My Evaluation!

Note: It may take a while to load, so be patient please!
To have option to zoom in, hover mouse on blank space on Prezi and the options will pop up. Or just select the place you want to zoom in on, and it'll usually zoom in. To zoom back out/in, select one of the bottom arrows again.

Drafting and Planning: My magazine!!!

Here's my final magazine in all its glory!

It was a long journey, but I finally got there! I checked the spelling and done some final adjustments with the double page spread, but I'm so proud of how all three turned out! 

I constantly made sure all the pages harmonized well with each other and that they're all completely consistent; the features on the front cover will be mentioned under the featured section of the contents page, and by making the images of Little Blue stand out especially, since she's the artiste the audience wants to know about.
My front cover is bold, dramatic and unique. I made sure the cover lines framed the cover star without overwhelming the page, and I made sure the cover showed the attitude of the cover star and that any artists mentioned sounded like musicians which would suit a rock magazine.
The contents page is inspired by NME and I love the use of black, since it ties in the whole page and makes it look more complete. I made it consistent with the double page spread, put more than 100 pages so it looks like a jam-packed monthly magazine, and personalised it with all sorts of 'HARK' related phrasings. I adjusted it once more a tiny bit, shifting the 'Guide to Rock' under featured, and to fill the space, I included 'Music Today' under the news section to add more consistency between the front cover and contents page.
For the double page spread, I used the consistent house style of red, black, white and gold. I made the questions asked relevant to a music magazine and made sure I pointed out the reason why the cover star was wearing simple clothing in the article so it wouldn't appear that I just grabbed my sister, threw her on a tree and took a photo of her. I also adjusted the double page spread a tiny bit more; I adjusted the size of the bottom right pull quote and added a red line at the very top of the page, reflecting the one running along the bottom, just to tie it all together into completion.
I love how throughout my magazine there's what I call little 'bridges' which connect Little Blue to HARK. In the front cover it's the link of her red lipstick complimenting the red masthead. In the contents page, the red leaf acts as a connection between Little Blue and HARK and the pull quote heading in the double page spread running over from the main image to the article acts like a bridge between Little Blue and HARK.
Overall, I'm so happy with my magazine, and I hope it does some sort of justice to rock magazines too.

Drafting and Planning: Final improved double page spread

I've applied the improvement of talking about her simple fashion style in the article! I don't think there's anything more I could do for it!

So, overall for my double page spread, I made sure it had the dynamic, powerful effect needed to show that side of Little Blue which her clothing and child-like appearance conceals! I love the article, I think it challenges most interviews with egotistical artiste's since I find it very friendly and pleasing to read; not riddled with swear words everywhere and there's no mention of bad teenage behaviour! So though she represents the 'normal person', on the other side of the coin, she represents the minority who don't do the mainstream foolish things of teenage-hood, but she's not perfect, she just spends her time making music and focussing on what she enjoys; music.
In comparison to the front page and double page spread, it's incredible cohesive!

They all have the house style of black, red, white and gold throughout (even if the gold is subtle at times) and there's consistency in the fonts and there's a great balance through all the pages; nothing is too distracting, and nothing ruins the mood of HARK. I'm incredibly proud of this double page spread and I believe it does do justice to music magazines, specifically rock magazines.

Drafting and Planning: My improved magazine!

Here's the completed article of my music magazine!

Here they are! I'm so proud of them-they look so cool! I like the theme of black and red running through as well as the gold element too!
I tried my best to obey the conventions and I added much more text into the double page spread.
To improve, in the double page spread, I could mention Little Blue's style of clothing; the contrast between her 'ordinary-ness' of her appearance and the 'extraordinary-ness' of her music. Perhaps she wants to make her music speak for itself rather than her appearance; this also goes against the stereotypical appearance of most female artists; here she's being modest and normal, so it could probably show how she's very relatable to ordinary folk and her music is what's important, not her. By doing this I could mention social groups in my evaluation.
The approach is now more 'carnivalesque' (in a tasteful way I think) and it all very cohesive and holistic with the bold black background of the double page spread complimenting the use of black in the contents page and the subtle use of black behind the main cover line on the front cover. I love how in each photo there's her being normal looking (yet with some attitude) but there's nature surrounding her in a beautiful way, as if the tree in the double page spread was to represent her growing music. I think I'll alter the question "Do you have any other countries in mind" to one about her appearance etc, and the pull quote could be instead "My music is what's important, not me." which could be quite shocking for a famous artist to be so humble; but, come on, the article itself is way to 'pleasant' - She can't be a regular 'drugs', 'sex', 'wild' music artist; I like going against stereotypes sometimes.
I originally didn't want it 'carnivalesque' but now looking at it, I love the drama, dynamic boldness and how it shouts out it's message with no fear! It also shows even more contrast to how 'most' wild, egotistical artists are, and how Little Blue is; she can still be bold, powerful and have impact, but she doesn't need to behave badly for it. Perhaps this could be mentioned in the article too. If so, then I'll remove the 'tour in Japan' question into a chunk of interview about her being different. Yeh, I like that idea...

