Supporting Evidence Document
Supporting
Evidence Document
I chose the coursework print option to create my own current
affairs magazine, including a website and print prototypes. This also included
the planning and research into multiple current affairs magazines, their websites
and their ethos/ history. If I was able to film and lockdown was different
during the coursework, I might’ve chosen the music video option. However, the
national lockdown made it difficult to have filming with other people in a
suitable location.
I wanted to produce a current affairs magazine targeted at
younger adults, including topics of mental health, economics, coronavirus and
politics. The audience profile I created for the readers of The Briefing were young
adults, usually university students with highly developed intellect, artistic
lifestyles and left-wing views. Due to their university education, they are
likely to be middle class or working class. I represented this through my mood
boards for my magazine and audience lifestyle.
In my draft
of the first print prototype, I represented my vision of having a single person
in the centre of the page with their background being yellow/ orange to
represent the only light on. I positioned the large font magazine title in the
top third of the cover, adhering to magazine conventions that I saw through
research into magazines such as Time and Prospect. This convention makes the
magazine easy to recognise for readers and creates a thematic style.
If I were able to go out and take photos for my prototypes, I would have included an image of a real person in the middle window to realistically show their situation. However, I used shapes in Word to create a stick figure/ silhouette of person, making the prototype simple but effective whilst avoiding the use of found images. The type of image I would have aimed to take myself and include in this prototype is like the found image I have included.
However, I couldn’t
find a found image that exactly matched the image I would have taken in terms
of camera angles. My ideal photo to include would be a face on image, with even
composition of the person’s window being centre to the image to make the cover
visually pleasing and to indicate the main article topic for the issue. The
lighting would be very dark, representing night-time excluding the single
window with the person in as I would want to have a warm light behind them to
create a silhouette. Due to the photo being at night, the only colours visible
would be the warm light coming from the room. The only prop would be the single
person. All of this would be to focus the readers attention on the main article
of the issue.
The two mains fonts used in both of my final prototypes were Bahnschrift Light Semicondensed and Bahnschrift Light Condensed. I used two Bahnschrift fonts as they look similar to keep my designs from looking messy whilst having an easy to read, formal style and theme. I tested many fonts for my magazine as I wanted a rounded yet formal font that was easy to read for the front cover and website.
The colour
scheme for my first prototype is black, white, red and yellow. These
colours mix well together, and the yellow/ orange represents a light in the
room, highlighting the persons silhouette. I chose a dark red for the title of
my magazine to display this in the masthead of all four prototypes, furthering
the theme and style of my magazine and therefore making it more recognisable to
the audience.
My second cover print for ‘The Briefing’ included the same font and size magazine
title but with a red banner behind the white text. I chose to do this as the
background for the second cover is white. However, the consistency of font and the
deep red colour throughout
all products were essential for keeping a theme to my magazine.
Other codes and conventions of current
affairs magazines that I adhered to include the difference in main cover lines
and other cover lines. The main cover line of my second prototype is ‘To Kill
or Not to Kill’ this is a play on words of the famous quote from Hamlet. ‘To be
or not to be’. This reference is relevant to the target audience of
well-educated adults as they will understand the title. The title is also catchy,
and the word ‘Kill’ is highlighted in red to bring the readers attention to
this slightly shocking headline.
The other cover lines are in green, relating the colour scheme to the topic of nature and animals whilst contrasting the main red banner. The word ‘war’ is in bold on one of the cover lines, again to convey shocking and important headlines for readers.
My draft of my second print shows how I wanted to include multiple cover lines and have a masthead banner for my title.
My prototype included found images of a cow and people protesting to anchor the titles’ meanings and help the readers quickly understand the topics of the magazine issue. Ideally, I would want to have taken the photos myself to replicate how I envisioned the finished cover. I wanted to the photo of the cow’s face to be in dim lighting, looking more sinister to convey the idea of veganism and the slaughter of animals. The image of people protesting would preferably be in colour and depict relevant protests of the time, so readers are familiar with current issues and events.
My contents pages follow the same designs as each
other to imitate a double page spread inside my magazine. To match the designs
of my front covers and website prototypes, I used the same fonts of Bahnschrift
and the main colour of red, matching the title.
I mainly wanted to display a simplistic, clean design and
style to the contents pages. However, if I were able to take my own photos to use in the
prototypes, I would have included images to anchor the topics within the contents page. For example,
for the pages on ‘British politics updates’ I would have aimed to photograph
people to imitate British politicians and then remove the background to create
a cut out.
Some topics mentioned on my contents pages link to my magazine
website, creating synergy
between print and online magazine products for ‘The Briefing’. The different
platforms for the media product work together to advertise a diverse and accommodating
text for the audience to consume in multiple ways. I think the consistency
between products are attractive to readers, creating a brand that is easy to
understand and navigate. This would also bring more sales to the magazine as
the prints link to the website.
The website homepage represents the codes and conventions of current affairs websites, aiming to be informative and broad in content. I took inspiration from various other website homepages which displayed big stories on the first section of the website and links at the top. This allows readers to navigate to their interests or explore other current affairs.
Again, if I was able to take my own photos, I would have
aimed to include various props and shot types. For example, portrait photos of
people, landscape shots of activities and events as well as edited photos to
represent simple stories. I have shown this in the found images I used on my
prototypes.
In larger, top stories, I added a transparent layer over images to save space and allow the text to be larger. I also added links saying ‘See more politics’ to help readers access various topics and joins to my linked pages.
The last section of my homepage furthers
the idea of media synergy with the links to multiple social media platforms
with the @TheBriefing. Again, by displaying the product across multiple platforms,
current affairs magazines generate a greater following and readership.
There is also links to my print product with ‘See this month’s magazine’ as well as links to sign up for newsletters and subscribe to the magazine.
My linked page for The Briefing focused on ‘Art & Culture’ one of the main topics that would appeal to my target audience. On this page, I included a side bar with links to sub-topics within art & culture, displaying a broader and international website for an active and engaging audience. The found images represent the type of photos I would have aimed to take myself. They are colourful which links to the Art & Culture topic. The colour scheme of the linked pages continue the style of the prints and homepage with red black, white and grey lines in between stories. I added these lines to separate the photos and felt it added a professional tone to the website prototypes.
If I had access to Photoshop during the lockdown, I think my prototypes could have come out looking more professional as well as unique. I would have added more edited backgrounds to my magazine covers and included effects such as over laying my images and creating a more personalised font for the magazine. I feel this would have created a more distinctive and individual design. However, I used Microsoft Word to create all of my prototypes using shapes and text. Although I had limited softwares to create my prototypes, I feel I tried my best at creating an authentic looking magazine and brand for it. I feel I met the brief for the print product as I completed all of the labels that helped me in understanding current affairs magazines, the house style and the codes and conventions to include. I researched print and web pages as well as the magazine industry. The content I included in all prototypes is appropriate for the target audience profile that I created and I followed my magazine moodboard.
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