Slide One

Hello, my name is Sam Heath and this is my Media Studies Foundation

Portfolio evaluation.

Slide Two
We were asked to create the front page, contents page, and double
page spread of a new music magazine. But first, we were to produce a
front cover for a new student magazine in an attempt to get to know
the software we were going to be using.

Slide Three
The preliminary production begun with analyzing magazine covers to
start to understand the forms and conventions of a front cover. After
this, I proceeded to create two sketches – this is the one I chose.
During this production I learnt how to use Adobe Photoshop to edit my
photo and create a magazine cover. There were two big problems,
which I will have to work on during the main task. Firstly, I need to
check spelling. Because I did not check before hand I saved it as an
image and then could not edit the text! Also I will take a simpler photo
on one plane because while the certificate is in focus, Josh is not. I do
however like the consistency between the cover and the contents
page, and will try and create this uniformity in my main task.

Slide Four
I then moved onto the main task. This is the logo for my magazine. The
title “De Stijl” refers to a Dutch artistic movement started in 1917
literally meaning “the style”, it is also the title of the second studio
album my American band “The White Stripes”. It fits with my magazine
as I always intended to have a simple, aesthetic design, unlike the
cluttered, busy magazines often found on newsagent shelves today.
The tagline is a quote by music critic Denise Sullivan, also about The
White Stripes.

Slide Five
“De Stijl” is aimed at followers of the rock’n’roll resurgence of early
2000, which spawned many of the alternative and garage rock bands
of today. The target audience love music, follow fashion and frequently
go to gigs and festivals. “De Stijl” has a niche place in the market
allowing it to have a unique image, but creates the restraints of a
smaller budget. “De Stijl” is a smaller publication and as such would be
produced by the Culture Label and a small graphic design studio such
as London-based Miscano Design would design it. It would be
exclusively sold at certain British clothes shops and record shops
meaning the in-house distribution would be such that 100% of the print
run is in the hands of the target audience, not lost on a newsagents
shelves.
Slide Six
After collecting some market research in the form of a questionnaire I decided on the
following:

Slide Seven
• The magazine will be aimed at 15 to 19 year olds.
• It will be aimed at both boys and girls,
• It will be released monthly.
• The price will be £2.99.

Slide Eight
I will now take you through the processes I went through in creating my magazine cover.

Slide Nine
These are my two sketches. I created them on Adobe Illustrator, a vector graphics editor
developed and marketed by Adobe. Most mainstream magazines contain full colour
images but, intending to appeal to a more specialist and “arty” crowd, and also to cut
costs, went for black and white images with cyan and magenta text.

Slide Ten
These are my best photographs from my photo shoot. I took them against a white wall in
a room with a lot of natural light, this combined with no flash, meant I got to shadow in
the photo. This time, I chose a simpler composition so as not to make the same mistakes
as last time.

Slide Eleven
On Adobe Photoshop, the first thing I did was to resize my chosen photo to 210x297mm
– A4 size. I then used the auto tone function to brighten the image and create some
contrast. Next, I adjusted the individual black and white colour properties, for example
increasing green, made the lips and hair darker. Finally, I added a yellowish filter to make
the image look older and more retro.

Slide Twelve
I will now take you through my front cover. My mid-shot of Alex and Charlie bleeds to
the edge of the page. The two are leaning into each other suggesting friendship and
similarity in style. They’re also positioned above the fold suggesting their importance.
The title font “forty second street” is a free retro font from the website dafont.com.
Similar to this is the tagline which is in the font “street cred” – from the same website. It
is similar and compliments the title well. Together these form the masthead. It will stay a
constant each issue, staying in exactly the same place month after month. The main font
used is “arial black” which is simple and easy to read. The sticker was the most
complicated aspect to the magazine cover, containing the most stages of editing. The
concentric circles are two separate circles filled with colour. I then added a translucent
gradient to create the highlight in the corner making it look shiny. To make it look 3D, I
used an effect called satin emboss. I inserted the writing and rotated it to make it look like
a sticker had been stuck on. The call out shows the logo of featured fictional band “The
Pixels” and fans of the band would instantly recognize this and the photo instantly. The
writing underneath briefly explains the feature on the band. The caption “exclusive
interview” is persuasive and makes it seem like this feature can only be found in this
magazine. The extra section at the bottom gives even more encouragement to buy the
magazine. “The Pixels” are two figures that represent “De Stijl’s” readership. They are
young and alternative. They look serious; and their vacant expressions suggest they are
mysterious.

Slide Thirteen
I will now take you through my contents page. Like the sketches for my front cover, this
sketch was created on Adobe Illustrator. It again contains the same colours and simple,
stylish layout.

Slide Fourteen
This was my first attempt at the contents page. I like the images but the writing looks a
little small and cluttered. I received some audience feedback when Tom made a comment
about it looking too “pop-y” to childish and not fitting with the cover, so I had a second
attempt.

Slide Fifteen
This is my final contents page. The text is in “arial black”, like the main text on the front
cover. It clearly shows what page it is which issue it is and although obvious, what
magazine it is. The images were simple to take being very basic compositions so to make
them more interesting, I have selectively put most of the image in black and white. I
selected the areas I wanted in colour using the magnetic lasso tool, inverted the selected
area and made that area black and white. The writing down the side is in “arial black” so
it clearly stands out, and then the description of each feature is in an easy to read serifed
font. The background shows the guitarist from made up band “The Revolutionaries” in
50% opacity to make the page more interesting.

Slide Sixteen
The layout for my double page article was completely based around an article on a band I
like called “The Raveonettes”. In fact, this image inspired my entire coursework as I was
interested by the simple layout and stylish use of colour.

Slide Seventeen
This is my double page article. The photo was taken during the first photo shoot – the one
from which I took my front cover photo. Alex’s blurry head happened because he started
to laugh, but I think it was a “happy accident” as the picture subsequently looks quite
natural as a result. I again stuck with the same colours. Because my magazine targets
such a niche audience, it has a smaller budget. This means it is exclusively black and
white images and only uses two colours from the standard four colour printing process
for text, in turn cutting costs effectively. The article is written in the same serifed font
used on the contents page and is easy to read. It is based upon an interview with Jack
White.
Slide Eighteen
During this project I have learnt a lot about new technologies. I have become very
familiar with the Adobe Creative Suite package and this in turn has allowed me to
incorporate some more advanced aspects of the software into my production which I
mentioned earlier. I also believe this experience with the software helped enormously
with me securing a week’s work experience in the summer at Studio 108, a local graphic
design studio. Other things I have learnt are that it is better to take a solid, well-taken,
simple photo than attempt a more ambitious photo and get it wrong. I have also learnt
that blogging is a great way to display your work and have got in contact with some other
artists and designers through finding their blogs. I intend to set up my own blog in the
near future to display some of my artwork.

Slide Nineteen
In conclusion, I believe I have been successful in designing a magazine that would be
appealing to my target audience. The simple, stylish design is different to any magazines
found on a newsagent’s shelf. This feeling of it being exclusive and different would
appeal to the more alternative teen.

Any questions?