MEDIA

FOUNDATION
PORTFOLIO
EVALUATION
The One Man Ego Trip of Photoshop
Discovery
By Aaron Tiley
 What We Had To
Do
Preliminary Production
...
- Produce a school magazine cover.

Foundation Production
- Produce a music magazine cover, contents
page and double page article.
Preliminary
Production
Photoshop CS4

Medium Close Up

Mast Head

Tag Lines

Bleed to the sides of the page

Target Audience
 “It looks blank.”
“It doesn’t look like you’d see it in a “The school colours worked well”
shop.”
“The distance and focus of the shot
“Your model doesn’t look very happy” met the criteria”
“The masthead is on the right, which “The lighting is alright, I suppose.”
you would never see in a real
magazine.”
NEGATIVE POSITIVE
Feedback
Audience
Nicholson says ...
“Honestly? I’m sorry,
man. This sucks. I
mean this really,
really sucks.
Everything about it
sucks. Nothing
about this magazine
does NOT suck.”
 Followed by:

“NOBODY
WOULD EVER
BUY THIS.”
 Foundation
Production
• Using Photoshop CS4 and InDesign CS4,
produce a music magazine cover, contents
page and double page spread.
Oh wait. Not this GIMP ...
 GIMP 2.0
• http://www.gimp.org/

A basic photo editing

programme that you can
download for FREE! Sort of like
if there was Photoshop for
cavemen, it would be like this.
 Research
Methods
• Before starting my magazine cover, I issued a
questionnaire to find out numerous aspects to
my audience.
• The slight majority of readers were male, and
that alternative and hip-hop were equally as
popular as each other. It also showed me that
a hybrid genre had the ability to sell.
• Public vote on Masthead font.
FRONT COVER SKETCH & IMAGE
FINAL FRONT
COVER
Energetic image – appeals to the target
audience; the key youth demographic.
Side banner – convention of a music magazine
such as Kerrang!
Masthead – Fixed location in the top left hand
corner – convention of a music magazine.
Additional images – help enhance
professionalism.
Image editing & Mise-en-Scene - Erode and
blur, and lasoo tool to change the colour of the
TV screen.
Tag Lines – Finding a balance to stay true to
the audience of Underground music, but attract
those maybe less inclined.
Conventions of a Magazine - Barcode, price
and date in the top right hand corner.
Text FX - Stroke, inner glow, colour overlay,
drop shadow, etc.
Connotations of the masthead

“Maybe too busy?”
“The hip-hop references are great
in the tag lines, but aren’t visually
represented as well”
NEGATIVE
Feedback
Audience
“The chaotic look really works”
“The vibe of the photo is great, it
would catch my eye.”
“The colours are vibrant, and the tag
lines are interesting”
“The text for the masthead is great.
POSITIVE
Contents Page Sketches & Comparisons
CONTENTS
PAGE
Brand Identity – fonts and colours / repetition
of the issue / masthead featured again.
Image & Mise -en-Scene – low angle shot, give
Jack status as a ‘star’. The shadow and the blank,
blue sky was achieved completely naturally.
Second photo – the mise-en-scene represents
an ‘underground’ music scene perfectly, and
contrasts the background strongly.
Attracting the audience – is easy to read, but
the ‘Birth of a Hero’ font and staggered layout
still give it that modern, gritty and frantic feel.
There is also a “callout” and captions to appeal.
Photo direction – around this time I started to
notice my photo direction and consideration of
mise-en-scene really started to improve.
Layout – connotes a real magazine through the
use of large subheadings, and a list of contents
(obviously ...)
 “The calmness of the background
really helps the text stand out”
“The background might be too “The shadow across half of Jack is
conflicting with the feel of the really effective”
magazine.” “The length and angle of the shot is
“More photos?” good”
“The secondary photo ties in with the
front cover and the double page”
NEGATIVE POSITIVE
Feedback
Audience
Double Page Article Sketch
 FINAL DOUBLE PAGE ARTICLE
Brand identity – fonts /
colours
Content – interviews
were one of the most
popular choices in my
questionnaire.
Conventions – “callout”
to interest the audience,
eye contact to draw gaze,
two columns of writing
on the left hand side.
Text FX – helps the
important parts stand
out.
Off centre writing –
more chaos, helps make
Image – appeals to my target social group; fun, energetic.
clear writing more
Mise-en-scene – shows the magazine isn’t the best funded in interesting.
the world, makes use of natural surroundings.
Secondary image – Appealed to target audience through
iconography.
 “Very professional looking.”
“The background might be a bit “Love the photo – signifies the whole
‘fun’ aspect of your magazine.”
too active.”
“The layout is great.”
“Only very minor things are
“The callout works really well. The use
detrimental.” of taboo language helps relate to
youth as well.”
NEGATIVE POSITIVE
Feedback
Audience
Nicholson says ...
“Well, it’s better than
the almighty multitude
of suck you produced
before.”

“Nah, seriously though,

it looks like something
I’d actually enjoy
reading and pay for. The
mix between genres is
hugely appealing, so
good job.”
Development Hell
Ltd.
A small, independent magazine publisher based
in London, Development Hell Ltd. have
published, most famously ‘Mixmag’ and ‘Word’,
a music magazine focussing on less publicised
types of music which one UK music magazine of
the year in both 2007 & 2008.

I think they would be a good fit for

‘UnderSound’ because we represent lesser
heard music, although the artists we have are
bigger and the genres are more popular, so it
would be a good opportunity for them to make
money from a more mainstream audience.
What I learnt; Technologies
ADOBE PHOTOSHOP CS4 – A huge advancement from GIMP for me, I
learnt how to operate this sophisticated piece of photo editing
technology. I had to practically learn from scratch, but eventually got
hold of the blemish removal tool, resolutions/pixels, Text FX (non
existent in my preliminary production), magnetic lasoo, and wound up
gaining at least a competent level at photoshop.

ADOBE INDESIGN CS4 – I had only used Microsoft Publisher once

before in GCSE ICT, and I can’t honestly say I paid much attention. This
was another huge adjustment, but thanks to my advancement in
Photoshop, I found adapting to InDesign was much quicker. From
simple things such as fitting an image to a frame to a full double page
construct, I think I achieved well with InDesign.

BLOGGER – blogger.com is the website we had to keep all our progress

on, up to date (more or less.) I had never used a blog before, but I
learnt how to use it very easily, as it’s not that different from a lot of
social networking sites I already use, for example facebook.
What I have learnt from this project

PHOTOGRAPHY SKILLS –
TIME MANAGEMENT – I
from non exsistant to fairly
learnt that it is a
successful.
personal downfall, and
something to improve
on ...although I doubt
that will ever be a
complete success.
Most importantly, I learnt that being a model
for EVERYBODY is hard work, but when
you’re as ridiculously good looking as I am
...these are the sacrifices you have to make.
THANKS FOR
WATCHING!

http://sheldonschoolaarontiley.blogspot.com/