Planning

Good research into similar texts. Some research into audience, but no analysis of findings. No drafts.

9/20

Construction

Proficient use of software to construct pages. Good manipulation of images and text. Contents page could have used more photos.

48/60

Evaluation

Some attempt to address the seven set questions. Somel critical analysis. Could contain more insight and detail in places.

14/20

Overall

71/100 Grade B

Victorian Research Questionnaire.

What colour theme do you personally feel suitable for the magazine?

What target audience is the product being directed at?

Will you stick to / challenge conventions?

How will you draw in the target audience?

How will your project be set out?

Do you expect to be editing photos a lot?

Victorian Evaluation.

‘The Victorian’ Evaluation Josh Venton

For our task we were told to create the front cover of our school magazine,

‘The Victorian -(2008/2009).’

As simplistic as the challenge sounded it was actually slightly more difficult than what I personally first perceived as the photography for the front cover actually required a diverse range of editorial skills using the programmes iPhoto and Photoshop. The skills were, however, picked up swiftly after being shown the basics and reading an information sheet.

For my front cover I decided to go the obvious route with an enlarged photo shot of the College itself, as anything else would have look unnatural.

To shoot for the cover of the magazine, I, alongside with my colleague -

Mr. Michael Medway decided to venture up the college grounds, up the lawn, towards the main entrance. It is here where I stumbled across the idea of also including a medium/close-up image of me presenting the college. Michael and me took a wide range of photos and headed back to the media hut were I preceded to select a photo of the school and myself my method of trial and error of which looked best combined. Upon reading the above I feel that I have not made it entirely clear that I did in fact choose a photo of me posing for the front cover and also a separate shot for the school itself. I choose to do things this was because it would give me more options, as I will begin to explain shortly.

I began to work on the editing of my shot of the school. I worked on a slightly medieval look, with a yellow tinge so as to preserve the schools traditions whilst also incorporating one of the schools main colours.

The next task before importing the medium close up picture of myself was to introduce a title, ‘The Victorian’, in a suitable to text to which would reflect the schools ambience and character. To fulfil this expectation I decided to randomize with a wide selection off editing options on Photoshop until I reached my desired text. Next I decided to important a cropped version of me from my other photo using the ‘magnetic lasso ‘ tool on Photoshop. I precariously positioned a miniaturised version of me to scale on the bottom left hand side of the cover. It helped importing a smaller version of me onto the cover as a pose to taking it in all one picture due to the fact that I could position myself wherever, and if I wasn’t happy with the photo, I could move it.

To complete the cover, I simply used a range of tints to ‘glaze’ over my presentation to give it a ‘antique’ feel, to which I thought really was fitting with the school general demeanour.

The second major step with the project set was to compose a contents page for the school magazine.

Before I decided to start on this part of the task I thought it would be wise to form a brief set plan of how I would create and lay out the contents page. To do this I set out a mind map. On my mind map I included thought of a detailed and also concise nature. I eventually decided I would include a background of one of the shots I had previously captured. The picture itself was taken from just inside the main college entrance, a mere few metres back from the open door. I chose this picture to fit as my contents background as it was significant in the way in which it stood out to me. It seemed to symbolize an opening or ‘gateway to opportunities’ which is why it seemed fitting with the school magazine.

Again, like my front cover of the college I did intent to do some minor editing with the photo. By editing, I really mean fiddling around with the editorial options on iPhoto and Photoshop due to the fact my skills in that area are limited, so originally, I had intended to keep the morphing of the picture to some what little or nothing even. However, after a considerable amount of tweaking and trial and error I decided to stick with a certain frame on Photoshop as I really made the photo look as un-bland as possible, however, I kept in mind that the main focus of the contents was the listed contents and page numbers itself so I tried to make the background photo not to attention grabbing compared to the bold yellow text itself. I chose the colour of the text for two reasons. The first obviously being that it is one of the school’s trademark colours, the other being that it contrasted the background colours (mainly consisting of black red and partially white) well.

Originally for the text my main plan was just to make a personalized list of features in which would be included in the magazine, however I found it too challenging to come up with such a wide range of components so I decided to simply borrow a Victorian magazine from 2008/2009 (last years) and copy out the contents of that, I found this helped and I worked well and consistently with this.

Although it would be expected to be input first, the finally element of my task was to incorporate a title saying ‘contents’ which wasn’t difficult at all.

Like the main title, ‘The Victorian,’ all that was needed was to import the desired text using the text icon on Photoshop. In doing so I managed to stumble across a text in which was aesthetically pleasing and also stood out from the background.

