normal eraser tool took a lot of time that I didnt have. I decided to try the background eraser tool. This meant that i could click on the area that i wanted to erase, and it would erase everything in the surround area that was the same colour. However, the difference between the backgrounf colour and the colour of my model's hair, was not that different when zoomed in, so i had to change the tolerance to a lower percentage.

This is the new picture that I will use for my front cover, as I can make it bigger so the Cover will not have as much white space, it will be clear that she is the mair article, and it will look more like a real music magazine cover.
There is still some greay are that i need to erase from her hair on the right hand side of the picture, before i can use it for the cover.

1st Draft!

Improvements for Music Magazine from lp198

 

This the first draft for my music magazine.

 

 

Front Cover

I have chosen to use the font 'Native' for the title as I think it suits the genre of the magazine well, in that the magazine is a gigs and festival based music magazine, and the font resembles the font that a headline act for a gig or festival might be written in. I have also chosen to make it a redish colour, that will run throughout the whole magazine, as the main colour, as it is a similar colour the girls' hair on the front cover. I have added a barcode, date, price and website address to make it more realistic as a magazine. There is another picture on the front cover as well and more coverlines. However, there is A LOT OF WHITE SPACE, which I will fill with a background.

 

Contents Page

For the contents page, I have decided to have a sub-headline saying 'Support Acts' as I think it works well with the theme of the magazine. I have included the basic features for a contents page, in that there are pictures, with corresponding page numbers. There is a list of articles included in the magazine and the page numbers that link to them, and also the magazine website and page numbers. However, again, there is a lot of white space. I also added a 'Next Month' box, as I have seen many magazines that advertise what will be in next month's issue to entice the reader to carry on buying the magazine. I decided to put a box behind it, using the main magazine colour, to one, make it stand out and two, to link it back to the magazine itself.

 

Double Page Spread

For the first page of my double spread, I decided to put all the interview on one page and have the second page for a picture of 'Kara Coleman'. I chose to have 'Kara Coleman' in the biggest font at the top of the page, to show that it is the main article, and put it on a red box, magazine to make it a point of interest on the page and also to link it back to my magazine. I have the basic format for a magazine interview, in that there is an intro to the interview, and that the questions and answers are distinguishable. However, the page looks quite boring so I will add a picture of 'Kara Coleman' to break up the text.
The second page of the double page spread, is very plain, and it looks likes things have just been placed there randomly. It does not look like a page in a magazine article. The 'Would you Rahter' section, overlaps the picture and because of the colour of the text, it is hard to read. I will add more text and possible a different picture to this page.

Front cover (rough draft)

This is the first rough draft for the front cover of my music magazine. I have not gone into too much detail, as it is just a basic layout and things will be taken away and added as I make improvements

Interview for Magazine

Kara Coleman Interview

Quick fire questions

  What is your favourite colour?

Red

  What is your favourite alcoholic drink?

Cheeky vimto

  What was your first pets’ name?

Chris, he was a goldfish

  Who is the last person you called?

My mum

  What is your favourite saying to live by?

“You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you.”, Joseph Campbell

Would you rather

  Would you rather be too cold or too hot?

Too hot

  Would you rather have your mind serve as an iPod so you can listen to music whenever or watch your dreams on TV?

Watch my dreams on TV, any day!

  Would you rather know the future or wait and see?

Wait and see, otherwise it would change!

  Would you rather have your crush like you, or know who likes you at all times?

Know who likes me at all times, who wouldn’t want to know that?!

  Would you rather, only have 80s clothes or 80s hairstyles?

80s clothes! I love all that stuff!

Interview

So Kara, two years into your solo career, how’s it going?

Yeah its good thanks! So different from being in a band, because obviously before I would tour with the guys, but it’s been fun.

So what happened with the band?

I guess we just decided it was time. We had been together since we were 15, and after 8 years together, we decided to end on a high.

Do you still see the guys?

Yeah of course! I see them all at least four or five times a year! We all grew up together so all of our families are really close.

Who would you say you’re the closest to? It was rumoured that you were dating Dan, want to shed some light?

You can’t ask me that! They’re all like brother to me, which means no, me and Dan never dated!

Whatever you say! So, you’ve had three top 10 albums, 6 number ones, and two international tours, all in the space of two years! How do you do it?

I don’t even know myself to be honest! I think if you have a real drive and passion to do something, then you do it, and for me, it’s the music .And also the people! You never know who’s going to pop up next and I love waiting to see who I meet on my travels!

Speaking of travels, where are you off to after this?

Home! I can’t wait to go and catch up on the jungle!

Haha! I won’t tell you who won then! Where are you touring next?

We’re touring all over the USA next, I can’t wait!

So Kara, where is your favourite place to tour?

Everyone always ask this! Hmm, obviously everywhere you go, the crowds are different, but I’d have to say that I love touring Britain the most! They’re the hardcore fans that knew me from when I was 15.

So what’s your favourite thing about performing?

That’s so hard, but I really love it, when I’m getting into a song, and I just stop for a moment, and realise that that people are singing along with me! It’s like, whoa!

It must be amazing, I can’t even imagine. So do you ever get nervous before you go on stage?

I guess, to some extent I’m always nervous, especially if I’m waiting around to go on stage, but usually my adrenaline kicks in the minute I hear people and all I can focus on is performing

Do you have any warm ups, or lucky items or anything like that?

I do have a lucky friendship bracelet my friend from back home gave me that I wear for every performance.

Do you believe it helps?

This might sound really silly, but one time I left it in my hotel room and that night, I fell off strange and broke my ankle, so it’s safe to say I’m suspicious and won’t be risking it again!

That night when you fell off stage in Manchester, a fan caught you, and you were then pictured with him after, and again recently, is there anything you want to tell us?

There is nothing going on, we see each other whenever I’m in Manchester and we’re good friends, but that’s as far as it goes

Okay, so that night, you were advised against it, but you carried on your concert, what made you decide to do that?

I didn’t really give it a second thought really, I was just like, if these people can be bothered to come and see me, then who am I to cancel halfway through?

Okay, so that last thing, is Reading. It has been rumoured, that you are headlining this year…

I guess you’ll have to wait and see…

Contents Page Pictures

Here are some of the first contents page pictures I have taken. I haven't picked which picture I want to use yet, or how i want each picture to be edited. I will still be taking some pictures of other people to add to the contents page to make it more realistic and will be taking the pictures for the front cover and double page spread on Monday.

Magazine Pictures

Here are some different pictures that I took for my magazine. As you can see, I tried to get a variety of different poses and postions. I also tried different camera shots such close-ups, medium close-ups and wide shots. I also played around with the lighting to get the best possible pictures. I shot these pictures uisng a NIKON D3000, this helped me produce more pression pictures than using a normal digital camera which I used for my preliminary task.

 

Barcode

I have decided to take a picture of an existing barcode, to make it look as realistic as possible. This is the barcode I will use:

I might edit this barcode to make the background brighter.