production diary #14

Progress 5

Using Photoshop I removed the background to my full bleed image using the eraser tool and magic wand. This made it possible for the image of HardBarzHarvey to cover the masthead and therefore emphasis she is the main focus and importance of the issue. After doing so, I increase the height of the masthead to make clear to the readers the magazines name.

Also I made slight adjustments in the positioning of each of the pull lines featured on the front cover to make sure all the pull lines would clearly stand out against the image of the artist. 

Once the front cover of the magazine was completed, I copy and pasted the exported page onto the content page and decrease the size to fit against my magazines website and social networking sites.

In addition, I increased the size of the page numbers so it would stand out against the images and be clear to the readers where they could find what they where looking for.

After making adjustments to the image of HardBarzHarvey, I simply replace the original picture with the edited version and made the image take up the majority of the double page spread. Also after changing the font and colour of the headline,I increase the font size so that HardBarzHarvey would be broken down into three words and therefore not cross over the fold of the two pages

Looking back at my article, I decided to make the tweets from the public more clearer to the readers therefore I increased the font size and change the font to Chum to continue the house style and make a statement.

Also to make the magazine look more professional, I created page numbers in the corner of each page that would be the same dark red font used throughout my magazine to continue the house style and clearly stand out in each page.  

Instead of placing my third pull line within my featured article, I decided to place the pull line against the image of HardBarzHarvey as this will make the image far more intriguing. I decided to center the text to the left as it would appear to wrap around HardBarzHarvey's head and suggest that she is looking up to the quote. 

Also after experimenting with the image, I decided to increase the size of the image to take up the majority of the page as this will make more of an statement and therefore attract readers to the image. 

Magazine Draft

Production diary #13

After realising all my text for my magazine was completed, I thought the next best step would be to make sure all my images for my magazine were taken and chosen. Therefore, on Saturday I completed a yet another photoshoot of my model Georgia. I decided to use an outside location as this would show variation in my magazine and the urban settings would attract more of my target audience. After travelling around my town  and looking at spaces in central London, I realised that spaces that were filled with vibrant graffiti and somewhere with good natural lighting . Shoreditch in East London was the ideal place to do this photoshoot as it is known for its famous street art.Thinking more into the photoshoot, I decided to choose outfits for my model the night before that would highlight the urban and R&B feel . The outfits included both timberlands and nike air maxes as these are currently in fashion and are what my target audience. A tartan bodycon dress was chosen as it is very popular is this seasons fashion as both females and males wear tartan clothing. Also a run dmc top was worn as it fits within the old school R&B feel and also cheetah leggings were chosen as they are popular with my target audience. The pictures chosen were a range of close up and mid shots to clearly highlight both the fashion and model and also highlight the urban settings.

Overal the photoshoot was a success, as it produced a wide range of shots to chose from that would all clearly make a statement in my music magazine.

Progress 4

Process 4

Shown in the two images of my front cover, clearly highlights the process I have made with my magazine in just a short amount of days. This was done, by firstly changing the shade of red for my colour scheme. I decided to change the red for a darker burgundy shade as this looked far more professional and portrayed more of the stereotypical violent bold image R&B has. In addition, even though Gill sans ultra bold font portrayed the bold,aggressive statement that I wanted my magazine to have, I decided it still was not a strong enough statement for my magazine. Therefore after searching on www.DaFont.com for bold fonts, I found Chum to give the exact bold statement I wanted which reflects the genre of my magazine and my target audience.After changing the fonts throughout the front cover,I increased the font size so it would take up all the white background therefore my front cover would be far more busy therefore attract my target audience.

By using InDesign's shape tool I created a circle in the right corner where my pull line appears as this would make it stand out to the readers.Also by making the circle the same dark red highlights my magazines house style.

In addition, similarly to the front cover I adapted the font to Chum and increased the size. I noticed this made my content page look far more professional as the pages were busy with both text and images. Using my colour swatches, I changed the headlines and page numbers to the dark red used in my front cover to outline the house style of my magazine.
Using InDesign's line tool, I created two black bold lines which are used to separate the four sections of the article. This will allow the readers to be able to clearly identify the section they are wanting to read and find out more about.
Using Photoshop I made adjustments to all the images used in my content page to make them look as professional as possible. This was mainly done by adjusting the brightness so all the images colours would be vibrant therefore attract my target audience. Also I replace the image of HardBarzHarvey with a picture of two rappers, Yungen and Mikestar as I believed readers would be more attracted to a wide range of famous artists.

