The second week of production - Unit 3 Project

The second week of production - Unit 3 Project

On the second week of production, I firstly finished editing the article that I had started in the first week of production. I did transform the lexis so that it wasn't too informal as I have extended the use of vocabulary and included a more varied sentence structure. To do so, I included words such as 'ancillary' so that it formalised the language a little more. However, now I feel that I have formalised the article too much. Although, the target audience should still relate to this article because they are well-educated as they are in the socio-economic groups of the upper-middle classes and middle classes: C1, C2 and D. I have also edited the real-life stories that featured in my article so that the audience connects with the victim of alcohol more. Before editing the article I had two real-life stories: 'A teenager, no older than 18, got fought out of a bar. Then whilst on the cold streets she got attacked and raped. It could happen to any drunk...There was another victim of alcohol. This guy a bit older, 25. He was having a ball until his wife and kids were too frightened to even look into his murderous eyes. When he was smashed, he was unwillingly welcomed into his own home and was left to raise hell downstairs whilst his family scoured in their beds.'
I then changed the the article so that it focused more on the girl that was within their age group. This is because I think it would affect the target audience more to know that it can happen to anybody - even young people. This is the changed real-life story paragraph: 'Meet 18 year old Lauren. Trainee teacher by day, ‘top sessioner’ by night. Average girl that drank until she was ‘mortalled.’ Lack of co-ordination resulted in a chain reaction that was out of Lauren’s control.
A harmless stumble caused retaliation. An aggressor fought her out of the bar and left her on the cold streets of Newcastle, ‘The Toon,’ to rot. Badly beaten, she fell unconscious due to the venom within her veins. If this wasn't bad enough, a second assailant then raped her and left on the ground – cast aside like an empty bottle. After a year of self-loath and torment, she broke down when confessing the reasons for abstention.'
I feel that this edited paragraph has been improved dramatically as it now reads more fluently and a stronger connection can be made between the real-life character and the target audience. My assessor didn't like my original real-life stories that were in-corporated into my article, however now he says that this part of my article has improved. My peers also like this article version better because they think that it is easier to read and still maintains their attention throughout. This is good because my peers are the age that my target audience are, which proves that my article does interest them.

In terms of creating the product, I made a vast and large development. Firstly, I started on my front cover as I had the most initial ideas for this page. I had a problem with choosing the image for my front cover as some were finely out-of-focus where as others were in focus but they didn't match my flat plan. I tried out a few of my best images that matched my flat plan as well as ones that contrasted with it.

I couldn't decide between two image (one being the image on the left) so I asked my peers for their opinion and they chose one of the images that had a black back-drop. I agreed with the decision as I felt that the darker, zoomed-in image portrayed the darkness of alcohol more effectively. From this experience, I learnt that I should be more confident and trust my own decisions more.

 After deciding on the background image (on the right), I downloaded several fonts that I thought would suit the masthead. As my magazine name was 'Compulsion' which is a synonym of 'addiction,' I didn't feel that a sans-serif font went with the tone of my magazine - that alcohol is a negative influence. Therefore, I chose fonts that had a definate impact on the audience; fonts which stand out. The print screen below shows some of the fonts that I had chosen:

Downloading the fonts were easier than expected as I decided which ones would suit my magazine quickly. I chose one for the masthead which is in the previous print screen. However, there was a problem that occurred. The font wasn't big enough length ways but it was width ways. This meant that making the font bigger wouldn't help me. Thus, I increased the length measurements by pressing a text button on the top tool bar. However I later found out that this stretched the text as my assessor commented on it. To solve this problem, I replaced the font with another that filled the space I wanted.

Meanwhile, I started creating the front cover more so it had some foudation. This meant that I used the 'Horizontal Type Tool' to insert text and the 'Rectangle Tool' to make boxes. I also used the 'Paint Bucket Tool' to fill in these boxes. I produced the front cover's basics with simple functions as I thought I should get my ideas down first and then develop my skills.
I found the basic desinging easy as I was confident with the proccesses on Photoshop. For example, I knew that I could angle the boxes via 'Free Transform.'

When I later recognised that the old masthead was stretched, I changed it to a text that was bolder and higher in length. I then added a button by using the 'Elliptical Marquee Tool' when holding down the shift button on the keyboard to get a precise circle. I experimented with 'bevel and emboss' but then decided to turn the opacity down so that the button wasn't so striking.
I then started to incorporate more advanced skills that I have learnt on Photoshop. For example, placing the models head infront of the masthead. To do so, I used the pen tool on the duplicated image layer to cut out the part of the models hair that I wanted to place on top of the text. I then pressed 'enter; to make my selection and clicked on the image's layer and used the shortcut 'ctl + J.' This copied the selection that I had made. Finally, I moved the layer so that it was placed on top of the text layer. To make the front cover look more layered and professional, I made a selection on most of the models hair but not the hair at the far left. This gives a more layered effect as it seems like there is 3 layers instead of 2. I am happy with this process as I have accomplished a high-quality effect that makes my magazine unique and creative.

