I also produced a mock-up of what I thought my front cover would look like. This was a rough mock-up drawn on a piece of paper, simply showing the basic positioning of text and images. This gave me a guide to try and stick to, although there would obviously be changes made when I saw how it looked on the real product.
Looking back at my preliminary cover, I can see that my attention to detail was not very high. The layout is very plain, images do not blend in with the background and it looks more like a poster than a magazine front cover. I have also not included an issue date or a price – a very important part of magazine codes and conventions. This is something I would have to remember to include in the main task.
A mock-up of what the school magazine contents page was also produced to give an idea of how it would look in comparison to the design of the front cover. Producing the mock-up gave an insight into how I would design my contents page for the main task later on.The Main Task
The main task was to produce a front cover, double-page spread and contents page for a new music magazine. I was able to use what I had learnt during the preliminary task to help me with my design and production of my main media products. Again I would be using Corel Draw to produce my products. This time I would have experience of this programme and this would help me design and lay out the products in the most suitable way for my target audience.
After producing my preliminary front cover, I learnt about the importance of image and text positioning for a front cover. I made the mistake of using three images in my preliminary task, and arranged them on a coloured background. This made the front cover look amateur and as if it had not been thought through. Therefore when producing the front cover for Key Change, I chose to use one main image that would take up the whole page. This showed one of the improvements in my magazine design knowledge.
Image manipulation/layout skills and improvementDuring the main task I had the chance to practise my photography skills and organise photo shoots that produced images that caught the decoder’s attention. After photos had been taken I also enjoyed the process of manipulating the images to make them more attractive and relevant to the overall magazine layout. This was the first time I had needed to take such notice of how photos looked, meaning my attention to detail increased greatly – using Corel Draw enabled me to adjust photos’ brightness, contrast and saturation, as well as being able to rotate and crop them. I took a long time doing this, resulting in photos that I was very pleased with and felt confident in using them on my final media products.
Examples of photo editing
The photos taken for the main task were a lot better than those taken for my preliminary task. My preliminary task photos were not thought through well enough, and the decisions of how and where to take them were made too quickly, resulting in photos that although were relevant to the type of magazine, did not blend in with each other, were of a lower quality and lacked any eye-catching element. However, I learnt from this and subsequently planned thoroughly for the style of photos I wanted to take and include in my music magazine.
Construction of the Imaginary Entity
Constructing the imaginary entity was a great help in helping me improve from the preliminary task to the main task. By having a clear idea of who I would be aiming my magazine at, I was able to focus my attention on producing images and laying out text in a way that the decoder would understand and find appealing.
Using the questionnaire in class to get feedback on my first attempt at my front cover was extremely useful; from what my peers said about colour, layout and other aspects of my design I could improve it until it met the needs of the decoder.
Textual Analysis Skills
At the start of this project my knowledge of magazine codes and conventions were limited, meaning that my textual analysis of magazines and other media products was often very brief. However, after spending a lot of time researching magazines and practising my analysis skills I have learnt a lot more about how to judge the design and presentation of magazines. I am a lot more critical and am able to use what I have learnt to comment on popular magazines, as well as being able to improve my own media products. My knowledge of semiotics has also deepened, enabling me to both analyse signs and come up with my own ideas when designing and developing my own media products.
This is what the screen looked like when I was selecting which background and template I was going to use for my blog.
I eventually decided to use this design of autumn leaves in the background for my blog: 
Labels were also used on my blog to make it easier for the user to find particular sections of my work. My work was divided into five sections; Research, Media Theory, Preliminary, Target Audience and Main Task. I labelled each piece of work when had finished it, and the labels are on the right hand side of the blog for the user to select when they want to view a section.
I also had to upload images to my blog to display the various sections of my magazines I had completed so far. I had done this before in other projects, so I had no problem with it at all.
Corel Draw is the programme I used to put my front cover, contents page and double page spread together. This programme was suitable because the layout of a page can be changed easily, image manipulation is straight forward and there is a wide range of font styles to choose from. Starting on a blank document it was easy to import images to edit and arrange in a way that was suitable for my magazine.
An advantage of using Corel Draw was how easy it was to move, resize and change the order of images. I rotated images to the right angles, edited the brightness and contrast of many of them and changed the order of some so they could be behind text or partly hidden by another image.
Corel Draw is also very useful for finding a variety of font styles to use for different sections of the magazine. I was able to look through all the fonts before I found the ones suitable. I found a bold font style that was perfect for the masthead on the front cover and another font that I chose to use for the article and other parts of the magazine including the interview and headings on the front cover.
Using these programmes allowed me to develop my image manipulation skills in order to create images that created the best possible effect for my media product. Even small changes to an image made a big difference when laid out on a page.
I also had a chance to use the ‘’Polaroid Effect’’ option on the Picnik website. This allowed me to angle the image and lay it onto a white background to create a scrapbook look. I also added text underneath the images, pulling out quotes from the interview.
