Production Practise: Photoshop

In order to create an effective music magazine it is important that I improve both my photography and photoshop skills so that my magazine, particularly the front cover, looks as aesthetically pleasing as possible in order to entice my target audience in to buy the magazine.
The first protocol of action I have decided to take is to practice with photoshop to test my skills and practice so when it comes to the main magazine design I am familiar with all of the tools and know how to use them to the best of my ability.
The initial image I decided to practise with first is the photograph of the male in the navy blue suit on the left.
I used photoshop to refine features of his face to give them the correct professional look they need to be appropriate for a magazine. I also decided that the lighting and the background were not suitable so I made the decision to use the eraser tool to create a different background although not completely white as I feel it lacks realism.
Once I had completed this I had trouble changing the style of the hair as I could not locate an appropriate tool to do so. To get around this issue I decided to incorporate the image on the right hand side by using the quick selection tool to select his hair and paste it onto the original image. Here I realised the hair looked better so I used the eraser tool (at a lower opacity and flow) and I blended the different skin tones to make it less obvious that two photographs had been used. I also used the history art tool which managed to create a general blend.
The final product looked a lot better than the original and I achieved my goal though the aspects which are different are the level of focus in the two separate images. The original image has a much stronger focus than the second and this can be seen in the hair of the second. The face of the refined image has a much stronger focus than the hair though I am still happy with the finished image.

WHAT TO DO NEXT

The next immediate steps which I need to take in order to start producing my magazine is to conduct a photoshoot to start gathering the correct images so I am able to edit the ones which I will choose to use and eliminate the photographs which lack the correct professionalism or I do not find are suitable for the magazine.
In order for the photoshoot to go ahead I need to find a suitable time for everyone involved; find the correct location which will be the most suitable and take a variety of different images so it gives me a wide collection of photos to choose from.
After the photoshoot I will decide what photos will be included on the front cover, contents page and double-spread article and how I want them situated.

Preproduction: Mood Board

In order to demonstrate what fonts, colours and images I am going to include in my magazine I have created a mood board. Within the moodpboard are different album covers which are representations of the colours used within my music genres e.g. red, yellow and green for Reggae.
There are also different fonts, including the idea of an urban looking font which I may possibly include within the magazine e.g. headline. The images show the idea of including microphones and music equipment which is something which I wanted to incorporate.
I also summarised my mood board on a separate slide so I am able to remember why I included certain aspects on my mood board and how I think they will help me later on.

Preproduction: Designs and Sketches

In order to give myself a basic template as to what I would like my magazine to look like. The first two sketch ideas I came up with are for my front cover of the music magazine. Each template has the same aspects just in different ways, I have given myself two different ideas so I am not subjected to use just one and I am able to alter between the two.



Like the front page sketches, I have created two design ideas for my contents page. There is not much difference between the two: one of them is simply constructed as a simple list where it will simply consist of the page numbers down the left hand side with the content written afterwards. The second design is more of a scattered idea which will include all of the page numbers and content in different places on the page.


There were also different sketches/design ideas for the layout for my double-spread article. The first being quite a simple layout with the content of the article covering the bottom half of both pages; the top half including the image and the headline sitting in the top left hand corner. The second design (below) has slightly more of an "extravagant" layout idea with two images (a main one and one with a caption) with the headline in the bottom left corner of the double spread page and the content in-between the images and the headline.



Having template ideas for how I want the magazine to look is helpful as it both gives me a structure so I produce an effective magazine and include the necessary aspects and do not go over the top however it also gives me the opportunity to explore different ideas through the use of looking at a variety of design ideas (like I have done.)

Preproduction: Photoshoot Ideas

Another part of the preproduction was to come up with ideas for a photoshoot which would later help me in including the most appropriate images for the magazine. The first slide which I have done these photoshoot ideas on explains the types of models which I am going to use i.e. their gender, ethnicity and height. As well as the location which I found was important. I have also included the types of images which I will include on this slide i.e. mid-shot photographs would be the most appropriate for the front page.

The second slide goes into more detail than the first. The second slide includes a much greater depth of detail, explaining exactly what images I will be using on the front page and why, this is also the case with regards to the contents page and the double spread article. I have explained what will be included on each page (photography wise) and why I would be using these i.e. why they are the most appropriate.

This is helpful because it allows myself to be able to follow a step by step plan and not get confused as to what I am doing throughout the process of actually creating my magazine. I know exactly what I want to include and where I want to include it etc.

Preproduction: Questionnaire and Results.