Drafting and Planning: Brand New Double Page Spread!

I have improved my double page spread keeping in mind how it harmonizes with the rest of the magazine:

Now I see how it looks with the new black, white and red elements, I need to focus on the article.
From having looked back, I have to mention something on how her appearance says something about her as a person and with what she stands for! I'm not quite sure on how to write it at the moment, but I know I'll work something out as I usually do! I also think the pull out quote on the bottom right could be a tad bigger--but these are just tiny little details which can make the whole so much better! I also love the use of the portrait version of the secondary image, again, using a variation of shot types to show my photography skills! I'm one step away from my final double page spread, and the journey is quite remarkable looking back on it...

Drafting and Planning: Experimenting with Layout for Double Page Spread

I expanded the article in my double page spread and tried a different layout which I may/may not use.

I'm not entirely sure on the layout, since the previous version looks a lot more interesting, but I had to squeeze in more text, so I tried to make space by changing the entire arrangement; moving the image to the top center and wrapping the text around it. I like the look in one way because it shows off the image more and the colours within the tree which I find very pretty, but the text area looks rather boring and I'm also worried in case the article is too 'trivial'.

Perhaps if I changed the yellow highlight of the questions to be either black or red, it'd link in well with the HARK general look. I'm not so sure if the Pull Quote is appropriate but this is all just a new, general idea of how I could do the double page spreads. I'm very open for many improvements and don't think this is worthy to be the final product yet. But what I DO like is that line on the bottom with 'Little Blue' next to the page numbers. I think it adds a subtle professional touch.
There's also a few problems with the image I need to adjust; When I rose the saturation of the tree, the cover star's saturation increased too so I had to cut out a separate version of her and overlap it with the 'too saturated' cover star. But I didn't overlap the image enough; it looks a little out of place.

Just looking at the contents page and double page spread, I know there's plenty of things I could do to give this layout the HARK look!:

As I said in my previous blog post, the use of red and black really is vital to finish the look of this double page spread; the magazine would be incredibly inconsistent if there wasn't red and black in the DPS! And to avoid the 'trivia' side of the article, cutting off some about her tour and perhaps including something about her and what she stands for would be valid. The use of white creates emptiness and the audience needs to think they're reading something jam-packed! So black would tighten the pages together, making the whole look miles more complete! I'll set out to accomplish this as soon as possible!

Drafting and Planning: Even More Improved Contents Page

I improved my contents page in accordance to the feedback I got:

I adjusted the 'charts list' to 'HARK HITS' instead to add a greater sense of individuality. I also altered the page numbers to make it seem there's more pages than there are, and I altered the order of some of the articles, putting Todd Taylor under Featured and rephrased TOP GIGS to TOP 100 GIGS so the 100th edition has a special article to it. I also squashed up the 'HARK HITS' list so I could include a 'listen to preview' section, I even made a little HARK logo alike the ones of facebook and twitter! And finally, I adjusted the 'ISSUE DECEMBER 2014' to 'ISSUE: JANUARY 2015' to update it and to make the phrasing more understandable.
For other improvements, I could move the 'Guide to Rock' to the 'Featured' section (I'm unsure of whether I should move the 'TOP 100 GIGS' to the Featured' section too) and make some of the page numbers over 100, since most music magazines tend to have more than 100 pages.

But other than that, it looks brilliant! It's really looking complete and the use of gold really ties everything together into an even stronger piece! I think my double page spread should be heavily influenced by the contents page, especially with it's use of black columns and thin threads of red. The red and black really does add a drama which wouldn't exist without it, and you need a bit of drama and moodiness with a rock magazine! I think it compliments the front cover very well as well:

The shadowing of the main cover line in correlation to the similar effect of the contents page heading makes each of the pages compliment each other very well and helped to set that dynamic theme which is prominent throughout! I love how Little Blue is now given a new powerful identity through the help of editing, fonts and colour! It really does help tell her story of her talent speaking for her rather than her general appearance (and even then she has the right facial expression for a rock magazine too, a sense of superiority and pride from her achievements.)