Category: Preliminary Print Tasks

In future I will try and use the skills I have shown today in both photoshop and indesign in other pieces of work for media but also in a potential future job in media. I will also try to improve by trying out different colour schemes and being more developmental with my background, typography, layout so more potential consumers will start the AIDA process whilst staying true to the conventions of my genre.

In order to try and understand media magazines better, I used a software called indesign to try and replicate a professional magazine cover to the best of my ability. We learned to use indesign through a few lessons and then we were left to try and play around with indesign to make this mock cover page. We used this knowledge on how to use indesign with out knowledge on key features of magazine covers (such as the masthead, pugs and main cover lines) in order to try and get the most effective result that we could. The top image is my finished product and the bottom is the original that I replicated. During the process there were some things that I struggled with however I also think that there were plenty of things that I did well. In order to improve my skills for my future magazine cover, I’ll need to take into account what went well and what I could do better so the outcome for it is better. Some things that I believe went well are:

1.  The text of the masthead is effective in capturing the same atmosphere as the original
2. Used clever alternatives for lack of knowledge about certain tools in order to try and replicate the original
3. Everything from the original is on mine in some way shape or form, whether it be a direct mimic or an alternative that achieves the same goal

For the things I need to improve upon, there is:

1. The main cover stars size in comparison the rest of the magazine cover, as my one seems very zoomed in when compared to the original.
2. The colour of my text is slightly off and it also is on the main cover star (due to the image size) which makes the text hard to read in certain areas
3. Copying exact, smaller details such as the spikiness of the pug or the text font on “the music magazine”.

I have also looked up some videos on indesign usage to help me in future when it comes to creating my magazine cover. These videos cover sme of the things that I ended up struggling with in my mock cover.

In future, I will use the lessons I learned when creating my mock image, annotating a magazine cover and the videos embedded above in order to try and create my music magazine to the best of my ability and try to match a professional standard in my work. For example, when creating my media magazine I will be careful when using images and text together as they can have a powerful effect together and when poorly designed (e.g pink text on a pink background) it can ruin an audience members emmersion in your product as well as coming across as very cheaply done. I will also try to use these lessons beyond my A-levels and try to apply them to both my everyday life to see how media is evolving and in a potential future job, to make sure that my work meets the expectations of both my colleagues and those who will consume the media that I produce. 

 

Media Hashtags by Andrew Guille

Anytime you take a picture, the camera talks and tells you a narrative of what’s going on. Using things such as, camera angle, proxemics, actions, facial expressions, etc you can tell a narrative without using words. We took these pictures in order to get a better understanding of how narratives can be formed through images by using these camera techniques, mise-en-scene, proxemics, facial expressions and body language as when they’re used together they have a powerful relationship in making a scene with powerful denotations and connotations. In future I will think about how to use these camera techniques can be applied to other works such as my music video or music magazine to represent a certain genre.

 

To further understand how mise-en-scene can communicate meaning in an image, I made a moodboard of conventions in a genre of music. The genre I chose was folk. Some of these conventions include acoustic / string instruments, the outdoors and small, local concerts. This has helped me understand the folk music genre more than before and has also helped me to think about what key iconography can be linked to certain genres so even if the denotations are the same, the connotations can be completely different.

Here is an image of my folk costume with some sticky notes attached to me. These notes were written by other people and describe what they thought of my genre in one word. This was to gain a better understanding of other peoples views on the same genre of music as everyone is bound to have different opinions to one another. For example, whilst some saw my costume as natural and organic, others saw me as odd and quirky, which is completely understandable.

This is my chosen image out of the many we took. Here you can see my constume that is meant to represent the folk genre. I tried to get a rural, natural vibe going on with the sheepskin waistcoat and the straw hat as that’s what is commonly associated with the genre. My pose has a sort of prideful, happy look which I find fairly fitting as folk music seems like it’s fairly relaxed but also has a passionate community for the music. This photoshoot has made me think about how mise-en-scene can effect what the audience thinks about a product and how you can convey that message to the audience.

 

In future I will use all of the insight gained today in order to try and achieve a better representation of genre when it comes to mise-en-scene so I can convey to my audience exactly what they are looking for in a magazine for a certain genre. I will also research my target audiences tastes and expectations before coming to a conclusion based on my own presumptions about certain genres, so audiences can feel happier with the final product that I produce.

Every media has certain denotations and connotations. The denotation is the image and the connotation is the idea behind it, telling us what it’s meant to signify and / or represent. To decode the connotations you must deconstruct the denotations.

To further my understanding of this I decided to deconstruct and analyse a tour poster from KES the band. Here I thought about things such as the artstyle, text, setting, positioning, etc in order to determine what this poster was aiming to achieve. I came up with the conclusion that the poster is trying to convey a chilled out, comical narrative.

In future I will try to reflect on how all of the denotations and connotations can portray a narrative in any media form and can help an audience understand your media work at a single glance.