Audience Feedback

After my own evaluation questions, I wanted to see how other people viewed my blog, and what they thought my blog represented. This was extremely important because their opinions validated who my blog was aimed at and the genre, and if they didn't understand who my Target audience were or the genre of music, I would not have designed my magazine correctly because it doesn't appeal to my target audience.

However listening to the responses gave me satisfaction as they understood the Genre of music and the Target Audience. This made me happy as I designed my magazine's correctly. They had different views about my magazine, however they all picked up on the genre which is pop as they could tell this By the image, and the other artists that My magazine is promoting.

They could tell the target audience by the colour of the font which is Pink which represents women and teens. The image is also of a teenage girl, therefore if would be targeted at that age group. My Friends also knew that my blog was not targeted at boys or men as the colours and images are feminine and does not represent men. 

Evaluation Questions

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Double spread Article

As part of the music magazine, I have created a double page article to go inside the magazine. I created my double page spread on "Pages". It was very easy to use and was a quick process to make my article.  Firstly I wrote my article in pages, then I added columns to add a clear structure to the layout. This also enables the pages to be read easier as the audience will find it easier to glide through the columns and read the text. I then added some images I'd  taken and pasted them into pages. I then added the title, and additional details such as the fact box which was answered by the artist. Here is my double page spread:

Comparison between Prelin Task and My Magazine

Looking back and analyzing the preliminary task to my music press magazine, it is easy to see how my skills have been developed and how I have embraced the concept of inputing the right information that appeals to my target audience into my music magazine. I have made a comparison table to see what the similarities and differences are about both magazine which I made.  These are the Pre-Lin task and my music magazine called "Edgy Sound".

Similarities	Differences
I used one main image on both magazines as I feel that one image attracts the audience, and If I used more than one image I feel that all the images would over-power and dominant each other and this means that not one image stands out to the audience therefore I decided to use one main image on both magazines.	On the preliminary task magazine, there is no additional information around the image, as the magazine looks quite boring however on the music magazine its got lots of information informing the audience what is inside the issue.
Both magazines have a good masthead which is clearly visible for the audience to understand and read. They are both centred in the middle of the top half of the music magazine, and both have a larger font size then the other font on the page.	In the Preliminary magazine there is no barcode or price, so the audience does not know how much the magazine will cost them but on the music magazine task there is a clear barcode with the price clearly displayed so that the audience knows how much the magazine will cost them. Also by adding these features makes the magazine look more professional and more compacted with information making the magazine look more interesting as there is loads of features inside.
Both contents pages has a mixture of different images which are relevant to the magazine.  In the preliminary task the images are of the school and on the music magazine the images are off the artist the magazine is promoting.	The preliminary task also has no headline to grip the reader’s attention. Therefore the audience do not know what the main article is about, and this does not attract any of the audience to the magazine.
Both contents pages have titles informing the audience what is on each page also showing the page number. This is to indicate to the audience what article is what page, and this helps navigate them around the magazine.	In the contents page on the preliminary task, the contents page doesn’t go into depth on what the audience should expect from each page, it just gives a brief title of “pictures” but the audience do not know what kind of pictures as this is not indicated.
Both magazines have a clear layout and it is very easy to the readers eye, as both magazines are not to over-powering which attracts the reader because the magazine looks very professional with a good layout.	The background colour on the preliminary task is white as this is not a bold colour, and it is not appealing as it is very bland, however on the music magazine front cover and contents page the background colour is black as this colour is very powerful and attracts the audience’s attention.

From this table, I can see the changes that I made from the designing process from the preliminary task to the final outcome of my music magazine. I feel as if I gained alot of key skills from the Preliminary task that I developed and inputted to create the final result of my music magazine.  From this I believe my music magazine is of a better quality as it includes the main important features such as Bardcode, the date, prices and a hint of the articles that are inside the magazine. It also looks more professional with the colour's that I used as I chose them to aim them at my target audience. I think I have made a clear table explaining the similarities and differences of both the pre-lin task and the music press magazine task. 

Photoshop Skills

During the making of my pre-lin magazine task, there were many skills that I learned while using Photoshop. I inputted these skills to the creating of my Music press; front Cover and Contents Page. I used Photoshop to create effects on my front cover and contents page to make a more attractive magazine that is appealing. Photo shopped helped me do this, as it allowed me to embrace different colours,different fonts and fonting effects which I could add to my magazine. It was also a crucial software as I used it for many photo's and layout of heading's that I peiced together and was used in my final outcome. I wasnt advanced when using Photo shop as I hadn't used it previously. This created a few problems as I didn't know how to use it, or how I could change my font with effects. This made me very slow at first, as I took extra time trying to create my font. However, when I gained experince I enjoyed using it, and gained basic skills that I can now re-use when I need to use this software again.    Here were some of the features of Photoshop that I learned:

This is the basic tool box which I used alot during the process. The tool box made me perform certain tasks such as selecting a photo to crop the photo down to a smaller size. It also allows me to input text, by adding a text box. While adding text, I can change the size, font and colour to what I prefer making the text more exciting which I done on many occasions. The tool box also allows me to erase any mistakes or pictures that I do not want which is necessary as mistakes are always made, as I deleted many photos which I thought did not fit in with my magazine. I also have the option to Blur, sharpen or smudge pictures or text which makes it look more appealing and more creative.  I think Photoshops Tool box is handy as it allows me to edit and change certain things on my magazine which helped me alot.

Photoshop also allowed me to change the colour of fonts. They have different ways to change the colour as seen in the 3 pictures. Changing a photo is very easy as photoshop is very easy to navigate as everything is clearly named making it very easy for me to use.

As you can see photoshop has many different colour options available,   which is handy because it gives me more of an option to choose from. A feature of photoshop is that once you have chosen a colour, you can make it dark or light depending on what shade of colour you want. Once I found the pink shade which I wanted, I lightened it a bit to give the colour a more girley feel because I wanted quite a light pink colour with a bit of darking added, and photoshop allowed me to have this effect.

This application which I learnt helped me create an effect to my font. It worked by me inputting my font onto photoshop, then I could edit the effects by adding a glow to border of the font, making the font have a bolder border or make the font have a Pop-out effect. Having this application on photoshop was handy as It allowed me to experiment with my font to see what effect was better for my magazine.

Editing My Music Press Images

When all my images were taken, I had to edit them to make the photo's more appealing that they displayed my point therefore I wanted each photo to have a different effect and appeal to the audience. I edited all my photos on Picasa as Picasa has many different features on how you can edit your photo. I felt that Picasa was the best software to edit my photos.


Here is how I edited my Main image:

To get this effect on the photo, there were many different fixes which I had to do to get from the ordinary photo to the final edited photo.  The steps I had to take where :

1. Crop the Photo - There was excess background in the shot which was not needed for the photo therefore I cropped a fair bit of the background out of the shot.
2. I then changed the effect of the photo. On Picasa there are many different effects such as sepia, Add film grants and Tint the photo however I chose to edit the photo to make it have a black and white effect
3. Once the effect was added I then Lightening the photo then I shadowed the photo to create a dark/light effect of the people body's being light but the background being black. Once the photo was shadowed the edit was complete.

This was an easy way to edit my photo's as I have had experience working on Picasa as this is were I edit a lot of my own photos. I edit my photo's using the effects that are displayed on Picasa therefore I already knew how to edit each photo to how I wanted each photo to look. To edit each photo roughly took me around 20 minutes so that I could ensure that each photo was edited to the best of my ability, and had the correct effect and Lighting.