1. Looking back at your
preliminary task, what do
you feel you have learnt
in the progression from it
to the full product?
Birte G. Barsch

2. The stages of making my
magazine
I went through three main phases while making my
magazine these were
Research- Audience, Market
Planning- Pitch, style sheet, photography plans, flat plan,
draft layout
Production- Photography, image manipulation, text
manipulation, layout manipulation.

3. What did I learn from research:
For the first part of the task, where we had to make a
college magazine, I did not do any particular research
about the audience as I just assumed that they would be
interested in similar things like what I’m interested in as I
would fit into the target audience.
Since then I have got to know that the more research you
get done about you’re target audience the better you will
know what they will like and dislike and therefore be able
to create a magazine that appeals to them. So by asking
both individuals and large groups what they think about
certain things you will be able to create a magazine fitting
with your audience.

4. What did I learn from research:
By doing the publisher research I learned how other
companies approach the audience and whether they
are successful with it. I also got to know that there
are many ways of approaching the same type of
magazine. Rocksound and Kerrang! For instance are
apealing to the same audinece but while Kerrang! Is
promoted strongly by Bauer Media, Rocksound
wants to stay an edgy and unpromtoed magazine.
By looking at that it made me think which one I would
go with.
I also looked at magazines that could be competitive
against mine and analysed them in order to find
conventions that I could apply to my magazine. Like
for instance the use of strong colours like red and
yellow.
Professional
Mine

5. What did I learn from planning:
I have learned that planning is a vital part of creating your
magazine as it makes it easier for you to organise your
time
For my college magazine I had not planned anything and
was there for stuck with an idea that didn’t really fit the
photograph and cover line ideas I had.
For my primary task I made photography plans to help
remind me how I wanted my photographs to look. I made
a flat plan so that I knew what to include in my contents
and on my front cover as well as creating a pitch and a
draft to create a clear idea of how I wanted my magazine
to look. I think all of this helped me create a magazine that
looks well composed and thought through.

6. What I learned form producing
One of the primary things I learned form
producing is creating a pleasing aesthetics. This
mainly means producing something that is
pleasing for the audience too look at. As far as it
goes for my magazine this includes how my
photographs, layouts and texts work together to
create one magazine.
For my college magazine I only used Adobe
Photoshop, while for my Primary task I used
both Photoshop and Adobe InDesign. I did this
because I find it easier to manipulate and
change the layout of a page in InDesign than in
Photoshop. I did however use Photoshop to
manipulate my photographs. I think that the
combination of these two programs created a
more pleasing aesthetics than only using
Photoshop.
College
magazine
Music
magazine

7. What I learned from producing
Another thing I learned from producing the magazine is
how to use the technology. Even though I had used
Photoshop before, I had never used it to manipulate
photographs. I used quite a lot of time working with these
programs so I improved quite a lot since the preliminary
task.
I got introduced to a lot of technology I had not used
before during my final production. I had for instance never
used survey monkey before but found that it was quite
useful to gather information about my target audience.
I had also not used Blogger that much before. However I
thought it was a very easy and fast way to present all of
my work at once.