I continued with basic and advanced processes on Photoshop. Firstly, I changed and tested fonts of the sell lines so that it matched more with the masthead.The 'Window' tab was additionally accessed to make the 'Character' window pop up on the screen.I changed the space betweeb the words/letters as well as the space between the text if it carried onto two lines. This made my front cover mode compact and the text impacts the audience more due to the energy that it adds to the magazine. I also made a stroke onto the button to make it more obvious as I felt that the opacity was good low but it needed an extra something to draw attention to the cheap price. I used the 'Free 'Transform' process to angle the text as well as the boxes. I was also presented with a problem at this point, which was that the colour red was more like a dark brown. I wanted my magazine to be unique but in a positive light. Having the colour scheme black, white and burgundy was never my intention. To resolve this problem, I changed the colour to a brighter red so that the colour trend was kept in tact. When the colour was chosen, I used the 'Eye dropper tool' in the future so that the red elements
of the magazine had the same RGB codes (this allows consistency throughout the product). To develop my skills further, I made the button that has the text 'NEW' in it. This is because I couldn't find or download a brush that was this shape. To make this button, I used the same method as my other button to get the circle. I then used the 'Custom Shape Tool,' to make triangles and I copied, pasted and rotated them until the shape was complete. This was then grouped and made into a shape. I also felt that the quote needed an image so that the audience could relate to it. This also meant that I could create another sell line of '+ FREE POSTERS.' I incorporated some Indesign skills as I produced a poleroid image on this software first and then inserted it onto my front cover. Mixing of the softwares works well because I can play on my strengths of both softwares to produce a professional looking media product. This is why I like the poleroid image on hte front cover - because it looks creative and interesting. In addition, I inserted an image of an album cover from the internet onto the front cover so that the sell line and the magazine is more realistic. In the second week of production I also inserted an image of a barcode. Before this however, I opened the barcode image up in a different Photoshop document so that I could scale it via the 'Transform' button (so that it was smaller). As well as this, I accessed the 'Image' tab, then 'Image Size' and edited the width and height to see which method worked better for future reference. I wanted the barcode to contain subsidiary information, for example an Issue Number, of which other magazines place on the barcode. This made my magazine look more realistic. This task was easier than I thought because all I had to do was select a white part of the barcode with the 'Rectangular Marquee Tool' and copy and pasted it onto the end of the barcode image. Foreground colours were added to the front cover as well (more filled boxes) so that the image looked more layered and energetic; for example, the background of the 'Exclusive' sell line.

Due to making the text more compact with the 'Character' window, this caused a problem. I was left with a blank space underneath the sell lines as I was making them more compact. This meant that I needed more sell-lines than I thought I would. It took longer than expected when creating the sell lines because I already had different sell lines features; for example: I had an 'Exclusive' sell line. To resolve this issue, I looked at various magazines to get some ideas of the types of sell lines to write. This made me create new sell lines that featured a question sell line - 'What's hot or not?'


I developed all of these Photoshop skills as I also learnt new ones. For example, I learnt the new short cut Ctl + J to duplicate the layer. There was a problem when I didn't know how to carry out a process (like changing the space between words) but with help from peers and my assessor, I learnt how to do so by asking them. However, I made sure that they didn't carry out the tasks for me as I wanted to learn how to control Photoshop.
As I had finished most of my front cover, in the second week of production I then moved onto my Double Page Spread.

I started with placing the images in that I had on my flat plan. However, I realised that the image on the right hand page was out of focus. I then made this image smaller and sharper later on. I placed the images in by using the shortcut Ctrl+D.

 I then inserted rectangular boxes so that the heading and the kicker had a background to ensure that they stood out on the page. I did this by using the rectangle tool and the filling them in by selecting the desired colour with the Eye dropper tool. I tried to edit the main image (which I also changed from the previous image as the other was out-of-focus) on the right hand side of the page by using Photoshop. On this edit, I used 'Auto colour' and 'Auto contrast' as well as unsharpen mask. These are skills that I have learnt via the skill developments throughout the year. Editing the image was easier than expected as it didn't cause any problems.

However, at this stage on Indesign I did have a problem - the images seemed out-of-focus when they weren't. To resolve this, I had to go onto the 'high quality display' setting. This meant that the pixels were in-focus again. Also, I kept changing screens to 'preview' mode. This is because I wanted to look at the media product without any guidelines.
At this stage, I was in a dilemma about the header. I wanted to create a product that was interesting and I felt that a block colour of red wasn't creative. I also thought that the white background on the image within the header wasn't attractive. As I didn't have time to do this in the second week of production, I will change the header in the third week of production. I think that I should have organised my time differently in the first week of production because the article ran into the second week. I also got carried away with the front cover in the second week of production, which meant that my DPS hadn't been worked on that much. I wanted my third week of production to reflect on what I have done and to make any improvements as well as add the final adjustments. Although, I haven't finished my DPS yet so I still have a lot of producing still left to carry out.