Finalising

I am at the stage of developing, refining and finalising my publication.

Seeming as i have had trouble in the past adding links for my articles i am going to have another go.

article one
article two
article three
article four

please bare in mind that these are the original sites that i found 5 or so weeks ago. The articles that i placed may be slightly different.

Overall i am please with the result of my publication. Further notes on development and refinement are in my workbook.

Layouts

I am now up to putting my publication together. I have found that in terms of layout and developments that I benefit more by feeling my way. Seeing what i like as i create. With doing this i will ensure that i print spreads off before changing them so the development process can be documented.

This coming week i am wanting to achieve all articles put into publication and layed out so that the following week all i need to do is critique and finalise making it as less stressful as possible.

Last weeks progression

I have had some assistance with developing my masthead.  To enhance the colour to make it fluro, a grey background helps.  A magenta masthead with white outline may also enhance the fluro.

Was also advised that yellow and green aren't necessarily the best fluro colours once printed.

The only issue with having a grey background is that when i add the NZ music month logo it may not look good or be recognised by the audience as the background to the logo is normally black.

Since making the about statement last week, i noticed in Hallensteins (store merchandising NZ Music Month T-Shirts) that there are grey items of clothing with the logo in white.......so the grey background could work.

Hopefully the pink masthead won't turn away the specified audience.

Technical Difficulties

I haven't managed to do a blog entry for quite some time now as i have been having some technical difficulties. So some of my research, sketches, developments etc are in my workbook.

So far i have created a masthead, and am starting to layout my articles.

By the end of this week i am planning to have my articles, masthead concepts etc uploaded on my blog for them to be viewed.

Observations to date

One thing that i have learnt from the previous assignment is it isn't such a bad thing to imitate (with slight adjustments here and there) other publications. So I have got a hold of a 'rip it up' magazine. I like alot of the layouts in this magazine and there are many ideas throughout that i feel i can use...for example the music month logo can be incorporated into all double page spreads, not necessarily in a circle though.

I have asked around as to what sort of music people would be interested in knowing about, gigs etc....one response was acoustic covers and well known nz artists.

I think that the idea of acoustic covers would be quite popular especially within the bar scene which students are into. It incorporates into the whole student life.

I also picked up a nexus magazine....the layouts in this mag are simple....i may use some ideas, but 'rip it up' seems more suitable for the type of publication i want to produce for the desired audience.

I have drafted some page layouts.

I need to figure out what the title of the publication is going to be.

I quite like the idea of fluro colours for the masthead. Black backround etc.

I'm not sure if it is accepted but i wouldn't mind putting in a contents page.

I'm not too fussed on having any advertisements....will try just to focus on the four double page spreads with four articles.

Research

Since my last post i have been investigating as to what articles would best suit my publication related to music month and of the interest of my audience.

I have found four articles. Some are longer than others. One of which i think is really good is 31 reasons why music month is a must; 31 reasons as there are 31 days in the month of May.

I believe my target audience, mainly Wintec music students but also extends to New Zealand students with the love and appreciation of Kiwi music, are interested in seeing a good gig. Something along the lines of bands (bit of rock), and for the ones that want to just chill at a bar for a bit of a quiet one, maybe an acoustic player never goes a miss. I feel as though with the Wintec music students it is predominatly male and i don't want to just focus on male interests. This is why i will extend to the student body.

Between now and next class i will investigate as to what sort of music students are interested in and if perhaps they would travel to the likes of Auckland to see their favourite band.

I haven't attached links to my articles as last time i tried blogger.com accused me of spam being detected and i was blocked....so will wait until i can have some assistance.

Assignment number 2

I have received the criteria for our the next digital publishing assignment. This one is alot bigger!!!!

I have to produce a publication which has four double page spreads and a front cover (back cover free of choice). So all up it is 9 pages. Majority of it is in black and white.

My initial idea of what sort of publication to do was musicals within in New Zealand and different theatres etc. But we were then advised that the target audience for this publication is Wintec students, which has kind of put a dampner on things.

So, my next idea which i will probably go ahead with is music month. As at present we are in music month 2008. The obvious students that this will be targeted at is the music students. I'm thinking of doing articles on gigs in Hamilton and Auckland. I will look at gigs for a wide range of music.

Also with this publication I am aiming to be more creative with layout. I want it to be effective in more ways that one.