Day 5: 15 hour exam Invaders

Invaders was going to be laid out in a completely different way to what I had done before this. I was going to put this article spread out over a double page spread and I knew that it was going to be difficult.

I was proven right when I had to align the title: 'Invaders Invade the British Music Scene'. The title also ran over the two pages so to align them so that they were all straight was proving to be very difficult because I also had to align the text of the article around the title. I started off with very few pictures because I didn't want the title page to be cramped. I didn't want any pictures on the page where the article was going to go because I wanted to letters of the title to act as pictures for the second page. After some development, I realised that the title page was looking too bare with just two pictures, so I increased the amount to five and it looked much better because there wasn't any dead space.

For this article, I decided to go for idea eight because the white title was big and bold and simple. It was between idea four or eight. I quite liked idea four because the drop shadow was very effective. But after asking twenty people which idea they liked best, 75% chose idea eight because they thought that the simplicity worked well with the black background and the images.

Day 4: 15 hour exam Sweet Jonny

I had quite a few ideas for this article. Even though there wasn't that much text, I only used four pictures. I had laid the title out so that the three columns of text gave enough room for a few pictures to anchor the text.


I experimented with different coloured backgrounds and different fonts. However, I found a font I really liked and I kept it nearly throughout the whole development. I also experimented with 3D effects and it worked really well with idea sixteen. This was probably my second favourite idea.

For this page, I had to choose between ideas five, six, nine and sixteen. All these ideas stood out the most to me however, I thought that there might be too much red within the magazine if I picked an idea with a red background so I decided to go for idea six as my final idea.

I liked the dark green colour for the background because it gave the page a grunge feel to it that I really liked. The band 'Sweet Jonny' is grunge band so the colour works with the genre.

Day 3: 15 hour exam The Kinison

When I first thought of making my own magazine for Unit 3, it was also helpful that I write my own blog in my spare time. For my own blog, I interview bands and write articles about them. So all the text on each of the articles is my own.

The Kinison article is short which meant I had to put a few more pictures on than I normally would but expanding the size of the title meant I could delete a picture to stop it from looking too busy. Throughout the development of this page, I had to choose pictures carefully because they had to fit around the text and there had to be no dead space. Because I had to choose the pictures carefully, it was hard to pick the best layout for the article. 

I had to try out different fonts and colours. I didm't want any of the pages in the magazine to look similar in any way so the fonts had to be completely different. I wanted to keep the background white because I didn't want too many pages with coloured backgrounds. I also think that this particular page looks better with a white background because there are so many pictures and the white gives the page a bit of simplicity. A coloured background would have been too much.

The final layout for the magazine that I chose incorporated a few of the individual ideas that I had and in the end, I think it looked very effective.

Day 2: 15 hour exam - contents page and editors letter

During the 2nd day of the fifteen hour exam, I designed different ideas for the contents page and the editors letter.

At first, I started with a basic outline of what was going to go where and started out with a plain white background. As my ideas developed, I started changing the fonts and the colours of the text. I made a final decision that the whole of my magazine would be laid out in three columns so it looked more professionally.

I really liked the yellow for the contents page because I thought it was really bright and eye catching and different; a colour that you wouldn't normally see in a rock magazine.

I then went on to designing the editors letter. I collected a few examples from Vogue, Rocksound, Kerrang! and SciFiNow magazine. The one that I really liked was the editors letter from Vogue. There was a big chunk of writing with loads of pictures round the text and I think that this was really effective.

My final idea for this page reflects the inspiration that Vogue gave me and my final idea was idea 17.

Day 1: 15 hour exam - the cover

I knew that designing the cover was going to take a lot of time because I wanted it to look as much like a professional rock music magazine as possible.


 
I first started out by using gradient backgrounds but soon realised that these didn't work at all, so I then moved on to using just a plain black background. Throughout the designing of the front cover, I was experimenting with different fonts and different coloured backgrounds. At the end of the design phase, I had to make a decision between ideas 18, 25 and 28. My final choose was idea 25 because I think that the font worked really well with the idea of the magazine and the colour, 3D effect and the background colour worked really well together.

I then needed to figure out the final layout of my magazine and needed to figure out where the double page spreads would go and some photos would overlap on the double page spreads so those pages needed to be together. I sketched a plan out in my sketchbook but later then realised that I needed to shift the order of the pages around for it to work.


I then invited two of my friends round my house and then took photos of them posing since they were both going to be the main cover story and I need images to anchor the article. I tried Layla with an electric and an acoustic guitar (these were going to be the cover image) and the electric guitar worked better with the theme of the magazine.

After photoshopping the images that I was going to use, I was ready to do the front cover and start the 15 hour exam.

After I did the first four tasks, I then decided it was time to start researching different graphics designers for both my CD sleeve and the front cover of my magazine.
There were a couple of designers that particularly stood out to me for the design of my own CD sleeve and they were John Moss and Sean Freeman. Both designers work are cardboard sleeves that fold together and the CD just fits inside and I think that this will work really well with my design.

The designer that inspired me for my front cover was a photo by Horst P. Horst that was took for Vogue magazine in May 1991. Alexander Lieberman took Horst's photo and then designed the cover for Vogue. This image really inspired me and you can see this inspiration on the front of my own magazine.