Shown below is a collage I assembled of 10 different ‘Disco 70’s’ tour posters. I have done this in order to help me understand the common conventions and themes a good tour poster possesses. They all have several things in common:
Bright colours
Eccentric fonts
States clearly the artist and tour dates
Shown below is my final draft of my tour poster I created using InDesign and Photoshop. Using both of these applications has given me a greater comprehension of each and this will help me to create more accurate projects in the future.
Now that I have boosted my knowledge on both Photoshop and InDesign, I will be able to use these skills effectively on my music magazine, such as being able to cut out my cover star, having a better understanding of different fonts (i.e. what fonts work well with certain backgrounds), etc.
Shown below is my recration of the Billboard magazine front cover of Beyonce. I have done this in order to explore InDesign so I have a better understanding of how to create a magazine cover for future use. From doing this task I have learnt how to efficiently use InDesign. I have recreated the conventional features of a magazine including the:
Masthead
Cover lines
Main cover star
Main Cover line
Plug
Pug
Insets
Captions
Through experimenting with InDesign, I have gained a wider understanding on how to create a successful magazine cover. This will help me for future projects as I will know exactly what to do and how to do it which is beneficial for my final product. Although I spent a long time working on in design for this mock-up I still don’t know everything about the app.
Below I have embedded two Youtube videos which have helped me in the process of recreating this magazine front page.
In a group with Tara and Megan, we created a Canva mood board to demonstrate the themes and connotations surrounding the music genre of ‘Disco 70’s’.
From the photos we gathered, we came to the conclusion that Disco 70’s was a vibrant, joyous music genre. After creating our mood board, we used Mise-En-Scene to dress up Tara in a costume which represented that of a Disco 70’s theme. Mise-En-Scene is different aspects of cinematography (lighting, camera angles, body language, etc.) coming together to create a setting. We did this to give ourselves a better idea of how to craft an accurate tour poster with ourselves as the cover star in the future.
To use Mise-En-Scene to its full effect, we had to think carefully about Tara’s body language, the lighting we used, props, Tara’s costume etc. After thinking about these factors, and making our mood board, we now know Disco 70’s is a theme which involves confident, positive body language, vibrant colours etc.
The image below is the rest of the classes’ (our audience in this case) thoughts on what Tara’s outfit signified;
Overall, I think this task improved my general understanding of Mise-En-Scene and how to apply it to different themes/genres. This will massively help me during the creation of my tour poster.
In a group with Chloe and Megan, we were asked to take 9 photos around the school and annotate them with 3 hashtags;
The type of camera shot being used
A denotation of the photo
A connotation of the photo
This was done to make sure we knew what we were encoding each photo with, in order for our audience to decode it and gather connotations from them. For example, the photo with the connotation hashtag of #distracted was taken with an extreme close up angle, meaning we could only see Chloe’s face. This was done with the intention of creating an air of mystery about it, as the audience don’t know what Chloe is looking at, but it must be significant due to the focus of the shot being solely where her eyes are directed. Camera angles are an effective form of media language, and when combined with mise-en-scene, it can act as a very powerful storytelling tool.
This will help me when creating my music magazine, as it has taught me how to encode connotations and denotations into photos. I now have a better understanding of different types of camera shots, encoding and composition.
Print media is full of connotations and denotations, intended to entice the consumer into wanting to find out more about whatever they are looking at. I have decoded the poster shown above and found out what certain denotations on the poster represent. Whilst analyzing, I came to find that everything in media texts are there for a specific reason.
I have analyzed the;
Fonts used
Cover stars
Text size
Colours used
Analyzing these denotations will help me when making my tour poster, as it will allow me to know how to connect with my audience better through appropriate application of media language of print, i.e. fonts, colours, images etc.
