Q6.) WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNT ABOUT TECHNOLOGIES FROM THE PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?

INTERNET AS A RESEARCH TOOL – Researching on the internet was used to look up covers of hip-hop/rnb magazines, as a lot the magazines I was looking at where

American hip-hop magazines, the internet helped me hugely as I was able to access a lot of information about American magazines such as vibe and source, and also was able to find lots of images of front covers, contents pages and double page spreads without having the magazine in front of me. I also used the internet to find out specific information I would need such as using Wikipedia and various different websites – this helped me gather information for publication plans and other aspects of my work; another use was also looking up fonts online to get a font that was different to Microsoft fonts to make my magazine title more unique – at first I used a font that I found online, I then decided it would be easier to work with a font that was already on Photoshop because I could then change more things about it, I found a font I was happy with and used it for my front cover. The internet was a large part of my research and was one of the most helpful tools, I learnt a lot about blogging and how useful and easy it is to show the work I had done and in different forms, such as using slideshows, videos and different types of media to show different areas of my work and how different technologies were used. I used Slide share to put slideshows on my blog, I used YouTube to put videos on my blog and blogger helped me organise all of my work and see clearly where I was up too.-

Blogger - slide share

Blogger – YouTube video

Using blogger to organise my work

USING DIGITAL CAMERAS – I used a Fujifilm 14 mega pixel camera to shoot my front cover and contents page images and then used my I phone

5 megapixel camera for my front page cover images ; I used the camera in ways I hadn’t used before, I learnt that I needed to adjust the settings, lighting and costume to make my magazine look authentic and didn't realise how much of a difference elements can make in completely a successful photograph. My front cover was shot in front of a white wall to make it easier to cut out the image if I wanted too – which I did it in the end; I shot my front cover and took a number of shots before I got my final image, I then put them on to the computer and used Light room as a programme to manipulate my images to make them look more professional. I shot the main image for my contents page again against a white background as I knew I wouldn’t to fit my text around my main image – Again I took many shots from different angles – close up/long shot and decided on the main image, for my double page spread I used a dark background and a medium close up shot as the article was an interview and I wanted my target audience to feel more introduced to the main feature of my magazine. I used Light room to manipulate all my images by changing the contrast, levels of colour and also covering up some imperfections of my photos to make them look professional-

PHOTOSHOP AS A TOOL FOR DESINGING THE FRONT PAGE

Photoshop was a programme I had used briefly before for projects in high school, but I learnt a lot from producing my magazine, helpful tools I used repeatedly where - the lasso tool, which helped me cut out my images from their original background and drag them onto my work to move them around other text and designs I had created, I used this firstly in my college magazine and again in my final magazine for my front cover, contents page and double page spread, this tool was the most helpful from the skills I learnt as it helped my designing my own page and gave me more freedom to change my layout and have a unique page design as I could change the background, the colors, contrast and many more features that made my photos look professional which made my magazine look genuine.

Example of use of lasso tool in photo shop for college magazine

This is a font of a text I found on the internet to use for the title on my double page spread, I didn’t use it in the end as I felt that a text from quark would work better in the end, it was easier to work with and I had more freedom to change it

This is another example of using photoshop for my college magazine, photoshop enabled me to change my text size to 102.20 which was very helpful to get all my text the same size and change it slightly, photoshop also allowed me to change any colour text by selecting a colour that was already on the page, this helped me match all my colours exactly.

I used the lasso tool a number of times – here is an example of cutting out around each letter of ‘TRAX’ and placing on to the background for my front cover, I went around the shape with my mouse and then dragged it across on the other page, I changed the size, width and length to make the masthead successful.

USING Photoshop AS A TOOL FOR PHOTO MANIPULATION To edit my images I used Light room and Photoshop, I used both programmes as I felt lightroom was a better programme to use to edit the contrast and sharpess of my images but photoshop was better to alter my images and use the images around text and on the page.I used different features such as contrast change and patch tool.

Quark as a tool for’/ combining text and images

• I had never used Quark before so had to learn and understand it fast as it was a good programme for me to use to combine text and images for my double page spread. It has features such as drop caps and the option of columns to make my article look professinal, I used Quark for my double page spread and the contents page for my college magazine ,I think they worked best as the main features was on text rather that creating a design on photo shop.