The first aspect of my preproduction was creating a questionnaire and handing them out to a variety of people from different ages and genders which would give me a good insight as to who my audience would be and what they would want to see in my magazine. The questionnaire which I conducted consisted of 13 questions, which would tell me what colours people would ideally like to see on my magazine; what would entice them to buy it e.g. chance to win; what music genres they listened to the most and which they preferred out of the two which would be featured in my magazine.  The questions consisted of both closed and open questions so I was able to gather both quantitative and qualitative data which would mean I was able to have data which was easy to analyse and very objective as well as very opinionated data.


After creating the questionnaire I gave it out to thirteen people, and gathered a huge amount of appropriate and helpful information. I was given the ideas of what to include i.e. colours (red, green, yellow, purple etc.) as well as what would entice people in e.g. chance to win or interesting front cover. I also found that what I had established in my genre research was accurate as there was only 1/13 individuals who preferred reggae over R&B so I was abel to see what genre would definitely have to be my focus.

I then summarised the data which I gathered, giving myself statistics and I wrote about how I would use this in my magazine in the images shown.

Planning and Research: Magazine Analysis

In order to get a good idea of what to make my own magazine look like I had to complete a front page analysis of both of my magazines.

For the magazine Echoes I focused on the name of the magazine, the font and style of the image used. I wrote what I thought it all connoted and what I liked or disliked about them. I found that I had a lot to write about the font of the magazine as comparison to everything else.









When I analysed the front cover of Blues and Soul,
i wrote about more aspects than I did about
Echoes however I had an even amount to write about each. Again, I wrote what I think each aspect connoted and what I think was effective and what wasn't.


By analysing both magazine front covers I was able to gain ideas as to what I wanted to make my front cover look like and what aspects I would like to include. However, I was unable to annotate the contents pages and double spread articles of both as they were unavailable online.

Planning and Research: Magazine Research

The next part of research which was required was the magazine research. I looked at genre based magazines, for R&B it was a magazine named Echoes and I looked at when the magazine originated. I looked at how often the magazine is published and whether it is just a physical copy or whether it can also be located online. Another focus I looked at is what type of music the magazine covered mostly. 

For Echoes I found that it originated in they year 1976 and was a weekly newspaper named Black Echoes before changing in the millennium to become a monthly magazine. Their newspaper initially covered funk, soul and reggae before altering its focus later to cover hip-hop, jazz and R&B/pop. You can both purchase a physical copy of the magazine and a digital copy from their websites. The magazine also comes equipped with the slogan The UK's Essential Black Music Monthly. 

When I looked at the publishing aspect of the magazine, where I found that they use NBM Publishing Ltd, which is a small independently run company with a small staff base of just 1-10 employees. 

The second genre based magazine I looked at was the reggae focused one which I found is almost a combination of two. The original magazine which I was going to focus on was named Black Music and ended in the year 1984 where it was then taken by Blues and Soul.  Originally Black Music was the first magazine within the UK which took reggae music seriously, it mainly aimed at the fans of soul music though it regularly featured articles of reggae. As Black Music it was a monthly magazine. When it was eventually taken over by Blues and Should in 1984 it changed to a magazine published 6 times a year which covers the main urban aspects of music within the UK. It includes things such as interviews, charts, reviews, upcoming events etc. 

I also looked at the publishing side of this magazine where I found that they are a self published magazine, who use their own budget to publish their magazine. They focus specifically on music, and this self publishing could explain their publishing only 6 times per year. 

Planning and Research: Genre Research

Research done on the genre of R&B i.e. top R&B artists, where it
originates from etc. 

Research completed on the genre of Reggae. 

The statistics of which is more popular than the other and which
one is higher in sales. 

The first thing which I completed for my main task was the research of the genres which I have chosen. These genres being,Reggae and R&B. 

The things which I included for this research are the types of artists which are recognised as artists of one of the particular genres as well as who they target generally and where they originated from. 

These things are important because it gives me a deeper insight into how long my genre has been going, who it originally targeted itself at and how/why it has changed over the years. This will help me in producing the best and most effective magazine I can as I have a very good and deep understanding of my genres. 

As well as this, I looked at the website Statista where I was able to gather data. This data made me aware of the fact that the genre R&B is more preferred overall, specifically in the UK as shown in the bottom image. By looking at this I was able to understand that R&B could possibly be the genre which my magazine should focus on with underlying aspects of Reggae as that way I am still going to be able to incorporate the two genres however I am able to capture the attention of the audience in order to entice them to read it.