Image Manipulation

I have yet to take some photographs to use through out my magazine designs, however I have been able to experiment with some Photoshop effects on a concert photo I took last year. I used lighting effects to edit the appearance and impact of the picture, making the sky appear brighter. I also used the paint brush tool to create a motion effect on the sky. I then used the 'clear' paint brush to bring back elements of the original picture layer, creating an interesting visual effect on the photo.

The original picture:

The edited image:

I have decided that I won't necessarily use this image for the front cover of the magazine, but it would however provide a good background for a double-page spread article, so I may consider using this in the future.

Initial Flat Plan Sketches

These are some rough hand-drawn flat plans for the front cover of my music magazine. They provide a rough outline of organisation of the features, to make the creation process easier. The next stage of production will be to decide on the most professional-looking flat plan design and add the elements and colour schemes consequently.

Survey Results

After asking the students in my Media class, the results were drawn between the two following designs:

Each of these designs received 3 votes each and this was surprising to me, as they are both very different to each other.

I will now start to plans my designs for the layout of the front cover, and then decide on one of these 2 logos in order to suit my designs and masthead the best.

Feedback on Typography Initial Designs

I have decided on 6 final design ideas, which I will receive feedback on in order to make a final decision on one of them. I have developed the first design to create the 6th design, using Photoshop editing and paintbrush tools to add the star effect to it. I have chosen these 6 developed designs as I believe that all of them would suit the image of my magazine initial designs

This screen shot shows the 6 designs completed and ready to be surveyed. They are all similar in terms of colour scheme and size, however the typography styles and arrangements differ. I will use this sheet to carry out a survey of a few members of my target audience, from my Media class, in order to find out which design is the most popular and relevant to the target audience therefore.

Initial Experiments with Typography

 In order to create some initial concept ideas for my magazine's title logo, I began to create some rough designs on a blank InDesign document. I experimented with font types, sizes, colour effects, positioning and outlining in order to create some initial possible designs. The theme of red, white and black colours seems to be prominent, and this stems from my previous existing media research, and mirrors the image of NME magazine, which also uses red and white in it's logo. I am aiming to create a gender-neutral logo image, as I would like my magazine to appeal to both genders of music fans, so I am using a palette of colours consisting of blue, red, white, black and green to experiment with in the initial design stage. 

So far, I am pleased with the designs and I feel that I can develop a few of them into possible final designs. I have used my knowledge of typography editing from my preliminary task, which I have found to have made the design process for this main task much easier. I hope to create an aesthetically professional logo, relating and appealing to the target audience of my magazine. 

Music Magazine Name Decision

I have decided to name my Music Magazine 'LAUNCH'.

Out of my list of possible names, I feel that this name is the most current, lively, punchy and relevant to the magazine content I intend to include in my designs. Here is an 'Inspirations' mind map that I created to show the reasons that I chose my music magazine name.

Audience Profile Mood Board

Here is a mood board of images and text that I created to create a profile of my target audience for my music magazine, which I have decided to name 'Launch'. It gives an idea about what the teenage demographic of today are interested in and the ideal readership intended for my magazine.