After I had completed this final part of my project I proceeded to save both Photoshop projects as separate jpeg images, ready to upload on to blogger before beginning to set in motion for the current evaluation.

My project challenges the conventions of previous issues of the Victorian in the way that it includes a tint along with a picture of just one student, in medium close up on the cover.

My media project represents the particular social group of middle/upper class semi-private school with a lot of heritage and history due to the fact that the cover is of a 150+ year old building with a distinctive Victorian look and feel to it’s general demeanour.

The audience for my media project is the parents of the pupils participating in education of the school along with those parents considering or wanting to enrol their children in the school in the future near or far.

I attracted the attention of my audience by delivering a vast range of colours and with a bold outlook giving details of a wide range of activities ranging form sports events to CCF to matters of academia. This made the school look very appealing and seemed to draw the audience in.

Through the process of my task I have learnt a considerable amount editorial skills and how to use Photoshop in particular, which is a skill in which I feel will come in very useful to me in the future.

Although I was unable to really gain some genuine audience feedback I did in fact manage to ask my peers what their opinions were of the final outcome of my project to which most of the responses were positive, although I was told I could have ‘maybe improved on the layout of my contents,’ which was a pointer to which I strongly, strongly disagreed on.

Mock lay out of the project was simply made up of three factors for the cover, the title and the medium close up picture of myself.

The contents were simply made up also of the background, the text for the title along with the text for the page numbers and features etc.

Victorian Cover and Contents Page.

Mag Analysis

The cover of this music magazine is aimed at a unisex target audience approximately between the ages of 12 and 30. The red and black color scheme appeals to a slightly more concentrated audience of the music genre, 'rockers'. Although this cover contains many subtitles along with eye-catching smaller pictures of bands etc, it does primarily focus on the main band in medium focus, Biffy Clyro.

The title of the magazine, ' Kerrang' is made to stand out due to the fact it is printed in bold black text, contrasting against a white background.

Another key feature to this piece in to which would obviously draw attention is the red banner scrolling along the top of the page which instantly is a massive eye-catcher with the words 'free' and 'ticket'.

A list of bands at the bottom of the page is also a winner for the magazine due to the fact that they've instantly grabbed the attention of any fans of those particular bands which of course changes every issue. The probability of a band fanatic buying the issue just to read about their band is highly promising for the magazine.

This magazine appears to be aimed at a target audience of people who are interested in surfing and/or people who surf themselves. The age range of the target audience probably varies from about 8 to 50. Noticeably green, blue and white are a fitting theme with this magazine, evidently linking with the title, 'surfing'. This is because a broken wave or 'white wash' is white and the sea is either green or blue/grey.

Like the above music magazine, this cover contains a bold title in which contrasts it's background and furthermore draws attention to itself.

Unlike the above cover, this magazine's background is of the subject again, however, the focus is much less. This allows the audience to really obtain the ability to be drawn in to the magazine instantly and has to perhaps look harder/closer.

Smaller subheadings attract attention of the target audience with questions for example , ' Where did Pipeline go?' This has the effect of making the reader feel as though he should give his point of view or as if it actually matters. Although it is a slight generalization, the fact that people who surf seem to care about the environment more has clearly been taken into consideration with this magazine. Evidence for this is a noticeable subheading - 'The green issue'. This implies that in fact buying this issue is doing justice for the environment. Likewise with the subheading - ' Easy ways to save our surf', written up at the top.

This magazine is most likely to be aimed at a target audience of females with ages ranging between roughly 25 and 60 with the strong likely hood of a number of homosexual readers. The cover of the magazine concentrates on a young to middle - age woman in medium close up. The color scheme for the piece is red black and white. These three colors are significant as they would appeal very classy and would attract the attention of the designed target audience.

'Vogue', which is the original title of the magazine, in itself means 'the popular taste at a given time'.

Smaller subtitles appeal to the target audience due to the fact that middle - aged woman are extremely focused on looking younger. Hence why the subheading ' 34 ways to save your skin' is suitably appealing. Many magazine covers use subheadings in which claim to have the ability to help the reader in some way, by 'saving' for example, draw immediate attention of the specific target audience which is why this is fitting for this case of helping woman save their skin in not just one, but '34' ways.

Another technique used in the above cover to draw attention is the way that the word 'exclusive' is underlined , alerting the person contemplating the purchase of the magazine that he or she should as it is an exclusive and should not be missed out on.