2. Creativity

1. How creative do you think you were in the decisions you made when creating your coursework? 

There are many conventions audiences expect to see on a magazine cover. I needed to do research into these to figure out how i could make my magazine unique and creative. 

The conventions that are seen on all magazine covers were: 

• A masthead (Which is catchy)
• Main image 
• Basic colour scheme to draw the audience in and catch there eye e.g. bright colours
• Cover Lines to inform the audience (Puff)
• Bar code to make the magazine look realistic
• Pull quote to interest the reader 
• Banner to advertise big events coming up e.g. DJ's playing at specific venues 
• The price of the magazine 
• The issue number and date so the reader know which magazine is which. 
• The use of different shapes and fonts to have a contrast 

With my music magazine i had to produce and front cover, double page spread and contents page. By doing research into what audience expect to see it gave me a starting point to what i would do to mine which made it look good and realistic. I followed most of the typical conventions for my magazine because of most audiences not liking change to a front cover of a magazine they usually see  e.g. the layout, although most conventions are followed due to the fact that it makes the product look professional and realistic. Not many magazines challenge these conventions we see because of it working well but also using a traditional way, but in some cases magazine challenge conventions because of working for they're specific audience and therefore in the long run being successful. For my front cover i feel like i challenge the usual conventions of what you would usually see in a house magazine because of using bright colours and an unusual layout, what you would usually see on a front cover is one main image and then cover lines and puffs to inform the audience where as for my magazine i used for pictures than information to have a difference and uniqueness to my front cover. In the long run many changes where made to my front cover because of me not liking my layout and me not being realistic to my product. I was not happy with the visual syntax on my front cover due to there being to much space and i think my audience needed to be informed with more cover lines other than just images. 

2. Did the technology enhance your creativity or not? 

3. What ideas did you communicate and what stylistic techniques did you use? how did it relate to your interests/vision for your music magazine? 

I wanted to create a front cover that was modern and stylistic. I researched into many different fonts and images that i would use to suit what i wanted my magazine front cover to look like. I had to think about many components to make my magazine look modern and stylised:

• Font 
• Masthead
• Images 
• Cover Lines 
• Colour Scheme 
• Layout 

The font that I chose was very modern and fresh, i think that the font that i had chosen suited my audience and also suited the genre of house music. The font was used throughout the 3 products i created so they all matched and looked professional. 

The masthead was the most important thing for me as its the first thing the audiences see but also being the name of a magazine which audiences usually remember. I named my magazine MUZIK as it was a modern way to say 'MUSIC' which was a twist that would give my magazine an edge that no other magazine would have. I chose a font that was different a made the word look more modern, i also chose a hot pink yo contrast with the black writing and also the colours used on the front cover. This was the masthead I used: 

The images that I took were made to look stylistic opposed to a realistic picture, I had many  troubles with the images that i have used due to the fact that i used myself and i was very self conscious of my product. Throughout creating my product i changed my main image quite a lot. For my final product i chose an image where the 'artists' where looking directly at the camera because it followed a typical convention of a music magazine. I also used different filters on my images to make it look different and to almost have a contract between them all. 

The cover lines, layout and colour scheme changed a lot throughout my magazine because of my opinion changing. The different techniques I used was using different colours to have a contrast and not have everything matching due to my 'genre' of house music against the different images and cover lines etc. At first i wanted my layout to be unique by using more images then cover lines because of it being a new fresh, modern way but i changed the style near the end of completing my product because of  it not suiting usual genre conventions you would see in a magazine layout (need to inform the audience other than show them). I wanted the cover lines on my magazine all to be different but in similar colours and the same font, due to the fact that it would look messy otherwise. 

4. Was your product influenced by your social environmental (e.g. your interests?) 

The music genre that i chose was house music. The reason i chose this music genre is because I listen to house music and know about all the artists within this genre. By this i knew what audiences wanted to see from a magazine front cover due to my age and the audience feedback i received. With me being a young adult i think it helped be a lot in what i wanted my magazine to look like but also what people expected from a magazine. I think it influenced my product because of the different decisions i made e.g. the image, costume, colour scheme and the cover lines i wrote (knowing about artists and different events). 

5. Was this original or did you add something extra to your original media text? 

My final product followed to closely with an original media product, but the first front cover i produced was my own idea with everything original to what i wanted but throughout research i changed my mind because of it not being realistic enough and not fitting in with the conventions you would usually see. I decided to change a couple of components of my front cover like layout, images and cover lines. I think i changed my layout the most because i wanted it to look realistic and professional, from my first product to my final product there was a lot of differences that was made. I think that i made these changes for the better because of me being happy and content with what i produced. 


6. Would you take any creative skills into future projects or have you been influenced to engage these skills in any other projects? 

I think overall i have been influenced by different programmes, technologies and also different techniques. This is because at the start of the year i didn't know a lot about techniques that you could use to make something look good e.g. on fireworks the erasing tool so your main image (artists) where in front of your masthead. Also another thing that had a big influence to make me conscious was using my self on my magazine throughout, didn't think it helped my work look good because of me being conscious.