Similarly to both my front cover and content page, I changed the colour,font and size of my pull lines as this would highlight the house style of my magazine. Using the text wrap tool, the featured article would fit around the pull lines however they would still stay in the columns made. Likewise to my content page, using the line tool in InDesign I created a bold black line above the pull lines as they would therefore stand out clearly against the featured article.

After the photoshoot taken in East London, I replace the placeholder images with the best images taken. All images showed variation from wide to mid shots and showed different locations  and outfits however they all kept within the urban feel of the magazine. The layout of my images presented a professional look to the magazine as they were centered to the right of the article therefore will stand out to the readers whilst reading the featured article.

Chosen Images

Progress 3

Process 3

After placing all of the text into the magazine, I decided to include a box text at the end of my article. This was simply created using the shapes tool in InDesign. By using my colour swatches, the box text was made to be the same red throughout the magazine shown in the masthead and pull lines. This will outline my music magazine has a house style throughout therefore will attract a wider audience as it will appear far more professional. After the box was created, I simply just began to paste the text and tracklist that had already been written previously as a draft.The text and font followed the rest of article as they were both black Arial font,this outlines that my magazine continues a house style throughout. In addition, to make the box text more intriguing to the audience, I believe by showing the cover of HardBarzHarvey new album will attract readers as they will want to find out more the opinions of the new album.I created the album cover by simply choosing a statement picture from the photoshoot that I knew would attract my target audience.After choosing the image,using Photoshop I place the album name 'It Gets Better' in white italic font to stand out against the image. The album cover appeared to the right of the tracklist so it was clear to the audience what tracks would be featured in the album.

After creating the box text,I went back to my featured article to make slight alterations to make my magazine look as professional as possible.I decided to increase the font size of the first letter of my article as it is seen in many other music magazine,such as Q and Vibe magazine. This technique will make the featured article look more intriguing therefore will attract my target audience. 

Also, by having in mind that my target audience is key in making my magazine a success. I decided to include readers tweets at the bottom of each page of the featured article. This highlights how key social networking is to use in my magazine to attract my target audience. By going on twitter and finding the best tweets from readers about HardBarzHarvey.I simply chose these tweets and by creating text boxes at the bottom of each page, I place the tweet in italic font as this would clearly stand out against the featured article.  

Rough Draft of article

Using just simply paper and pens, I decided to sketch out a rough draft of my music magazine.This allowed me to identify any problems with my layout as by using paper it gave me more of an idea what magazine would look like once created.

Progress 2

Process 2

After pasting my text into my magazine, I then began to experiment with different types of font on Indesign. After experimenting with many different fonts such as Minion Pro,Broadway,Cooper Std,Stencil Std I thought simple yet bold fonts worked best. I believe bold fonts such as Gill sans ultra bold or Cooper Std would easily grab the readers attention. Fonts such as these are often used in R&B/Hip Hop magazines and they potray the aggressive,bold image the industry has. For example, Vibe's masthead is very similar to the one featured in my music magazine, as it is extremely bold and takes up nearly at 1/4 of the page. 

After deciding Gills sans ultra bold font would be used for both my subheadings and coverlines, I then began to experiment with the colours for these pieces of text. As my colour scheme for my magazine involves the colours; black,white,grey and red I created swatches of all these colours onto Indesign so the exact same colours could be used in the future. After experimenting with all the colours, I thought red would work best as the masthead colour.The red used is vibrant in colour so would clearly stand out and would signify both love and danger. I also decided to use hints of red throughout the coverlines so certain key words would grab the readers attention such as "HardBarzHarvey Comes Clean","Macklemore& Ryan Lewis" and "The best rapper ever?". Using famous artists clearly stated will attract many fans and my target audience. In addition, the red used in my magazine matches the outline of the numbers appeared on the models american football shirt. This will underline that my whole magazine has a continous house style throughout and therefore look far more professional. I also decided to use hints of grey throughout my coverlines as this would make my front cover look far more busy in colour therefore young people will be more likely to be attracted to my music magazine.

