Foundation Portfolio-Main Task

The Foundation Portfolio-Main Task involves me designing and and producing a front cover of a new music magazine, mock up of the contents page and double page spread. Since this is the beginning of a new task, i am going to look over the acronym-LIIAR, to help me see how the key concepts of the media can be used to design and produce a music magazine.

Language- The language i am going to use on my Front cover will be bold and Strong to catch peoples eyes. The text colour would depend on what genre of music that certain music magazine deals with, for example "Kerrang!" would use colours such as red, black, yellow and grey, where as Smash hits will use colours which are bright and more easy going.

Ideology- My music magazine purpose would be to inform the readers of any new and upcoming bands that they might like to listen to, to inform them about the news of bands (break-ups, new records, accidents, and general information about them) and dates for gigs or concerts. I would do this by including articles about the bands. And i would be promoting promoting the genre of music i choose.

Institution- The institution is the magazine publisher, they are many different publishing companies. I have decided to research a few of the main companies.

IPC Media is a the leading publisher in the UK, as a company they offer a large variation of magazines aimed at different audiences. Theses magazines which will help me with this task would be the music magazines, like NME. NME is a weekly British music magazine, which includes all the latest news in the music industry, updates on band tours and release dates for albums and interview with other bands.

EMAP is the publisher of Sneak, Smash Hits, Kerrang!, Mixmag, Q, Mojo, so they cover a wide variety of music genres for different tastes and age groups. Mojo magazine is aimed at the older generation, Where as Kerrang is aimmed at the younger generation, Kerrang is also the best selling rock magazine around the world.

Future is a trusted editorial service, magazines are just one of the many media types they produce which entertain and inform. The company publish up to 4 million magazines each month, they also export their magazines to 90 other countries around the world, Making them UK's biggest exporter.

Audience- Like most Music Magazines, the aimed audience will be teenagers to young adults, But it would also be for people of any age who is interested in the Genres of music included in the Magazine. But the main intended audience( teenagers and young adults) would be Regular Buyers of the magazine.

Representation- Certain social groups would be more interested in the music magazine i plan on producing, so they would be more likely to buy it. The main and easiest way to Represent different Social groups in a magazine, is by using still photographs. By Using Photographs to show a band, during a concert, during an interview or in a deliberate pose, will show and Represent the band to the Audience. Certain Magazines have a deliberate look to their magazines, For example, Kerrang's layout is quite hectic and chaotic and every things just been placed anywhere, this could be done to represent and portray how the genre of music sounds, and how the fans of the music dress. Where as, NME's layout looks like its been carefully layed out.

Evaluation Of My Final Piece.

While working on the magazine and developing my ideas,i have learnt a lot about recognising the conventions in different magazines and how they attract the desired audience.
The whole task has helped me and given me good practice on how to design the layouts and think ideas through and decide if they are worth using. After trying ideas out, i successfully finished my final version of my college magazine front cover and a mock up of the contents page.

My final version is a college photography Magazine, which is aimed at photography students or students just interested in photography. it includes the normal conventions and features of a photography magazine. i made sure i put the date, issue number, masthead, sub masthead, main headline, sub headline, a main image and an additional image. I decided that i didn't want my Magazine front cover to be to bright, as i thought it would look more like a "Gossip" magazine. But i didn't want the cover to look to dull, so i decided to use yellow font for the plugs.

Simple Design of the contexts page.

I have made my context page to look as close to a context page as possible.
I put "in this months Capture..." as a title so the audience would know it was a context page if they didn't all ready.
i Placed to photos under the title, which then leads on to the first topic included in the magazine.

Final Design Analysis.

This is My final Design for my Photography magazine for the foundation portfolio task.
After Analysing other genres of magazines, i have been able to design and create my own magazine which is aimed at students studying photography, or students who are interested in photography.

My First Ideas for my College Magazine.

First of all, i decided on the type of magazine that i was going to produce for this task.


i decided on doing a photography magazine, as i am studying Photography and buy photography magazines, so i thought this would help me a lot.


After i decided on what magazine i was going to do, i thought my title masthead, could be something to do with photography, so i made a list of words used in photography and words used by people taking photos or talking about it.

- Close up.

- Positive (as in positive and negative films).

- Snap ( as in the sound that is made by taking a photo, and people also say "snap" meaning take a photo).

