Final Draft Magazine Front Cover, Contents Page, and Double-page Spread

Final Draft Article for Double-page Spread

Below is the final draft article for the double-page spread. It has been edited to make sure that it's written with technical accuracy, and a few more questions and answers have been added to make the article longer and more interesting. 


Miami-born singer/rapper, K. P., took an interest in R&B/hip-hop music at the age of 11 and began singing/rapping from this age. After gaining many YouTube hits, K. P. started to perform at various nightclubs and was eventually noticed whilst performing at Mynt Lounge at Miami Beach by his favourite artist who he was also inspired by, P. Diddy, and is currently mentored by him and signed to his record label, Bad Boy Records. The new artist in the city gives YOLO an insight into his changed lifestyle…

Q: So P. Diddy was the one who noticed your combined singing and rapping skills. What was your reaction when he first approached you at Mynt Lounge?

K. P.: I was in total shock! I couldn’t come to terms with having my favourite inspirational artist of all time standing right in front of me – the main person who I grew up listening to as a kid. After my performance at the club he pulled me aside and we had a couple of drinks. We then talked about what it would mean to me if I became part of the rap game. I said that it would be the best thing that would ever happen to me in my whole life. I don’t want do it just for myself - I want to do it for my family too; I want to make them proud and thank them for making me who I am today. Next, Diddy said “well you can make that dream turn into reality right now with my help, if you want it that is”. I was completely lost for words; I was totally astonished but was feeling excited at the same time. I think my face must have said it all because then that was the point he actually dropped the question and asked me if I wanted to be signed to his record label. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! I literally had to pinch myself (laughs)! I think I’ll remember that moment for the rest of my life.

Q: You sure will - moment for life! It’s amazing how dreams can turn into reality when you push yourself to go on. What motivated you to carry on pursuing your dream?   

K. P.: Well, singing and rapping has been something I’ve been doing since the age of 11 and I’ve loved nothing more than doing that. Every day I use to come home from school and write lyrics based on what’s been on my mind and make up my own beats. Writing songs and singing or rapping them has allowed me to express my emotions freely and I’ve always loved doing it. It’s made me an enhanced person mentally so I feel better about myself, and when I felt the ‘free spirit’ when I did sing or rap I knew that this was what I want to do for the rest of my life. I thought that if I want do it for the rest of my life I’ve got to go for it and earn it. And ‘you only live once’ as you say, so there’s no point in living life not doing what you want to do. My family have supported me all the way too and knew that I’ve got some exclusive talent I need to put into action. Without them I wouldn’t be living my dream either. They’ve always been there through the good times and the bad. I truly appreciate everything they’ve done for me and I’ll never forget the people who made my dream possible to achieve. 

Q: True say. You’ve got to do something in life which you enjoy - YOLO! And it’s good to know that you’ve got such a supportive family that you can rely on. Were there times when you felt you weren’t going to succeed?

K. P.: To be honest, yes there were many. I use to get quite a few negative thoughts pass by in my mind but I just had to shut my mind off and listen to my intuition. I wasn’t going to back down. Most of all I thank God for giving me the strength and courage to fulfill my dream because if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be living it right now.

Q: So how is life different now being in the spotlight constantly?

K. P.: My life is in the fast lane! It’s flying by so quickly now. I’ve already got my new album, ‘Ecstasy’, out now as well. I’m continuously in the studio though producing records and then part of my career is obviously partying as well, so I have a lot of early mornings and late nights. Even though I miss my sleep (chuckles) I do look forward to waking up and knowing that I’ve got to go to the studio or rehearse for a performance. People think that living this kind of life is easy but it’s not. To be and stay in the game you’ve got to go hard no matter what. 

Q: Why did you decide to call your album ‘Ecstasy’?

K. P.: It just sums up who I am and the kind of life I’m living right now. I’ve learnt through my own experiences that you’ve got to live life to the fullest because things only happen once, so you’ve got to cherish every moment in your life and forget the mistakes you made, but learn from them.

Q: Yeah, that’s what life’s about! Obviously apart from yourself, who else is featured on your debut album?

K. P.: My mentor – P. Diddy - is featured on there. It’s great to have him on one of my tracks, especially on my first album! The track that he’s featured on has an old school vibe which is always good to bring back into the new. I decided to include the old school vibe on that particular track as I’ve always loved his old school tunes – you can just cruise along to them! Also, I’ve got some of the biggest mainstream rappers/singers around featured on the album, such as Drake, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, and Rihanna. It was awesome working with them!

