College magazine

evaluation In this PowerPoint I will go through my success and

failures at creating my first college magazine cover and

content page

Colour scheme I believe the colours that I have chosen for the college

magazine are great, I believe this because they both stand

out very well on the background colour. Green and yellow

really give it a unique look as well as not many college

magazines use these colours together. Also with the black

background no one will have an issue with seeing the

information.

Green, Yellow, Black

Photoshop techniques During my work I used Photoshop quite a bit, I learned how

to quickly and effectively remove a background from pictures,

allowing me to use the actual people in other backgrounds, I

accomplished this with a combination of the magnetic lasso,

the quick selection tool and the magic wand. I first used the

quick selection tool to remove the majority of the background,

I then used the magnetic lasso to make a finer cut of the

people in the foreground, then I finished it off by smoothing

the edges of the cut out so it looked less jagged.

Photography This would have to be my weakest field, the picture I took

were not very good, the cover page photo looks like I have

been given terrible news, I still do not know why I looked so

miserable. My other piece of photography was not as bad, I

managed to edit the picture and put the subjects of the

picture on to another background that was related to the

story. I could have improved it immensely by adding other

props, or by just taking more photos, the more the merrier

right.

InDesign I believe I did very well in this section, as I quickly adjusted

myself to InDesign, it allowed me to quickly organise the way

my magazine would look. With the use of the features such

as stroke I was able to create a nice border around the

majority of my kickers. Also with the help of the borders I was

able to make slight adjustments to pictures added very easily.

Content The content to be included in the magazine was greatly

influenced by the questionnaire answers I received, for

instance as many people noted that they frequently either

listened or wrote music I thought it was best to give a music

section four pages. This can be seen again as many people

mentioned they enjoyed going online to either use social

media or just spend their time, it is because of this why I

decided to give the internet section of the magazine five

pages. The only piece of content that was not directly a result

of the questionnaire was the niche product, that is why it only

has two pages

Improvements The area I could have improved the most in is probably photography, I had never used a

camera before so I was really unsure in how the whole process worked, plus I am quite

a shy person so I did not feel comfortable having my picture taken, which is clearly

shown on my front cover as I look like I'm about to start crying. Unfortunately I also had

a lack of props so I could not recreate many of my articles. This will all be rectified in

my music magazine as I should have the opportunity to take a camera home.

Another improvement I could have made was to be more adventurous with my designs,

I myself am happy with them, but considering what my subjects were I could have gone

a little more extreme.

I also could have attempted to make a more dynamic style, I believe I could have made

a better looking cover page, my contents page I am happy with.

Positives I am very happy with the design of the contents page and the

front cover, slightly more with the contents page as I believe

that it is a very unique design, the cover page however I felt

was very generic, I will probably go with a more unique look

in my music magazine.

I am also happy with the progress I have made with my

Photoshop skills, I have learned how to effectively remove

people from backgrounds of shots, and the tools available to

me.

Reaction I have shown my work to a couple of people. They mostly

mention the upset look on my face, however some of them

criticised my choice of colours., as some of the colours

clashed with the background of the image. I did however

receive praise for the way my contents page was set out.

One friend mentioned “ it was a good idea to put pictures of

the articles at the side, so people can see exactly what the

article is about”.

Style I had decided that I would focus on learning the mechanics of

Photoshop and InDesign, this is why the style I had chosen

was quite boring. Its actually not that noticeable which is a

little disappointing, I will aim to improve my work in the next

section of work.

Opinion of the final product Overall I am pleased with my first attempt at creating a

magazine cover and contents page, I had some issues at first put I am happy with my final colours green and yellow, as they stand out very well, along with the fact that the combination of the two is quite unique. I will just need more practice in making sure that they sit well with the background and that they can actually be read.

I do wish that I could be more comfortable with having my picture taken as the ones I have available are pretty bad, the one used was the best picture I found and as you can see I look very uncomfortable, this does not improve the presentation of the magazine.