For my double page spread I will include an interview from an up and coming artist that has recently been discovered. The interview will include a number of questions that allows me to know about the artist’s life and real life stories. I have decided to use this because from my questionnaire research I found that the two main features that my target audience would like to see are real life stories and interviews with artists.

Below is the interview I will use:

Interviewer: So how does it feel to finally be recognised for what you do best?

Artist: well it’s great to be honest, I’ve been making music since I was very young and it’s just amazing to finally be appreciated for what I do

Interviewer: Yes that’s great, congratulations. So tell us… Where are you from? And how did you know you wanted to become a part of the music industry?

Artist: Thanks. And well.. now that’s a story to tell. I was born in Manchester, and as you probably already know it’s not always the safest of areas to be brought up in. If I’m being honest with you I was more dragged up than brought up. I was brought up living in a society where everyone was just trying their hardest to survive. But I’m not going to go into detail because  I think that the society I was brought up in made me who I am today and my lyrics and music are all inspired by my past experiences which make it even better because I know that people can relate to the music I make. And that’s what it’s all about

Interviewer: Wow. What a touching story, I think the music you create is great for the youth of today as there are many teenagers who are in the situation that you were in and maybe have no one to turn to so for that reason I think you’re a true inspiration

Artist: Thank you very much and I’m glad you’ve noticed that because that is one of the main reasons I wanted to make music and I just hope that people understand me and my music and the soul purpose for it

Interviewer: I am very sure they will. Good Luck for the future and thank you very much for taking your time for this interview

These are the sketches for my music magazine production

Conventions of a double page spread:

• They all include a main image that is usually related to the story within the text.
• A title that is bigger than all the other text.
• The text is usually written in columns.
• The heading is usually in a bold font so it stands out from the page
• There are certain colours so it sticks to a convention
• Sometimes the picture is a cross the whole DPS with all text on the picture.
• Quotes are used sometimes in the title/headline top break up the text
• Often includes the name of the journalist or person who wrote the article
• First letter of the article is bigger to show you where to start reading.
• Sometimes uses stylized fonts.
• Headlines used to draw the reader in but don't tell them what the whole article is about
• Byline-who wrote the article, photographers credit.
• Laid out in 2-4 collumns.
• Strap line at the top- what the article is about.
• The article is usually written infromally and the personality
• of the journalist come through.

This is an edited photoshop toolbar and a description of the tools that i used and how i used them.

This is the second double page spread i analysed. I chose to do this because i found that the colour schemes worked well to fit the purpose of the text and i think that i can adapt this to my own music magazine.

This is an annotation of a double page spread from a music magazine, which will help me to create my own music magazine as it shows me what a double page spread could include.

This is my music magazine questionnaire, it contains an array of questions that will enable me to know what my music magazine will need to have and help me chose the correct features and other main aspects of the music magazine i will create.

This is my music magazine cover analysis. I chose to analyse this magazine because it is the magazine that i am going to be basing my music magazine front cover on.

This is a mind map of what my music magazine will include, i researched what i wanted to include in my music magazine and from that created this mind map.

These are the images i used on my college magazine contents page. Using photo shop i edited them by cropping, adding a stroke, drop shadowing, adding page numbers and changing the shape and size of the images.
After i had edited them this is how they looked:

These are two of the images I used on the front cover of my college magazine, I used a camera and took these images to specifically suit my purpose. I then used photo shop to edit the images and make them look like this...

I used a black drop shadow and a stroke to make the pictures stand out from the page more and give them some depth. Photo shop helped me to create the images exactly how I wanted them, even though I had some trouble using photo shop at first overall I think my magazine front cover was a success.

This is the contents page for my college magazine, that i created also using photoshop

College magazine front cover

This is the college magazine cover i created using photo shop.

Evaluation of my College Magazine

Evaluation of my college magazine

When creating my college magazine I researched the conventions of a regular magazine and based my project on this. I used several conventions such as a main heading which in my case was the title of the magazine ‘Priestley Plunge’. I used a casual non serif font when creating my title as I felt that it suited my target audience which was year 11 students more. I thought that it was important to make sure the magazine front cover didn’t look too serious and formal as this would make it less appealing to the generation my magazine was aimed at.