- Life like.

- Visual.

- Capture.

- Exposure.

After thinking all of them through, i narrowed the list down to visual, capture, exposure and lifelike. But then i Thought "exposure" , even though it is one of the most important things in photography, sounds to much like a "gossip mag". so i decided not to use that. "visual" didn't have the right sound to it, and "life life" sounded like a nature magazine. So i decided on"Capture".

After deciding on the mast head, i started planning the layout of the front cover.

Most Photography Magazines have a photo of a landscape or A Portrait.
I decided on having a Portrait on my front cover, but of someone holding a camera and looking through the eyepiece, looking straight at you, as if he/she was taking a photo of you. I then started putting the issues going to be talked about in this issue. I decided on having the background plain white, which could mean it has been taken professional and in a studio.

Textual Analysis of Digital SLR Photography-Camera Magazine.

On this issue of "Digital SLR Photography", and just like on most issues, they give you tips on how to take a a photo as good as possible, and by putting headlines such as "Apertures made easy!" does this, and attracts the audience, who are intrested in photography, to buy the magazine. Also the photo in the background would catch peoples eyes, because the colours are bright but not difficult to look at. The other banners and headlines arent covering the photogragh because the photo has been used to attract people to it, and covering it would stop the affect. At the top of the cover is a banner including a competion to win photograpghy kits, which would also arract the audience into buying it.
At the bottom there is more tips on portrait lighting and "photo adventures" which tells you and shows you good places and ways to take photos in the best way.

NME Magazine Textual Analysis.

"NME" is a magazine that informs its audience about upcoming bands/solo artists, tour dates, news about bands and the music industry in general.
The front cover shows Steven Morrissey, the front man "Morrissey" as the main story of that particular issue is about him. The photo hasn't been taken in a studio because you can see a building in the background and above the headline "MORRISSEY" is says in a banner "when in Rome, get drunk with...". Because NME is such a well known magazine, it doesn't matter if the title is being covered up by something, like on this front cover, because everyone knows its still NME (New Music Express). The NME Logo is always in the same position, the top left corner, which helps people looking for it to recognise it easier. All around the photo and headline it has different story headlines such as "INSIDE THE KAISERS' BRITS PARTY", "ARCTIC MONKEYS-"Our Favourite new Band" and "THE STROKES-Summer date revealed". This is to make people buy the issue if they aren't just interested in Morrissey.

Textual Analysis of "Secondary Teachers Magazine"

The title of this magazine is "Secondary Teachers" which tells you what audience the magazine is aimed for. It's Ideology is to help or give information to teachers in secondary school or possibly to people thinking about becoming a secondary school teacher. In this issue of the magazine, the producers have made it a double sided issue where the boy is on the front and the girl is on the back, but when opened up it is just one picture. The photo hasn't been taken in a class because the background is white which means its been taken in a studio, so its been taken professionally and the fact they are posing for the photo. Both the pages have the same layout except the text are in different places but that's because of the photo. Also the " Do boys and girls learn differently?" are in different colour font, blue for the boy and pink for the girl which are the "traditional" colours for boys and girls. The boys arm in the air is covering apart of the title but it doesn't matter because you can see what is says anyway, And the magazine will of had other issues out and is a well known magazine so the producers know they can change the cover every so often.

Foundation Portfolio-Preliminary Task.

Creating a College Magazine Front Cover and Contents page.

Because this is the Beginning of the Foundation Portfolio Preliminary Task i looked at how the main media concept key words could be used to make a front cover of a college magazine. I used the Acronym LIIAR- language, Institution, Ideology, Audience and Representation.

lANGUAGE- The language is how the layout of the media type. It means everything from the font, the text style, size of the text the Photograph(weather its black and white or colour), the title, the colour.

INSTITUTION- The Institution is Wyke College.

IDEOLOGY- The ideology is the message you want to send out to its readers. So in a college magazine it would be Respect one and other, Its a place for Students and to work hard.

AUDIENCE- The audience would be the students at Wkye(age group 16-19) and staff at Wyke, employee’s of the college and perhaps Visitors.

REPRESENTATION- The magazine would be Representing the college, the photographs, Angles, The Stories within the magazine about Wyke, Promoting theWyke and how the text and Photos Represent the stories.