Magazine practical task research and planning

Magazine practical production: tasks

Research

1) Use Google to research potential magazines that you could use as your brand/design for this project. Create a shortlist of three potential magazines and upload an example front cover from each one. We recommend looking at lifestyle magazines or a similar genre as these are more achievable to re-create.

 

2) Choose one of the three magazine brands to use for your project e.g GQ, Vogue or The Gentlewoman. Then find three different front covers for your chosen magazine and embed them in your blogpost. Analyse the fonts, colours and typical design. What is the language or writing style? How are the cover lines written? What camera shot is generally used for the cover image? You need to become an expert in the design and construction of this magazine and its branding.

 

They all use serif fonts to give a traditional and fancy look to the covers and they also all interpret nature and the beauty of the world within the backgrounds of the covers, which is what I also used just to emphasise the narrative of living in the moment and being present in your own life/ making the most of it. The taglines also promote positivity and optimistic values about life and the world we live in and the colour schemes reflect urbanism and neutral colours which link to the theme of nature.

Planning

1) In your blogpost, write your main cover line (also called the 'main flash') - this is the main cover story that links to your central image. It must be 100% original - all your own words.

AS OF NOW

(the title is VOGUE)

2) Briefly plan the image you will need for the cover - model, costume, make-up, lighting etc. At this point, simply describe the image you need to capture.

A picture me staring into the view over a river during the day time to capture a nice view and reflect the beauty of nature, normal/casual clothing, positioned to not see the face in order to show that anyone can be present in their own lives and do what they want to make the most out of everything - so it's a subjective concept.

3) Write the cover lines and any additional text you need for your magazine cover.

"Live in the moment", "Right here, right now", "The art of being present"

4) Sketch out your cover on plain A4 paper using your written planning. Take a photo of your sketch and upload it to your blogpost.

Photoshoot

We will do a photoshoot in class next week with lighting and backdrop. However, if you prefer you can arrange your own photoshoot for the cover image in your own time - you can use your phone or your own camera to take an image. If you don't have a phone or camera that is suitable, you can sign out a camera from Mr Ray.

1) On your planning document blogpost, state the date, time and location of your photoshoot and the name of the model or photographer you will use (you can choose anyone to be your cover model or you can be the cover model yourself).

An existing image from a few months ago - me as the model in the photo - photo was taken by my friend - it was taken by a river with a nice view.

Publication to blog and evaluation

1) Once you have completed your design you need to save or export a copy as a JPEG image. Then, upload it to your blogpost. 

2) Upload two genuine covers of the magazine you have used and put them next to your front cover. This is a brilliant way to check how professional your work looks alongside the real thing.

3) Write a short evaluation of your work: have you succeeded in your brief to create a new, original edition of an existing magazine? Does your cover stand up alongside the genuine covers of your chosen magazine? How professional is your work alongside those genuine examples?

I think I have succeeded in creating a magazine cover that reflects the narrative I was trying to portray, which represents the importance of living your life to the fullest and it looks pretty similar to the vogue magazine covers I have looked up, in terms of the cover lines and text and different colour schemes and backgrounds, however I do think it could look a bit more professional if I had taken a better image and added a cool background to it like most vogue covers have and the image could be better in terms of filling the space of the magazine cover and the title being covered etc. 

4) Finally, what would you do differently if you completed this assignment again?

Start planning and researching much earlier to get a better image, that could make my cover look a bit more professional and could fill the space more, possibly creating a cool effect like covering the title of the magazine to make it look more realistic and like the other vogue covers.