Photos for my contents.

For my contents I decided it would look more professional and interesting to have more photos but make them smaller. This way I can keep the layout of the contents. The photos I have at the moment need to be edited and I think that I would liek to have the photos in black and white. When editing them, I am going to make two versions. One with the photos in black and white and one with the photos in colour.

Contents Idea.

I like the idea of having this kind of layout for the bottom of my contents page, as this will link into the main artist on the front cover. However, I think these colours are irrelevant to the ones i plan on having throughout. Therefore I am going to do this again but in the colours that will be on my contents/front cover.

I edited one of my draft photos using paint.net, this gave me an idea to what colours I should use. After blocking out the background, i turned the picture black and white and added some colour. I think i may duplicate this photos many times and have them in different colours along the bottom of my contents page.

Draft Photos.

These photos helped me to get an idea of what background/location I would like to take my photos in. Rose will be on the front cover of the magazine. At first I wanted to take a photo from overhead to show the attitude of this particular artist. I would like to be able to keep the same genre throughout the magazine. I do not believe the photos on my draft magazine did this. When taking my final photos, I have realised unless keeping the background of the photo I may aswell have a plain background a it will make it easier to edit my photos. I am going to take my final photos this weekend.

Masthead re-invention and design process

The masthead of ‘Hard’ was only ever originally intended as a temporary idea in the event of ‘nothing better coming along’. And so, since the idea was to be implemented for a music magazine I decided that putting my iPod on shuffle and simply trying to derive a song title would be a fitting method. It would also be in keeping with the themes and tone of the magazine if the name was something which is reflective of new music and current artists and bands rather than a name which plays tribute to older bands.

The title of DARE (as in the Gorrilaz song) seemed appropriate not only in that it falls in line with the general requirement of a short/snappy name but also bared connotations of excitement and youthfulness in contrast to the connotations of HARD which were blaringly obvious upon reflection.

Below area number of different designs for this new masthead, with the colours being interchangable for all:

Changes made through software Pt. 1

The images above depict the three stages my image has gone through before coming to resemble (loosely) the image that I have envisioned for my final draft, as the image was intended to emulate the iconic image of the Clash's album 'London Calling'. For this to be concieved, organisation of actors, props and location were important. The image was required to be taken against a dark background in a place with little lighting and it was also important for the boots to be apparent as they are central in the actual image itself. The guitar, also, needed to  be held centrally and with the same attitude as in the original image, emboying the feeling of punk in the original. To create the feel of the original it was essential that I had the picture completely in Black and white and also that the background remained blurred (conciously keeping the main image within focus as part of the article theme). So for this I also had to cut the main image off from the background. This was done using the Paint.net eraser tool and then flipping the image vertically so that the stance depicted from Rachel mirrored the image on the front.

Creating my draft magazine.

The first step to creating my draft magzine was taking my photos. After taking my photos, I had more of a vibe for the magazine. I editted my photos in paint, changing the brightness and contrast. This is shown in the print screen above.
After editting the photos I made my masthead in word and added in onto my photo, via paint. I wrote my article in word and copy and pasted it to fit onto the two pages. My coverlines were written over the main image and the font colour changed in paint.