College magazine contents page

This is the contents page for my college magazine, like the front cover this was created in photoshop CS4. The banners were made using the shape tool, and I changed the colour of the text on top of them to yellow so that they stood out more. I don't like this page as it is very plain and in retrospect I should have added a photo to make it more interesting to look at.

college magazine front cover

This is the front cover for my college magazine, I created it in photoshop CS4. I started with the background image that I took in class. I then added the black shapes along the sides, and entered text on top of them, I used yellow for the text so that it stands out and catches peoples eyes. I then designed a logo for the magazine by playing with the text settings in photoshop, I also made this yellow so it stands out from the background image. Afterwards I added a barcode and the date of release to make the magazine seem more realistic and authentic. I like my front cover and I think the layout is pleasing to look at and it is organised, the colour scheme works and does not overpower any aspect but whilst still standing out in their own right.

Theory Lessons

September 8th

Our first AS Media lesson consisted of us being told what was going to be taught in the next few lessons, learning about the Key concepts of media, and how our work will be assessed throughout the year. There was also a brief introduction to what the media is, and how this is learnt through media studies.

September 15th

In our next lesson the focus was on representation in the media and what certain images make us think. We also looked at how stereotyping is used by some media. As a class we looked at images of celebrities and how they have been represented to make us think a certain way about them and so they fit in with a preconceived image. We then looked at more general stereotypes and had to decide how they are thought of by society, groups such as asylum seekers and young people.

September 22nd

Our third lesson was used further reinforce our understanding of stereotypes and how representations work 'for' the media and 'on' the audience. We then looked at 'mediation' and what this does to both ourselves and the subject being represented. In pairs we had to make a poster for a charity or organisation and think about specific things to target your audience, using mediation to make it work. We also looked at the three things that you need to look for to make mediation work. Selection (Whatever ends up on the screen or in the paper, much more will have been left out.), organisation (How the elements of the media are organised, in visual media the use of mise-en-scene and the organisation of the narrative) and focusing (This is to push the audiences attention onto what they want to you see or read or hear first).

September 29th

In this lesson we learnt about audiences and how they are influenced and defined.

This image is a high angle shot. I chose this angle as it highlights the gradient of the slope, the lines on the track are used as lead in lines to the interest at the end, the pier also works in this way but it leads your eyes out of the photograph.

In this image I created a shallow depth of field, I did this by using a macro lens on my camera. I did this so do focus in on one part of the image, as it has more impact than with the dirt and the ground in focus which would distract from the important part of the photo.