The task at hand was to cover as many risks possible to prevent anything going wrong, we also had to allocate a location, timings of who we will be with and some background information on tutor groups, dates and teachers.

This is my first draft for my music cover ‘Burst’, it includes the masthead I produced and the images I had taken for the front cover.

Student assessment: Alex Tapp

what genre of music is that magazine featuring?

From the background colour it would seem as if the genre of this poster is pop, however the costume the star is wearing conveys a more hip-hop related theme.

Describe the front cover star using adjectives – their star image: 

The front cover star looks; stylish, concerned and vintage. The use of the props (watch and glasses) looks pristine and makes the star look stush. The use of the hat so far back on his head gives it an edgy and unique look. It portrays the character as a trend setter

Are there areas where the integration and copy is distracting? 

The text that is covering the stars hand is rather distracting and takes the audiences eyes away from the main star image. The tilted image also disrupts the viewers eyes and takes our attention away from the important conventions.

What aspects do you find conventional or unconventional?

The lack of plugs, insets and text takes away the conventional magazine design and makes it look bland. The bright background makes it look more pop whereas I believe your genre is hip-hop therefore contrasts with your genre. Finally the whole magazine looks dull and simple.

Summary: From Alex Tapp’s review I now know how to improve my front cover page.

– My background colour conveys a sense of pop therefore I will need to alter my colour variation in order to portray the correct genre.

– The text I have used is covering my stars hand, in order to achieve my full potential I am going to edit my text and make it smaller.

– The tilted image makes the text look out of place and irregular, to bond the caption and image together I am going to tilt the image back to its original form so that the text doesn’t distract my           audience.

– I am going to include more: insets, plugs and pugs to fill up my front cover.

The idea of this task was to create mock ups layouts for our magazine. In doing this we had to make a mock up for Front Cover, Content Page and Double Page Spread. Using all of my current knowledge I came up with these design conventions.

Front Cover: 

For my front cover I included, images, insets, captions, plugs, pugs and a cover image to draw attention to my cover and to interest the audience. I have also gone for the iconographic look that a magazine cover would obtain.

Contents Page:

My contents page is going to include my index with all the information on the continuing pages. In my mock up I have only used 1 images although I am contemplating using smaller images to give a visual representation of the fourth coming pages.

Double Page Spread: 

For my double page spread I have evenly distributed the sections into certain places to make the design look admirable, I have also incorporated 3 writing columns, plugs and a quote from the star to add effect and to make the star seem a construction, so giving him the Dyers Star theory attributes; Extraordinary, ordinary, absent and present. 

For this task I had to do a photo shoot for my star so that I had to gather some photos for my front cover, contents page and double page spread, i had to gather props and a costume that i belive my model would look suitable in, and a costume that corresponds to my star.

On my second attempt I think that my photo shoot went swimmingly, I had the correct lighting and managed to achieve what I wanted to get out of the shoot, however some complications did arise throughout the process, whether it was on my first attempt I didn’t use any lighting, or in both shoots I had my star wear a pair of glasses which reflects the background so I now have to edit it out, and finally the costume of my star was not exactly POP material therefore i had to alter my genre to HIP-HOP. Other than those minor misconceptions my photo shoot was a blast, the body language that my star portrayed showed him in the light that I was looking for.

For this task I had to distort 5 fonts that I think would of suited my magazine cover ‘Burst’. I had to experiment with: weight, size, height and boldness.

For this font I used ‘Fun sized’ and changed the colours of the letters. I like the use of the basic colours and cartoony looking style.

For this font I used ‘Badaboom’ and included vibrant colours as it links to my name ‘Burst’. I erased some of the text and filled it in with vibrant colours in order to link it to my genre.

This font is called ‘The Battle Continuez’ it relates to my genre as its graffiti styled and looks funky.

This fonts called ‘Tag Hand Graffiti Trash’ it looks urban and rebellious. To edit this font I enlarged it to make it stand out.

This font is called ‘Reisenberg 2.0’ it looks very plain although could work well depending on my background. I edited the shades so that every other shade was either black or white.

My personal favorite is masthead 2 as it relates to my genre and includes a ‘Burst’ of colours to resemble my genre I have chosen, it is also bold and clear to read which will help the audience.

In the task we had to create a portfolio of images that would create up my star, we had to think of costume, hair, make up and accessories for my shoot. we also had to decide what camera equipment we are going to use.

We learnt how to book and organise a photo shoot that corresponds with your star, it also allowed me to think creatively and be more independent.

This will help me in the future with organising tasks and being more independent, it also allows the day of the shoot to run smoothly.

For this task I had to choose a star who related to my genre of music and gather 10 or more bits of media based on my star, whether it was a tweet, image or news article. Then further explain how this image, tweet or news article constructs that star.

from this task I have now gained experience in Meta narrative and how it constructs the star in the eyes of the audience. We also learnt about Richard Dyer and how he came up with the Dyer Star Theory about stars being extraordinary, ordinary, present and absent.

• extraordinary shows them in a light as amazing and talented.
• ordinary shows them as normal people who drive cars, go shopping and fail exams.
• present is the social media side of things and how the audience feel connected with them.
• absent is when they are out of reach for example at concerts and interviews.

This will help me when coming to create my own star and helps me with constructing my star in a light that i think will suit my target audience.