Magazine Construction

Background:

1. I picked a dark grey colour and used the paint bucket to fill the page as one block colour. 
2. I then went onto using the paintbrush with an off white colour which i made lines with ready to smudge. 
3. To do this i used the smudge tool to make a massive swirl of it all. I was going to leave it here but thought it looked a little messy and unprofessional. 

1.  I then went onto the editing filters where i found 'motion blur'. My magazine would looks a lot more professional if it was to be blurred together rather than smudged together. 
2.  I changed the distance to 130 pixels which changed the look completely. 

Adding Masthead:
When thinking bout what i should call my magazine, it took some thought to produce the name 'Inzombia'. I will break it down into two sections:

1. 'Zombi' sounds exactly like what it is, which i thought went well with the horror genre i was trying to get across. Going with a horror creature would really stand out to the horror junkies and is what makes it such a memorable name.
2. I also thought that the whole name 'Inzombia' sounded like the word 'insomnia' which means the inability to sleep. This really goes into the meaning of horror and gives the impression of nightmares, lack of sleeping due to being scared, just like in the typical horror films. So by putting these two ideas together, gave me this clever name, which i think screams horror to the audience. 

•  I liked the font I chose as it gave me a good font contrast and they combined well together. For example, the 'Z' in my masthead was in the font 'Oh No' which made it stand out. 'Z' represents zombies and I made this very clear by making it a deep dark red surrounded by blood splatters. For the rest of my masthead I went for a much more simple approach with the font 'Blood Crow'. The writing is of different thicknesses and also gives the impression of a messy, almost ruined look- like it has been clawed at by a creature and left. 
• When analysing other magazines, i came across the magazines date release, the issue number, and the price. These were situated anywhere, however i wanted to position them in both top corners to save them from being empty. I thought it was simple idea to have the Issue number '13' to represent the horror genre, almost like a subliminal message on my magazine. I chose the price as £3.50 due to my pre production survey responses, as shown later down my blog. 

Fonts that went wrong:



• I found this font to be more action, rather than a horror. I gave the feeling of a modern magazine, however it didn't portray the horror genre well. 

• This font looked very messy with my masthead name 'Cursed' and it was hard to put it to use. 

Blood Splatter:

• I wanted to create a blood splatter to give it that instant horror genre look. To do this I used a dark red on the paintbrush to create to large circles overlapping each other and then two little ones above and below.
• I then went onto using the smudge tool to make it look a little messier. I used the rubber in the littlest size to get rid of some edges to make it look more like a splatter.
• I went onto editing the layer style and using 'bevel' to make it look more realistic and less flat. 

• This is how my blood splatter turned out. I chose to place it in the bottom right corner as it was the right shape for this. It also looked good when covered with a 'giant poster inside' sticker. Without this sticker, it looked a tad lost and on its own, yet you can still tell what it is in this position. 

Sticker:

• To create the sticker seen in the bottom right corner, I used two circles which I used the paint bucket tool to fill the min with red and white. I then went on to the text which simply says 'giant poster inside'. I emphasised the 'GIANT' to really sell the freebie, and I thought it worked well. This was in the font 'Lemon Milk'.

Website link:

• In the bottom left corner of the magazine, i have created and placed a website dedicated to the magazine. 'www.inzombiamag.co.uk' was just a little touch to it, and also gives the magazine more chance of getting noticed and out into the media. I used black for the font as it will soon have a white background for it to stand out on. 

Barcode:

To create my own barcode, I used power point to get a white background. I created a white square in which I used many black lines of different thicknesses to mimic a real barcode. I looked at lots of existing barcodes to get a feel for what they are like. This is what I come up with.

Adding Images:

• To create the effect on the ghost's face, I took advantage of the dry floor of a building site. I changed the effect to 'matte' so it didn't look as grainy on the face, and more animated. I also went into the wider cracks with an off brown colour to make them more defined.  I placed this image over her face and changed the opacity to 30%. From here I changed the layer from normal to saturation to give it that off grey colour. This made it look a lot more gloomy, dirty and overall more scary. To get rid of the excess around her face, I used the background eraser tool which was easy enough to do. 
• The blood on the actors face bottom left was simply made with the brush tool. I zoomed in on his face with a dark red colour and began to create motions of blood splatters on his face. I then changed the dark red to a much lighter red to make it look more realistic when zoomed out. After this step, I created a shadow on half of his face to give it a mysterious look. it turned out more orange than grey, however I thought it still worked well. I rounded his bottom half so it wasn't as square and boxy. 
• To create the stars, I used a star shape which I made a light grey colour. When zoomed out it gave the effect of it being silver. I also edited its layer style and beveled it to 1px so it looked 3D almost. From here I copied and pasted another 4 to create the look of a 5 star review and linked them together. This was a common thing that was seen on magazines, not necessarily horror, however it suited the style and also gave the magazine a high chance of selling faster. The font was again 'Lemon Milk' in white. 
• To help the website link stand out, i used the clone stamp tool to clone the ghost's white top. I then used this to increase the size of her top to the other side of the magazine. This gave the link a white background and made it easier to read. It also balanced out the bottom of the magazine. 

Cover Lines:

• I wanted to stick to the usual magazine conventions which include the 'Left Thirds'. I thought it was necessary to stick to my colour palette of red white and yellow. To make the cover lines more distinct, each cover line includes two colours. I have 4 cover lines which are all positions to the left side of the magazine. The name of somebody is in yellow, along with the exception of 'Exclusive'. The main cover line is placed in the bottom centre of the magazine so it is noticed first. I displayed the trailers name 'Cursed' in the same font as my poster to cross media brand the trailer. They link together well by doing this and advertise the film successfully along with creating a brand.

• I thought I was finished with the magazine, however I knew something was missing. So I added red bars in between each name and cover line to make it more sophisticated. This also shows the names much clearer in yellow which is a unique selling point to my magazine. If a horror junkie see an actors name that they love, they are more than likely to buy the magazine. Most magazines also have a 'PLUS!' to show that they have much more inside besides the stories shown on the cover. For mine I have chosen '10 film reviews' to intrigue film audiences. The layout of the finished product is well balanced and has a consistent font contrast with my poster.
• Overall, the font of the masthead and the main cover line are of the same size which balances the layout of the magazine. But the image dominates in ratio by covering at least half of the magazine.