Q: Sounds good! So which artists are you currently touring with?

K. P.: I’ll leave that as a surprise for when your team come to see me (grins)!

K. P.’s debut album, ‘Ecstasy’, has reached Platinum in music record sales and he is on his album tour in USA at the moment. For details about ticket information go to www.yolomag.com. 

Targets For Friday (final deadline)

• Fill the extra white space on the double-page spread.
• Extend the double-page spread article with a few more questions and answers and read through to eliminate mistakes.
• Add effects to the drop capital on the double-page spread to make it stand out more.
• Position the cover lines neatly on the front cover.
• Re-position the meaning of the acronym used for the masthead name - 'YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE'.   

Practical Update - 05/03/12

On the contents page I edited the image of my model by recolouring the writing on his t-shirt to gold, so that the outfit that he's wearing matches my colour scheme. I did this by clicking on the icon that says 'Set foreground color' in Adobe Photoshop when hovered over with the cursor in the toolbar on the left-hand side of the screen. Next, the 'Color Picker' tool appeared where I typed in the correct HTML code, which is from this website: http://www.computerhope.com/htmcolor.htm, for the type of gold I wanted (#E9AB17) into the colour code box. After that, I used the 'Brush Tool' to replace the blue colour of the writing on my model's t-shirt to gold, making sure that the brush's hardness was set to 100% to make it easier and faster to replace the colour. Also, I got rid of the flash that reflected off my model's glasses using the 'Brush Tool' by using the 'Eyedropper Tool' first to pick an appropriate colour shade from my model's glasses in order to cover up the flash that's reflected. I ensured that I used a soft brush (a brush set to 0% hardness) too in order for the colours to blend in well without it being noticeable that the brush tool has been used on the glasses. 

Original

Edited

                                                                                   

Practical Update - 02/03/12

I went on to www.dafont.com today to select different fonts to use on my contents page for the heading of the page as well as headings and subheadings of articles. These are the fonts that I'm thinking of using:

Practical Update - 01/03/12

Today I altered the front cover image of my model. First of all, I used the ‘Spot Healing Brush Tool’ in Adobe Photoshop to get rid of any blemishes to give the image a smooth finish. Next, I altered the brightness and contrast to make the image look clearer and sharper, and altered the hue and saturation by going on the ‘Image’ tab and onto ‘Adjustments’. Moreover, I feathered the image to around 3 pixels by first of all using the magnetic lasso tool to cut out the image and then going onto the ‘Select’ tab and clicking on ‘Modify’, which brought up the option of feathering. A smooth outline was achieved by doing this. 

Teacher Feedback

Teacher Feedback

Through the feedback I have received, I will improve the front cover of my magazine by repositioning the meaning of the acronym (You Only Live Once) used for the magazine name, perhaps vertically down the side of the masthead, and make the image of my model bigger in order to make use of the space well. Also, I will alter my model's skin tone as the colour clashes with the masthead colour and modify the positioning of the genre description (The Way Of R&B/Hip-hop Life) as part of it isn't visible enough as it's slightly cut off by the image of my model. Furthermore, I will alter the rest of the images of my model used for the contents page and double-page spread as well as the image used on the front cover in Photoshop to get rid of the flash which reflects off my model's shades. I've decided that I want to use aspects of the airbrush technique on my images as well to give them a more professional, smooth finish. In addition, I will reposition the cover lines neatly and change the colour of the purple-coloured cover line that says 'BEST ARTIST OF THE YEAR' as the colour clashes with my model's t-shirt. I will add effects to the typography to make it stand out more and use several different font styles too.

I will improve the contents page by sharpening the title as it looks blurry and reposition it so that it starts on the far left of the page, and move 'FEATURES' down slightly as it's too close to the title of the page. Moreover, I will experiment with the typography by selecting a number of different font styles and use text effects to make it attention-grabbing. Furthermore, I will reconsider using the colour purple for both the subheadings and description of the articles.

The double-page spread will be improved by moving the title of the page over to the left-hand side and leaving space between the subheading of the page and the actual article. Also, the title will be resized so that it's larger, taking up more of the width of the page. In addition, I will make the quote look more eye-catching by adding a text effect to it and extend the double-page spread article by adding more questions and answers to get rid of the white space and resize the text as it's oversized, ending the article with news about the artist's album/gigs to make it more interesting for readers. To make sure that my spelling, punctuation, and grammar is accurate, I will read through the article and make any necessary changes to make sure it is written with technical accuracy.