Progress 1

Process 1

After creating both my article of my featured artist and content text, I then began to simply replace the placeholder text with the right information. After this I then began to rearrange and adjust the text to fit around the images.Using the tools on Adobe Indesign, I was able to simply select my images and then use the wrap around text tool to do so.

After pasting all my text into my article, I thought it would work best if the start of the article would begin on the full bleed image on the double spread page. This would make the full bleed image more interesting and insightful as the reader is briefly told who this worldwide superstar is.

After pasting my article into my magazine, i then realised my article was not long enough to cover both double spread pages however I have overcome this by deciding to produce a box text which would featured my HardBarzHarvey album and review of the songs featured.

Production diary #12

Production Diary #11

Editing images

Using Adobe Photoshop, I decided to edit my front cover full bleed image. I used a variety of tools such as the brightness levels so the jersey and snapback would be much more vibrant in colour also i used the patch tool to remove any imperfections and the magic eraser to remove the background.
Overall this has enhance my image as it is far more vibrant and clear therefore will be more appealing to my target audience.

Box Text

Cover lines

Draft Article

Intro: West London finest and 2013's biggest success story. HardBarzHarvey thought her life was over, kicked out of school with no qualifications and a drug addiction. Now 12 months on, she has toured with Eminem and signed with Aftermath Entertainment. Only OnPoint has the exclusive on her success.

We are sitting in a cafe, tucked out of view in one of London's stylish backstreets. Not exactly a very urban setting but is said to be HardBarzHarvey's favourite place to get food after a long day at the stuido.10am sees HardBarzHarvey walks in fashionably late with her vintage baseball jersey, snapback and her brand new jordan's looking very OnPoint.

We tuck in to her favourite breakfast of a full English with all the works;

bacon, eggs, beans, mushrooms and endless amounts of tea. "I'm not about this whole size 6 image all the magazine talk about, eating salads and exercising 24/7 fuck that! .I love food way too much to be starving myself! " As the public know Georgia is known for her outspoken opinions and she says "Just say it how it is or you’re not going to get anywhere in life". Our researchers clearly found out that Georgia will not hold back on anything she believes in.

A lot of fans love the way she is, wishing they were just like her as her life seems to be perfect. As Georgia proves us wrong

"I lived on a council estate in West London, YES of course I was one of those stereotypical 'chavs' who owned a Just do it bag, sleeked back hair and massive diamond hoops from Primark. I thought school wasn't important and thought bunking school with my mates, hanging round on the streets and getting involved in all kind of shit was a good idea."

"My life was at such a low, I got kicked out of school when I was 14 with no qualifications, no job...nothing. I thought my life was over. Where was I supposed to go from here?"

This was a surprising side to see of the hard and outspoken image Georgia has always portrayed. Everyone believes her life to be a fairy tale and by simply just posting a video on YouTube got to where she is now. This is far from the truth.

We get a deep and meaningful understanding of the hurdles that she had to overcome to get to the place she is today. When asking about her parents she tells us “whenever I get onto that topic it always ends up in tears or anger.” After a large chug of her tea she starts to tell us exclusively her traumatic experience. “My mum and dad both died when I was only 11years old. They were both in a horrific car crash on their way home. I was waiting for them at home for hours on end until my grandma called me hysterically crying on the phone telling me the news.” Through these tough times life was far from easy for Georgia, “I got kicked out of school and thought drugs would make me forget about it all.”

Georgia reached the lowest point of her life. Spending all the money she earn on drugs, taking them day in day out quickly becoming addicted. “I don’t know at what point exactly it started to be a problem. I just remember liking it more and more," she admits. "People tried to tell me that I had a problem, but I just didn’t listen “Ultimately, Georgia was hospitalized and on the brink of death. “Had I got to the hospital about two hours later, I would have died," she says. "My organs were shutting down. My liver, kidneys, everything. They were gonna have to put me on dialysis. They didn’t think I was gonna make it. My bottom was gonna be death.”

After a relapse and eventual detox, Georgia finally got her habit under control. “I had to regain motor skills, I had to regain talking skills. It’s been a learning process, I’m growing," reveals the rapper. "I couldn’t believe that anybody could be naturally happy with their life without being on something. “Almost dying changed my life, I now realise that I have a purpose in life and that is music”. So I would say to anybody, ‘It does get better, you just have to believe in yourself first.’

