Thursday 26th February- double lesson

In this double lesson we finished off our preliminary task- school magazine front cover as we had a computer room booked.
After finishing the front cover and contents page we then had to look at different music magazines, this is so we could get ideas for our main task that we will need to do before the next half term. We looked at online and print versions of each genre of music magazine.

Tuesday 23rd February

In this lesson we started on our main task, which is to create a music magazine.
We had to work in groups of 3's and 4's, I worked with Dave, Stewart and Dan. In these groups we worked together to brainstorm 4 genres of music which were pop, RnB/hip hop, dance and rock, we said what types of bands were in these groups and the language and style the listeners of these different types of music were.
This will help us when creating our final magazine becuase we may chose one of these genres and it will give us a head start as we would already have ideas on the brainstorm.

Thursday 12th February

This double lesson we had to create a front cover of a school magazine using the pictures we had origianly taken for our pleminary task.

We all used photosghop to edit pictures, add text etc, to create our perfect school magazine front cover for St Maks. I named mine 'Mark This Spot' and included the logo, and a range of pictures and text to attract my target audience. Mine was also a 'sixth form special' as I thought this may be easier for me to do because I would be able to relate myself to it.

Tuesday 10th February

In this lesson we was given cameras in pairs and was told to take pictures for a school magazine (pleminary task). We had to use our plans which we created in the previous lesson so we had an idea of what our school magazine front cover was going to look like.
We had to think about mise en scene when doing this task because then when it comes to editing the pictures we would not have to alter it alot.

After taking the pictures which we needed we then had to go back to the classroom and upload them onto the shared documnets so that we can now use them in the next lesson when we actually create the front cover using the Photoshop programme.

Friday 6th February.

This lesson we planned for our pleminary task (school magazine front cover).
We had to think what we was going to include, and what is needed on it. The things that are needed on it are at least one medium close up of a student and a title etc.
We hand drew a few ideas to help us think about the perfect magazine for our target audience.

This will help us for next lesson as we are going to be taking the pictures for the front cover itself.

Thursday 5th February- Double lesson

This double lesson we used photoshop on the school computers to create a Nature magazine front cover, using the pictures we had taken from the previous lesson.

Personally I found this quite hard to use as i was not familiar with the programme. I did try though, using a picture of a squirrel we had taken, text tool and colour tools on the programme I done the best I could to achieve an attractive front cover.
At the end of this lesson I thoguht it was quite good, but I could have done better by finding a better colour font to use so it didnt blend into the picture as much as it did and maybe do a bit more to the picture.

Friday 30th January

This lesson we was given a camera for each group and we had to go out and find pictures of 'nature' that would be suitable for a nature magazine. I liked this lesson as we was able to go out of the classroom and use our own initiative to find a good picture for this task.

My group (Me, Dave and Dale) went to the pond accross from the school and took pictures there.
I took a picture of a waterfall there which i thought this was part of nature. But then as we went back to the classroom we realised that this was not nature and had to go back out and find a better picture. This was a problem as we wasted time when we could have got an even better picture.
We are going to use these pictures to practice on photoshop next lesson.

Thursday 29th January- second half of double lesson

This lesson we was given two coloured front covers of two differnt University magazines. One was for undergraduates called Newsman, and the other for post graduates called Quad.
We had to annotate both front covers pointing out the design features and see how each of them differ.
We had to think about layout, colour, font, language, presentation etc, and see how they relate to their target audience.

We was set homework to write a detailed analysis with explanations using P.E.E-->point, example, explain.
The more annotation and notes we had on both front covers the easier the homework would seem.
This would help us because when creating our own magazine front cover we will be able to see which points were best to use, and which ones not too, as they might not relate to our target audience.

Thursday 29th January

In this lesson we had a talk that was all about Photoshop and using it to create pictures that are proffessional enough to go on a front cover of a magazine.

We was shown how to use all of the tools on the programme such as, layer palet, resizing the canvas, cropping images, the lassoo tool and many more. We had to make notes as this will help us alot when creating our own magazine and front cover.
I found this lesson interesting as i have never used this programme properly before and it has tought me a lot.

Thursday 27th January

This lesson we learnt all about magazines and how they target their particular audience.
All media products whether it be magazines or tv etc, have a target audience which relates to their gender, age and class.
Magazines also use short headlines to 'hook' the reader in using 'AIDA' can achieve this.
AIDA means- Attract Interest Desire and Action.

I learnt that the magazines attract the audiences by using tone- the way they present it, register- development of ideas, 'visuals and copy' such as wordplay or bulletpoints.
I also learnt what 'colloquial language' meant, this menas that the magazines uses everday phrases that their target audience use and the language is more friendly and informal.