23rd September 2011

Today I took photos of my friends for the front cover of my magazine. For the main picture I wanted the girl to be wearing glasses to give the appearence that she was smart, to go with the academic image of school. I took two photos and made sure the shot was a medium close up as the brief specified. These are the photos that I've taken.

     These photos below are specifically the ones I've chosen to use on the front of my magazine. I found the photo of the girls jumping with their results wasn't quite working as it was hard to get a shot of them both in the air so, I have gone with another shot of them just holding their results in the air proudly and looking happy, to give the image that the school had good results.

20th September 2011

I have finished the plan of my magazine front cover and started creating it on Serif Draw Plus. I have chosen fonts and followed the layout of the design I drew out, and now I have come to a point where I have to take photos to put on my front cover. I need to take a medium close up photo of someone and also some other smaller photos.

15th Septemeber 2011

In my most recent lessons of media I have decided to scrap the name 'Geek Chic' as I don't think it sounds like it has enough to do with school and maybe sounds more fashion-y. Then I came up with the name 'A' after getting inspiration from looking at magazines named 'V' and 'Q'. I thought the connotation could be that A is a school grade, but after much thought I finally decided to go with the name 'A STAR'. It's the best school grade you can get, and having it written as 'A STAR insted of A* could give it another meaning as to say you're a star, but also meaning that it's the best school magazine you can get, as A* is the best grade. I think that you definately think more of school when you hear this, as with 'Geek Chic' maybe it wasn't as clear.

     So I went on to look at other magazines to analyse the layout of their front pages and see how they draw the reader in. I also looked at old editions of our school's magazine to get an idea of what would go inside the magazine, so I know what plugs to use and so I know what would go on my contents page too. After doing this I went on to planning the layout of my front page and trying to decide on a colour scheme to go with my red font.

    Then I mapped out a mind map of all the things I need to plan and take into consideration for my preliminary task to make sure I get it all done and try to organise my time effectively.

     After doing all this I realised I do not need to do a questionnaire like I was going to, as I now know what I'm calling my magazine and what would go in it. Although it would be very helpful on my main task and I will probably do one for that. Next I need to finish my plan of my front cover and decide on who to take photos of. Then get started on Serif as soon as possible!

9th September 2011

In today's lesson I began by looking at other magazines to get an idea of the lay out of the front page. Before going on to start designing the front page of my school magazine. Then I started having second thoughts so I decided to make a questionnaire to find out what my target audience, older school pupils, would like to see in a school magazine.

8th September 2011

Today I had two lessons of media, in the first one I brainstormed for ideas for a name for my school magazine. I came up with the name 'Geek Chic' to try and give the idea that geekiness and school can be cool too. I then started to think of what sort of font I would use for the title and the placement of it on the page.
     In the second lesson I started looking and researching different magazine front covers on the internet to get an idea of what they usually look like and consist of. Then I experimented with Serif Draw Plus to try and get a font that I wanted for my magazine title.

6th September 2011

Today I had my first AS level media lesson. We were given the different briefs and told to choose one of them. So I chose the Print based task which was to produce a few pages of a music magazine. Then I started to think of how to go about the Preliminary exercise, which is to produce the front page of a school magazine.
    I have begun thinking of names for my magazine but so far nothing has seemed quite right, so I shall continue thinking of ideas.