During Georgia’s recovery she lived with her Grandmother, Margaret and Grandfather Thomas. “I guess that’s the reason why I am so close to them. They are the reason why I am here today. They did everything for me and actually believed I could make something out of myself. ”

So how did Georgia become HardBarzHarvey? Georgia reveals that even though music has always been her passion in life, she never thought she was good enough to make it. However that all changed when she stumbled upon an Aftermath Entertainment competition. They wanted to find the next biggest worldwide rapper. “I thought to myself how sick would that be to win that competition, a record contract with none other than Dr Dre.” “…I just had to it”. The competition required a submitted video to YouTube of an original song or rap. Coming up with an original song was no problem for Georgia, “I‘ve always been writings raps, I have a whole book filled with them. It’s all I would do in class instead of actually working”.

Within 2 weeks of submitting the video to YouTube, Georgia reached over 1million views.

“I couldn’t believe it. I was actually speechless”. Her video become popular all over the world, getting more and more views every hour. It was no surprise that Dr Dre declared HardBarzHarvey the winner of the competition. He immediately gets Georgia on the first flight to LA to meet in his studio. “The first time I’ve ever even been on a plane is to go to meet Dr Dre in his studio. Madness!”

“It was literally a dream. Meeting Dr Dre for the first time in the studio has to be one of the highlights of my life. It was as if we already knew each other before. We connected immediately, we shared so many musical and general interests. I am so thankful for the success and platform he has given me”

Georgia career has been reaching ultimate heights in just a short space of time. But as she reveals one of the most life changing experiences happened only just a few months later, “I was just in the studio, recording my new track Relapse and none other than the rap god that is Eminem walks in. I’ve never been so star struck in my life. I admire him so much from what he has overcome in his life. He is a lyrical genius plus he is extremely hot in person.” After Dr Dre introducing the pair, Eminem admits to truly admiring Georgia’s story of how she got to where she is now. After just a week of knowing each other, Eminem decides to feature in HardBarzHarvey track It Gets Betters. The track is truly mind-blowing, with deep meaningful lyrics and an old school hip hop feel to the song. OnPoint predict this track to be a worldwide success as it can relate to everyone.

Not only did Eminem decide to feature on one of HardBarzHarvey's tracks but also invites the rapper to support him round his Europe tour. “I was speechless. How could someone like me, who lives in a council flat in west London now been going for a two month tour… I have truly been blessed”. Before preparing for the Europe tour Georgia admits to us exclusively, she has never been to a concert before touring with Eminem “I would have loved to, but as if I could afford paying £40 for a ticket.” After revealing this to her team, Georgia is lucky enough to get front row and back stage passes to Kayne West Yeesus World tour, telling us it was “life changing”.

Inspirations were the key reason why Georgia has her passion for music. Throughout her life she has grown up with the passion for R&B and rap music as it has always been around in any tough situation. “The legends Tupac and Biggie are the reason why rap is the way it is. They are never someone I would even try to mimic, I idolised they way too much.” “Of course I love Kayne West,Eminem,Jay Z Drake.. The list would never end but I truly do idolise female artists like Nicki Minaj, Iggy Azalea, and Ciara as they have made such a big impact on females finally be accepted in the rap industry.”

There’s no denying the fact that HardBarzHarvey is all that everyone is talking about right now. Her ups and downs are what have got her to where she is now. When asked if this is the “most insane year of her life so far”, the rapper states, “Everything is so chaotic and crazy right now and it’s so much all at once, but I’m living for it. I'm just having the best time ever and everything’s falling into place like it’s supposed to. Even people who want to hate on me, they can’t even shut down the fact that I’m literally what everyone is talking about. I don’t want to say that I’m on top right now – I feel like I’m kind of an underdog in a cool way.”

“I don’t intend on selling dreams to young people or being a role model. My generation has it the worst; I swear life isn’t the big fairy tale that Disney makes it out to be or the image that the hip hop industry portrays that money, drugs and violence is so badass and cool-far from it. I learnt how hard life is but you know what, I’m tougher.”… “Cause when life puts you in tough situations don’t say, Why me? Just say Try me.”

