I began to layout the bases of all three of my double page spreads. I have successfully completed the templates for 'Sea, Sun and a flat tum' and 'Stress mess' articles, however I chose not to begin on the 'How to tame you man article' as I felt it would be better to do everything associated with this article together rather than little bits here and there. This could affect the quality of my product as I would loose my creative spark and bond with the article which will have a visible effect on my product. I also planned to get feedback from the templates of my articles, but after creating them I thought that there wasn't much for members of my target audience to give solid feedback on so therefore I will wait until I feel as though they are presentable before I show them to member's of my target audience. Therefore I haven't created a questionnaire either.
In replacement of the things I missed out this week, I completed a 2hr 30min photo shoot for my font cover, Stress Mess and Sea sun and a flat tum. From this I got some really solid photographs which I am very happy with and think will make my product look very professional.
For my article 'Sea, Sun and a flat tum' I chose a fairly seductive pose, her eyes are facing forward and therefore they create a strong connection with the audience. There were other images I really liked and thought that would look very professional within my DPS. However her eyes weren't looking towards the camera and therefore it didn't draw the reader in as much which I found was very important due to the short attention span of my target audience. I chose to dress her in a pink top as I thought this went well with the colour scheme of my magazine. I also chose for her to wear denim shorts and these, along with the pink top, create strong connotations of summer which will be strongly emphasised along with the header of the article. I feel as though I created these connotations well so therefore they were one of my stronger points when creating this article. The way the butterfly lighting also reflects off her blonde hair, along with her pose, suggests she is sun bathing, creating this really solid connotation. If I were to do the shoot again I would make sure there weren't any shadows as this will be difficult to see text on, especially between her legs. I used unsharp Mask to sharpen her facial features as this will really define them and make the connection with the audience stronger. I also made her lips shinier as they will be inline with the beginning of the header and therefore are one of the main features the audience will see. I also used auto tone to emphasise the colours more and giver her skin more or a sun-kissed look.
After I was happy with the final touches too my chosen photo, I inserted it into my already laid out double page spread. I resized the image to fit perfectly along the top half on my DPS as this made her face closer creating a stronger connection. I then inserted the text from my article into separate text boxes for each tip. Secondly, I created several red guide lines as I felt that this was easier for my audience to distinguish one tip from another. I then created the sub-headers in the same font that I will be using for my header called 'Off the drugs' as it is important to stick to the rule of 3. I used a soft drop shadow on all of these headers to create layered effect which is generic of my genre of women's lifestyle magazines. I was then influence by an article out of Cosmopolitan magazine for my breakout box which is to use a vertical line of several speech bubbles which I thought was perfect for my breakout box as it is what members of the public have to say about the diet. After this, I created the sub-header 'Success' to go above the speech bubbles to show the audience that that was a different area to my article. Finally, I inserted the header which changes in colour from red to yellow as each word goes on. I overlapped a few of these words, again to create a layered effect and played around with the tilts and transparency until I found a style that I liked and the suited the style and genre of my DPS.
For my article stress mess, I simply added the text, again, into several text boxes for each tip. I created this article over 4 columns rather than 3 like I did for 'Sea, Sun and a flat tum' as I found a really unusual and interesting looking article in Cosmo magazine which really influenced this particular article. This week I also chose the main image I would use for this article and used subtle effects to make my model stand out more. I used unsharp mask to emphasis her facial features as this would really connect with the audience as the model is looking directly at the camera. I also used auto tone and auto colour to emphasis the colours in the image more. This wasn't the idea I had for my main image on this article as I wanted my model to look like she was seriously pulling her hairout. However, when going through the pictures from this photo shoot and illuminating them one by one until I chose a fave, this one really stood out to me. The way her eyes lock with the audience really draws you in and therefore I felt like this was the best image to use for my main image.