I added the slogan ‘take the dive into college life’ because I thought that it was a nice way to welcome the audience into reading my magazine and it would make them feel better and interest them in the magazine more. Also it would make the magazine more memorable as it is something different that not all magazines have. I added a price at the top, I made my price only £1.99 as my target audience were only in year 11 and from my research students of this age don’t usually have that much money and don’t often buy many magazines of this sort so by making it quite cheap it would make them want to buy it more.

I used several advertisements of the content on my front cover. I did this by taking my own images of around the college and people in it. I edited these images using Photoshop; I applied several effects such as drop shadows, making the images slightly transparent and many more. This allowed me to make the images better suited to my magazine and made them my own. I had a running theme for the front cover of my magazine, I used a blue colour as the basis for most of the front cover, and I chose to do this because I felt it linked in with Priestley College and worked well with the purpose of my magazine.

I used a medium close up on the front of my magazine, I used an image of Joel and cropped and took out any access bits of the picture I didn’t need. Once again I used Photoshop to do this. Also on my front cover I used bigger fonts to advertise free vouchers in my magazine which makes people want to read it more and make it stand out more.

On my contents page I did similar research and looked at the conventions of a contents page. I used this to create my own.

When creating my contents page I used an existing magazine as an inspiration and also followed the conventions I had already researched. I put the name of the magazine at the top of the page in a very large and bold font to make sure that it stood out from the rest of the page.

I had smaller images all around the page that I had taken specifically to match my features that I was including in my magazine, I edited the pictures on Photoshop and made them rounded on one edge and added the page number in the corner. I had some trouble using Photoshop as I was new to it and didn’t know how to do several things, once I got used to using it I found it very useful and it helped me to create a successful college magazine contents page and front cover. I also used other effects on Photoshop and I added shadows, made images look 3D, changed the colour scale of images and a lot of others. Using Photoshop helped me to make my images more suited to me and made them exactly how I wanted them.

I used sub headings and larger fonts for each of the features and then smaller fonts for the details of the features to follow with the conventions that I had researched. I had some trouble adding all the page numbers to the corner of the images and making all the fonts and colours the same which made it very hard for me. I got frustrated and wanted to give up several times whilst making my magazine contents page however I researched properly how to use Photoshop and got some help with using it which helped me a lot in creating my magazine exactly how I wanted it.

Overall the college magazine went well however some of the images didn’t go exactly how I wanted them because of some of the effects I attempted to use didn’t go to plan but in conclusion I feel like I did well to experiment with new media technologies and create a magazine front cover and contents page for the first time.

Plans for front cover of my college magazine

On the front cover of my college magazine i will include:

• The title (Priestley Plunge)
• A medium close up of a sudent from priestley college, in my case i will use Joel
• Some of the features that are inside
• Images of the college and small images of what is inside the magazine
• Different fonts for the headings and subheadings
• A slogan underneath the title of my magazine

Name ideas for my college magazine

When creating my college magazine i had several name ideas, i went through an elimination process to decide the final name i was going to use. Some of my ideas were...

• Priestley Plunge
• Fresh Meat
• AS @Priestley
• College Life
• What you need to know
• Freshers guide
• Priestley People

Finally i decided to use 'Priestley Plunge' as the name for my college magazine, i chose this name because i felt it was catchy and would appeal to my target audience which is year 11 pupils. 'Priestley Plunge' is short and sweet which makes it more memorable so that my audience will be more convinced to want to read the magazine.

Conventions of a magazine contents page

• The name of the magazine is usually at the top in a bold font
• Previews of what's inside
• Page numbers
• Images of the contents
• Date is usually at the top of the page
• Features, what the magazine entails
• Subheadings, usually in a smaller font to the main heading which in most cases would be 'Contents'
• The name of the feature is usually in a bold font and then it is followed by a description in a regulat font

Conventions of a magazine

• Name of magazine
• Price
• Slogan
• Name of the top story
• Advertisement of content
• Main image
• Small image of whats inside
• Barcode
• Issue Number
• Sub Heading
• Different Fonts
• Theme (eg colour)
• Website for magazine
• Date
• Extras
• Advertisements
• Quotes
• International Prices