As Georgia is set to release her first album by the end of this year, expectations are high of what HardBarzHarvey has to deliver. So many of her fans and the public admire the rapper of the struggles she has overcome and the blessed talent she has. Her album Unbreakable is set to sell worldwide breaking records already set by the legends. HardBarzHarvey tell us “Instead of turning to drugs, I express all my experiences and problems into my raps. If any one of my songs can help anyone who is in a tough situation and ultimate low, I will be truly happily. I want my music to reflect how life is far from perfect, as my grandparents have always said to be, Remember that life is full of ups and down but without the downs, the ups would mean nothing.”

Production diary #10

This week i have created the basic draft of my music magazine,OnPoint. I use Adobe InDesign to create this by placing placeholders for everything that is going to be featured in my magazine.By using a draft for my magazine it will allow me to simply replace it with the right information.
Later on in the week I began to place my chosen images into the magazine. I began with the front cover image as this is key in attracting the audience and making my magazine a success.I believe the image I chose makes a statement and is vibrant in colour. Using the tools in Adobe Design I cropped the image to fit the page. I then began to place my other chosen images of my model into the magazine, this included a full bleed image featured into the artists article and also a image featured on the contents page.
After the images were placed, I wrote a draft of my contents page text in Microsoft Word as I would be able to plan all the sections and headings that would be included. After the draft was finished and spell checked, I simply copied and pasted my text into my magazine.I then began to rearrange and adjust the text to fit around the images.

Draft of magazine

This is the first draft of my music magazine OnPoint using Adobe Indesign.I have created placeholders for everything that is going to be featured in my magazine as for example using the box tool i created black boxes to represent where i am going to place photos taken. By using a basic draft for my magazine it will allow me to get through it much quicker and easier as i will simply be able to replace it with the right information when created. As a key concept of my magazine is a higher ratio of photos to text, all pages would include at least one or two pictures. I believe this layout of magazine will attract my target audience the most and will represent my R&B genre.

Contents text

www.OnPoint.com
www.facebook.com/OnPointMag
@OnPoint_Mag

Contact sheet

After producing my contact sheet using Photoshop, I decided to print of my contact sheet and by using a magnifying glass I was to clearly see the detail within all my images. I decided to do so, as seen in many other professional photoshoots, this technique is used to be able to demonstrate how the image will look once printed out in a real life copy of the magazine. After doing so, it was clear that several of the images would be suitable for my magazine by attracting my target audience and suiting the genre of my magazine through the clothing and body language shown.

Equipment

Hardware:

The interfit lights work by a trigger, as i pressed the button to capture a photo, the light flash on in sync. This was handy as it helped my photos to look well lit and professional. The Canon DSLR made the photoshoot much easier as it enabled me to take hundreds of photos at great quality that could simply be look back on. Also the white backgroup was used to remove any background from the photos taken and would make my photos look more professional by only focusing on the model and would be much easier to use throughout my magazine.

Software:

After uploading my photos from the memory card and putting them all together in a folder. I decided to create a contact sheet as this would be easier to both myself and others to view all my pictures taken. I create my contact sheet using Adobe Photoshop as this was very simple to do by simply choosing the folder with the photos taken and Photoshop would automatically create this.

Behind the scenes

 I decided to do a behind the scenes of my photoshoot as this would show more in detail about the set up and everything used. I created both a video and pictures on my phone as this would show clearly how my pictures were created.

Model Release

This is the model release form for my photoshoot for my magazine. I have decided that I would like Georgia Harvey to participate in my photoshoot as I knew she could portray a very urban feel.
Before taking photos of my model Georgia, I had to make sure that Georgia was happy with being photographed for my magazine. As she signed the form it clearly states that Georgia agrees to take part in my photoshoot.
Model releases are used in professional photoshoots due to needing legal rights granting permission to publish the photograph. Without having a model release can result in civil liability for whoever publishes the photograph due to privacy and copyrights issues. A model release form is proof that the model is giving the photographer permission to use and sell the photos. Additionally, the release is there to protect the photographer, the model, the agency and the end user of the photographs. Therefore using a model release for my photoshoot was essential in preventing any legal actions taking place after publishing the several photos of Georgia in my magazine.