Friday, 7 September 2012

Skills Development

For my Foundation Portfolio I created the front cover, contents page, and double page spread of a new music magazine. All of the images and text used had to be original, produced by myself, which included a minimum of four images. I chose to create my music magazine within the genre of jazz. Also for my preliminary exercise I needed to produce, using desktop publishing and an image manipulation program, the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally I produced a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate my grasp of DTP.

In my foundation portfolio I used Adobe Photoshop CS5 in order to manipulate my photos to have the desired and make the publication look more professional. I had used the software briefly before in a previous project, other than that it was completely new to me and I had to learn how to use it. Abobe Photoshop CS5 allowed me to edit my digital photos to a high standard, but my main technical challenge was learning which tools to use to create which effect. Also creating a photo which would allow space for the typical conventions of a music magazine such as a masthead, main feature headline, dateline, barcode, issue no, skyline and subtitle. In order to achieve a professional looking magazine along with all the typical conventions I took photos and then tested them out on Photoshop by adding all the elements and seeing if it worked. Following this I would take some more photos with the layout of a typical magazine in mind in order to achieve the desired result. By creating a magazine front cover with all the typical conventions I was able to communicate to the audience that publication was a professional one, i.e. something worth buying. For example I used certain tools within Adobe Photoshop CS5 like the Gaussian blur tool to make my model’s skin look flawless, the way in which professional publications make it look. The blur tool enabled me to edit my photo and enhance my model’s skin. I adjusted the Gaussian blur to a suitable level so that I could still see the outline of her silhouette, but the skin appeared softer and completely unblemished due to the blurring of the skin tone, because it becomes less grainy and more porcelain. I then added a layer to the duplicate layer to allow me to edit the eyes, mouth and other features. Then I used the brush tool to erase away the blurriness around the key features.

As part of the creative process I identified the typical conventions of a music magazine. I explored different ways of setting out the conventions across a layout and also considered the conventions of jazz, my chosen music genre. My college magazine had proved to me that it was possible to use a variety of conventions while still having a professional looking photo that wasn't swamped by the amount of layout feature e.g. smaller features and subtitles. I used a plain white background on Photoshop and figured out how to lay all the features out and then posed a photo that would fit into the space left. For example I took photos that had a gap above the models head in order to fit in the masthead. By considering the conventions of jazz and how people dressed when jazz was at its peak i.e. the 1920s I was able to dress my model in a suitable way for the genre of the magazine. Once I was in the final stages of production I gave my audience my front cover, contents page and double page spread along with some questions about my project and what sort of audience they think it is aimed at. My results assured me that I had made the right decisions when taking my target audience into account as all those asked knew it was a jazz music magazine. I felt as though jazz artists are people who are more serious about their music than artists within the genre of pop for example. Due to the fact that jazz isn’t as heavily publicised therefore people aren’t as interested in the fame. Because of this I related my main feature model back to the roots of jazz and the music’s influences, such as the 1920s which is the inspiration behind her clothing. Also because there are no mainstream jazz magazines I was able to create a magazine, which was original – as there aren’t any publications to take inspiration from I had to get that from other media texts.

I researched the elements needed for my brief by analysing existing (e.g. NME, Billboard and Rolling Stone) music magazines and the conventions they have used and to what effect, such as Rolling Stone using a black and white photo to represent their main feature. It makes their magazine really stand out especially alongside the yellow typeface. I later analysed the genre of jazz by looking at their more successful artists and an already existing magazine, Blues and Soul, a big reason why I chose to produce a jazz magazine is because I believe there is a gap in the market for it but this also made it hard to research into existing publications, because there aren't any popular ones. The source of this research was mainly the internet, but also some magazine hard copies. I used the internet to find magazine front covers from a magazine, genre and year of my choice. The LIIAR acronym (language, institution, ideology, audience and representation) helped to shape my analysis.

From creating my foundation portfolio to moving on to create my advanced portfolio, I have developed skills for using the specific software which enables me to create a professional looking piece of work. I am now more able to look at existing media texts and take inspiration from them, by analysing them and considering what sort of an audience they would be suitable for. For my advanced portfolio I will need to consider the codes and conventions of my chosen brief, creating a music video, to help me with the creative process. I have now learnt how to implement typical conventions into my work while still making it original. Also going through the conventions is part of my research and planning and I have also developed skills on how to use the technology to display my research such as Prezi.

1 comment:

  1. Under digital technology detail a Photoshop process ,why you undertook this process and what the finished product communicated to your audience.

    Under creativity detail the codes and conventions of the Jazz genre. How did you create a new product instead of just copying an existing magazine.

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