Photo Analysis

The main image of the cover is important as it depicts the theme of the entire magazine issue, for example for Eco Awareness Month, a nature or science magazine like National Geographic will probably have an environmental image as the main cover picture, as this goes hand in hand with the majority of the content. Also the main image of a magazine's cover roughly represents the audience, an example of this point is Men's Health which usually showcases muscular and fit men as the models, and a consumer of Men's Health magazine is most likely muscular and fit (or aspiring to be). I knew from the off that I wanted to produce a magazine for young women interested in pop so I chose a young female friend of mine, and I ordered a bunch of bright and trendy clothes like the ones which pop artists usually wear. I had my heart set on using the image to the left because I liked the colour's in it and I thought that the way light reflected off the jacket was very modern and contemporary. However I opted for the one to the right because I decided on a soft colour concept.

Behind Seah, the wall, the door, and her shadow were all unnecessary features so I selected them using the magic wand tool and deleted them, using photoshop. This made the canvas entirely transparent apart from the model. Then I made a new canvas and selected a pretty pink and blue hue and using a large but soft brush I created a gradient, and pasted the model into the centre. I think the cover definitely looks young and 'pop-ish', but not too young and childish which is something I wanted to make sure of because I find for mainstream youths within the 16-21 age quartile, there aren't many (affordable) magazines as such. I'm sure I've said this before but I blame the pop-ish style on the colours of the background and the outfit of Seah. So this is the final edited image:

Captivating imagery on contents pages is an intrinsic element because it provides a visual indication of what is inside the magazine and it helps break down the body of text which could look a bit intimidating or too formal left alone. I wanted bright and funky colours, so I was considering the two below on the left, however I chose the one on the right.

I chose the one on the right because the outfit is pastel and the model's facial expression and pose is interesting and different. I made a video s howing the editing process, and this was the finishing product:

This edit works well with the audience because polaroid camera's are certainly a revived device from the near past, with young adults enthusing over them due to Fuji Instax Mini Camera and so they're an interesting frame with a connotation that young people understand(, it should also be noted that it is unlikely a younger audience would know what polaroid camera is).

The editors letter didn't have any images apart from advertisement because I wanted to refine this page from clutter.

Double page spreads in magazines have a superiority sort of, compared to single page spreads, and so the audience expects great content and great imagery from double page spreads. Also double page spreads have to have the same theme as the cover or the magazine in general. Previously I had supported a soft colo ur palette through editing and the mis-en-scene c hoices, so for the double page spread I chose these two images:

I also made a video of the production of the double page spread, so until 2.26 this video shows how these images were edited:

When I was editing the pictures, I basically played around with various colours in spite of the fact I only intended to use two, these were all the combinations I made:

Editor's Letter

transworld - skate boarding

Analysis of double page spread edit 2

I feel my double page spread second edit is very successful. The principal reason as to why I like it so much is because it accompanies the contents page and front cover well. This is for numerous reasons, one being the colour… I’ve stuck to the same colour scheme consistently, using the purest shade of white and black, and using the eye drop tool to select the identical yellow, pink and blues. If you compare all the images, they have the precise same hues and because of this there is certainly a sense of continuity and flow. The second thing that is the same is the frames. There’s a yellow border on the cover and a polaroid frame on the contents page, so I intertwined both of these elements to create a polaroid shaped yet block coloured frame. Frames are a feature that Cherry Bomb could be recognised by, like Time magazine with it’s red border and National Geographic with it’s yellow edge, so for this reason I chose to keep them up. A feature that I revisited was gradients. I first did a pink to blue gradient as the backdrop for the front cover, and on the double page spread I did a gradient of blue to yellow to pink above the page number to add a bit of pizzazz and contempary-ness.  To do this I used the rectangular marquee tool and a large paint brush with a very soft edge, and this is the same method as what I did on the cover. Another thing I kept the same was the photographs. Despite the fact I could have used one of the other pictures taken of Seah in a different outfit with a different backdrop, I wanted there to be an obvious link or connection to the cover and the contents page and so I used images from the same photosets.

About a year and a half ago I bought a set of pens called Mildliners which are popular for their mild and pastel colours, so the highlighted bits of the articles were inspired by the colour outcome of this highlighting set. (As seen in my youtube video) I was contemplating changing the colour of the text as well, so I played around with yellow, blue, and (due to random curiosity) brown font before deciding on black font. 

The other day I was reading Dazed magazine and usually in articles, the people who have been a part of the formation (like the photographer and stylists etc.), have their names discretely hidden on the page edge or corner, but in Dazed everyone's name was boldly placed under the title and this looked so fresh and raw, so I mimicked this idea and placed the credits on the main large poloroid.
I added a tiny bit of colloquial language via multi-modal languge in the article, by writing "lol" and "tbh", and I did this because I thought that surely the audience will know and frequently use these words.

When editing the white t-shirt dress image, I made sure not to include a portion of Seah's body, because it made her appear larger and magazines usually advocate slimmer body preportions and I tried to use the Patch Healing Tool to make the appearance of smaller arms, however this didn't really work as it looked messy and edited (I wanted it to look natural), so I scrapped this idea.

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How the double page spread (second edit) was made

(filmed with quick time player and edited with imovie)

Official Magazine Double Page Spread (Edit 2)

Photoshopped using: Adobe Photo Shop
Colours:
     Yellow - f7ec8d
     Black - 000000
     Pink - a5cbe8
     Blue - fcccc9
Font name: Times New Roman
Model: Seah Dragomir-Polya
Outlet: ASOS (T-shirt), Lazy Oaf (Dress), NYX (Eyeliner and mascara), Boots (Lipstick)
Camera: Nikon P7100

Analysis of Contents Page (Edit 2)

• This edit is a continuation and progression of my last contents page edit. Unlike all my cover edits I didn't create a new idea, instead I just refined and modified my old one. First I changed the image. The previous one was badly edited using the internet, however this one was edited with Adobe photoshop so the shape of Seah is less distorted. Also the block pink background is now a lighter shade because I am striving for a rather pastel issue. This was how I edited the main image:

(Video shot with Quick Time Player, edited with Final Cut Pro X and uploaded onto youtube.com)

• The dress which the model is wearing is actually a collaborative piece between Lazy Oaf and Disney. Disney produces games and movies among other things for children so I thought that this attire would suit the soft and child-like concept of this page.
• I changed the font to Times New Roman to make the contents look more proffessional as I thought it looked a bit too childish or youthish when in actual fact Cherry Bom's audience is age 17-21. I contextually made some changes with spelling and grammar and I also changed the layout; in the previous edit, the contents page was discussing one spread and so in the bottom right corner it said "on page 20", I thought this might be a tad confusing and indicate that the contents page is page 20, to anyone skimming the page, and so I changed it.
• I also decided to promote Cherry Bomb's subscription to the audience with free concert tickets because I had a picture that I took at a Beyoncé concert, and the picture had lots of pink highlights and this accompanies the contents page well.

Official Contents Page (Edit 2)

Photoshopped using: Adobe Photo Shop and PicMonkey
Colours:
     Black - 040b00
     Lighter pink - fcccc9
     Darker pink - ff70bd
Font name:
     Times New Roman
Model: Seah Dragomir-Polya
Outlet: ASOS (Dress), NYX (Eyeliner and mascara)
Camera: Nikon P7100