Magazine Construction

Today I began the process of constructing my magazine cover for my film. Before I began constructing the magazine cover I had to bear in mind that it had to link with my poster somehow and I had to make my print production seem like they link together are seen holistically, to add to the professional outcome I want to produce. In order to create the magazine cover i used the same program as the one I created my poster in, which was Photoshop. I found it is the best program to manipulate work to tailor my ideas to exactly how I want it.

Before I constructed my magazine cover I decided that I had to come up with a name for my magazine and going back to my AS coursework, thought it would be a good idea to come up with a variety of titles and survey to see which was the best title for my magazine cover. During on of my free lessons I asked everybody that was in my common room to choose which title the though best fit the genre of a general film magazine:

Global film: 20
World film: 11
Universal: 5
REEL MAG: 2
Cinematic: 0

With my survey completed I can clearly see that Global Film was the most popular and though it would be suitable to use as it was my personal favourite aswell. With my title sorted I was able to construct a header for my magazine and had to make sure it looked appropriate on the page and fitted its purpose. Another thing I had to keep in mind was my target audience as I have to satisfy the needs of my target audience in all aspects of this project.

I started the construction of my magazine with a blank black canvas and created the header of GLOBAL FILM. I created the title font with the font Arial and decided to make it bold with black lettering. The reason for this is that I wanted to create a white brush effect behind the text so that the header would stand out form the page as the white is a direct contrast to the black. I also links with my poster as I did the same for the title of PARADOX and this links into what i want to have holistically between my two print production, and that is a link. Next, I made the heading for the main article for PARADOX in a red urban font that I thought worked really well with the page. I decided to have it red i believe the heading for my film should have a link with the colour scheme of the film, and I think I did this well. The text explaining what the article was about was done in a white futuristic text, which was obviously made smaller that the heading as attention cannot be diverted from the main heading on the front page. Once these two elements were put into place I was then able to work around the main structure and layout of my magazine cover. Through my research, I found that many film magazines have a bar at the bottom of the page showing what other films are included in the magazine. I used the same urban font to type a couple of horror films to match the colour scheme of the page and made it white to stand out. I also created a red, semi-transparent bar behind the text to maintain the colour scheme and to link it with the PARADOX theme that was seeming to piece itself together by accident.

The next steps of constructing my magazine cover meant me having to finish the skeleton of the layout of my magazine cover. This started off by deciding to make my magazine a Halloween special as I thought the colours and films that are on the front cover fit into the theme and timing of Halloween. I arranged the words Halloween Special at the top middle of the page in orange lettering as orange is a colour that worked well with the rest of the page and fitted the Halloween theme. I also chose orange as it broke up the reds and white nicely. In the top right hand corner of the page I placed the price and issue number in white lettering and a small font as it is conventional that it is places here and it is conventional that it is in a small font but at the same time noticeable. Also throughout my research I found that Special articles were promoted on the front page in a sort of sticker to highlight its importance. I tried this out and created a red circle promoting a special interview within the magazine. It was made red to maintain the continuity of the colour scheme and in accordance to the rest of the page.                                                                         

                          

To conclude my 1st draft i included an image from my poster photoshoot. The reason behind me using a photo from my poster shoot and not one form my magazine shoot was that I have been experiencing problems in locating the right picture an for the time being I have decided to place this image as just an example image to survey, mainly for the layout as the image will definitely be changed. So this concludes the construction for my initial first draft and i will surveying it around my college to see what people think and to rate it out of 10. I acknowledge that the rating of my work will be low as it is a draft and I know that there is a whole load of room for improvement.