Preliminary Task: School magazine cover and contents page

This is the first stage in creating the required preliminary task for my Media Studies coursework. Using Adobe Photoshop, I have begun to produce a school magazine cover. On the left, I have used typical conventions such as a masthead, strapline, earpiece and website link. These expected features alongside the use of bright colours make the publication appealing to a universal audience, for example students, parents, teachers and governors of a school. For both the cover and contents I have used the primary colours for continuity, making my publication more cohesive. The handwritten script font also gives the magazine a casual, friendly feel.

The next stage included taking photographs for the magazine at school, one of which had to be a mid-shot of a pupil for the publication's cover. Using Photoshop, I cropped the image, changed the contrast and, colour balance and saturation of the photo before I pasted the image onto my cover. Finally, I added some text about the feature article of the issue, a cover price and a barcode. I gave the masthead a little more impact by creating a shadow under the text, using the layer style option.

 For the contents page, I copied the masthead onto the top of the page and added the page's title. To make the page look more interesting I used the 'splodge' shapes with the text. These had to be grouped (using the shift+link function) to make a single layer so I could move the shape around, deciding on its placement on the page. The photographs used were manipulated before being placed behind the text, also.

This is a mockup magazine cover I created on Photoshop. I intended to explore how existing publications create the effect of having text behind the subject's head, like in the picture below.

3.1 Textual analysis of codes and conventions

Activity: Studying reader profiles

1. Summary of music consumption in NME readers

The majority of readers buy physical copies (CDs or LPs) from record shops which are mainly major chains rather than independent retailers, but the difference in percentage is small. They have extensive music collections (they are described as 'music completists') who purchase single tracks, b-sides and live/remixed versions. Nearly all of the readers surveyed owned a CD player, although the survey was carried out in 2004-5, so it is imperative that one notes the revolutionary impact of mp3 downloads and iPods or other mp3 players.

Fewer readers recorded in the survey bought tracks or whole albums online, had records copied onto their computers.

Masthead Research

This task was completed using Photoshop. Using the command+shift+4 shortcut, I printscreened the mastheads and pasted them into a Photoshop document and inserted text, commenting on the colour, shape, typography and language of the individual mastheads.

Research on blogs

Eye magazine blog, an extension of the magazine which focuses on graphic design, illustration and photography. I think that although it uses bright, attractive fonts and graphics, there is too much content on the page, for example 10 articles where there could be fewer. Articles are categorised under several headings, there is a search function and a drop-down list of blog contributors which the reader can select their writer of choice. These features as well as an RSS feed, list of 'noted' blogs and links to article comments make the Eye blog easy to navigate and interesting to read.

French artist DJ Mehdi's blog. This is an example of a 'journal' blog. The illustration (background, title, links) reflects the content and  makes it seem more personal. Unlike the Eye blog, it is heavy on pictures and videos, but posts are filed under different tags and the blog contains a monthly archive making for easy navigation.

The New Yorker is published weekly in print form and this blog's purpose is to mainly promote the content of the publication. An aspect of the blog that I like is that it uses a variety of media, including photos, cartoons/illustrations, podcasts and videos. Furthermore, it is enhanced by its use of the interactive features that the platform Tumblr offers. For example in this post, a Tumblr user can answer the quiz question. On the other hand, I wouldn't recommend this blog to users unfamiliar with the platform. The New Yorker has other blogs on its website which allow users to share the content and comment without logging in, yet the layout is very dense with little colour. The use of a small serif font (on both    this blog and the New Yorker's website) actually makes the text less legible in my opinion.

The Selby, an interior design blog showing "creative individuals in their personal spaces". The header and links (designed by Akiko Stehrenberger, who uses traditional illustration techniques like watercolour painting and pencil drawing in her work) give the otherwise rather bland design an element of fun and creativity.