My Front Cover, Contents Page, Double Page Spread, School Front Cover and Conclusion

Front Cover

Contents Page

Double Page Spread

Pre-production: Front Cover For School Magazine

Strengths and Weaknesses
I have discussed the strengths of my magazine in each analysis (which can viewed when clicked on) and compared it to different issues of the VIBE magazine.

I have also faced weaknesses throughout this project which include:
*Technical problems; For our editing we were asked to edit using GIMP, a photo editing software. However, I found this software to be very obstructing because I believed it to be too complicated. So I used other softwares to complete my work, which were not as well developed as GIMP, but got the job done.
*After sending out a survey (which can be viewed on the next post) people notified me of what they saw as a roblem. This was the fact that my contents page lacked many photos and they believe photos on a contents page informs the audience about what would be in a magazine and does a better job than words.
*Another big problem was the camera. Initially I used my 8.1mp phone camera, but then substitued this for a 14.1mp camera, which took clearer photos.

Technology
To complete the front cover of the magazine, the contents page and the double page spread I had to use various different resources. I first started my editing with GIMP, an image manipulation program provided free by our school, but then had to use other online photo editors because GIMP proved to be too difficult to use. I then went onto LunaPic, a free online photo editor which was much user friendly. To do my contents page I used Adobe's Photoshop because it allowed me to become as detailed as I wanted, unlike the other softwares. However I could not use it for a double page spread as the image would be too big to upload and edit. So in the end I had to do my double page spread on OpenOffice.org Draw which provided the basics but I independently had to download other features such as font.
I first used a 8.1 mega-pixel camera phone to take my pictures because that was easiest to get hold of. Afterwards I used a 14.1 mega-pixel photo camera that snapped much clearer and brighter pictures that was a massive help. This made me realize that camera is possibly the biggest tool for making magazines and media such as that.
To make my survey I used the assistance of Survey Monkey who gave me a template of a survey and on my behalf sent the survey out to people and collected the results. This was a great help in finalising my target audience because it gave me evidence that the audience I chose was the right one.

Target Audience
The target audience for my magazine has always been the young adults. That would mean anyone from the age of 14 to 27. The reason for them being the target audience is because they are most likely to be influenced by the R&B, Hip-Hop and Pop artists. They would start copying their artists appearance, start talking in the same manner etc. Also they are most likely to be employed and therefore would have the money to by the magazine on a regular basis. The target audience was heavily influenced by VIBE and NME, who both share the same audience. And as their magazines are so successful it would only be logical to have the same audience.