Internet research was also a major part during the construction of my media product. I used the internet to research other magazines, in order to find out more about how they were designed, who distributes them and what the best way is to attract my preferred target audience. I feel my research has definitely paid off, as I have analysed magazines to gain a more thorough understanding of the magazine design process and the media production world in general.
Magazines owned by Conde Nast include the fashion and beauty magazine, Glamour, fashion magazine 
The next publishing house I researched was Dennis Publishing. Dennis Publishing is an independent publisher and was founded in 1974. As of April 2010 it published 31 magazine titles, predominantly in the UK. The company is male-orientated, publishing some of the most popular men’s magazines around, including current affairs magazines, magazines about cars and technology magazines. Titles include Auto Express, PC Pro and PokerPlayer. As there don’t seem to be any music magazines published by Dennis Publishing, it would be useful for them to have one. However, my magazine is aimed at females, and would not fit in with the overall impression of the publisher. This is the link for the Dennis Publishing website - 
IPC Media is one of the UK’s leading magazine publications, selling over 350 million magazines every year. Brands published by IPC include the fashion and celebrity gossip magazine Look, the TV news magazine TV Times and Marie Claire fashion magazine. IPC Media covers a wide range of magazine types including music (NME magazine). As there is already a variety of music magazines published by IPC I will not be choosing this publisher to distribute my magazine. This is the link for the IPC Media website - 
I have chosen to use Conde Nast publisher 
Horizontal Integration is where two companies that are in the same industry merge together e.g. one music magazine joining up with another music magazine. This is popular in media production as usually when people here that a company is joined with another popular company, their knowledge of the other company increases the chances of the public purchasing products from that company.
During the design process I used intertextuality to help me decide which of my designs was the most suitable for my target audience. I researched a variety of music magazines to see what kind of signs they used and to view their chosen style of layout. Collating all the information I found allowed me to come up with my own unique design and layout for my front cover, contents page and double page spread.
My overall representation is largely denotative. Most of the images of Sacha are simply there to give the decoder a representation of what she looks like. However, other images of her offer connotations for the decoder to read. For example, one image may show her beauty at a first glance, but at a second glance the decoder will be able to see the deeper meaning – her confusion/loneliness.
Music magazine often have a tag line next to or beneath their title, stating they are a popular magazine or have won some kind of award. I have also used this element on my magazine front cover. This will represent the magazine’s status and popularity to the decoder, allowing them to understand the success of the magazine they will potentially be purchasing.
Another element of magazine design I have used on the font cover is having an offer for the decoder to have an opportunity to see a singer live in concert. This is placed at the bottom of the front cover to take the decoder’s attention as they look down it.
Every magazine, whether music or fashion, will include a barcode on the front or back cover. I included a barcode at the bottom of the front cover. I chose this position because it does not interfere with the main cover image or overall design of the cover, but still completed the look of the magazine.
The masthead for Key Change is placed at the top of the front cover, as with most music magazines. This is so that it’s the first thing the consumer sees when looking at the front cover, drawing their attention to the remainder of the cover.
I have also included the price and issue date on the top left hand corner of the front cover. Most magazines put the issue date and price on the front cover so it is easy for the consumer to see when they are viewing it.
tuart Hall’s Encoding and Decoding Model states that a decoder can decode a piece of media text. They can either have a preferred/dominant reading, negotiated reading or an oppositional reading. A preferred reading, where the decoder fully understands the decoder’s code and accepts the message, is the reading I wanted the decoders to take from my magazine. 
My media product remained within the usual guidelines of magazine design and followed the principles of the Encoder/Decoder Model. The choices I made with regards to images, text and other signs were made based on my target audience and the way in which I wanted them to read my magazine. All these signs went through a mediation process to make sure they represented exactly what I wanted to the target audience. Intertextuality was a large part of the design process, as I wanted my target audience to feel familiar with the overall magazine layout.
The image I chose to use as the main
Other images included on the double page spread included black and white shots of the singer in a park, displaying poses that signified her thoughtful state of mind. Again, these were edited to include a polaroid effect and included quotes of what the singer had said in the interview. I chose to use the most significant quotes from the interview, to grab the decoder’s attention and deepen their interest in reading the full interview.
On the lower left side of the double page spread I included an image that was not taken during the interview, but one that had been taken at a separate photo shoot. This image is polysemic, as the decoder may see it as a representation of the singer’s confidence, or a representation of confusion and or a sense of sadness or loneliness.
My magazine’s colour scheme was made up of three colours; black, pink and white. I chose these colours as I felt they fit in well with the nature of the magazine – being a pop/retro magazine, black and pink complimented each other and are usually seen as being a modern combination of colours for many media products. White font was used for text on black backgrounds, as it is the easiest colour to read and provided an aesthetic contrast for the decoder. This colour scheme was used in all three sections of my work.
As well as using images from my main cover story on the contents page, I included an image from an article that would also be included in another section of the magazine. The article would have been about the Irish pop singer, Ronan Keating. I included this image in the contents page to give the decoder a visual representation of what kind of signs they would find if they read the article. I took this image myself at a concert and edited on Windows Photo Gallery.
From learning about the 
