1. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you
have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
2. As you can see, the differences between both my college magazine
front cover and my music magazine front cover have a lot of
developments and variations. To begin with, if we focus on the
language and text on both covers, you will be able to see that my
college magazine is very vague an d basic. The alignment of the
text isn’t correct, as some is centred and some is on the left. This
makes the work look very mismatched and unorganised, which
could also lead to the front cover looking quite childish. If my
preliminary task had been to create a magazine for primary school
children, this could have been more appropriate as it would have
represented that social group. However, because it was aimed at
college students whose age range varies between 14 and 40, it
would have been much suitable to ‘right align’ my text as I have
with my music magazine. If you compare the coverlines in both,
you will see that my music magazine looks a lot neater and more
professional.
3. Following on from my last point, I
think there is also a clear difference
in the degree of development with
my masthead. Whilst I have kept the
date in the same area, the colours
and effects I have used are
completely different because they
are trying to get a different effect.
My college magazine is clearly not
aimed at 21-25 year olds by the use
of a heavy drop shadow effect and
the typeface used. It’s very bubbly
and fun which represents the target
audience of college students.
However, my music magazine still
uses a Serif font but the typeface is
my slimmer and sleeker. This in itself
contributes to the representation of
my target audience. It looks very
feminine and girly, especially in the
colour it is in, and this has been done
to attract the right social groups.
4. As you can see with the images I have used, the
photograph I took for my music magazine is
much more effective. The camera shot is a
medium close up rather than a close up which I
think gives the audience a lot more to look at
and to focus on. The model is wearing a specific
costume and is holding a prop that represents
my genre of music – indie. This makes the music
magazine look more professional and the use of
colour has also been tied in with the text
throughout my work, which also gives it
credibility.
My college magazine image has been poorly
cut out and placed onto a white background
rather than me having photographed it on a
white background. This detracts from the
efficiency of font cover, whereas my music
magazine image has been shot onto the
background I wanted. Again, making it look
much more professional. I also did not
choose the clothing for my model in my
college magazine and therefore I could not
properly represent college students.
5. Another thing that I have developed
whilst constructing my music magazine
is the way in which I have presented and
posed my model. Here you can see that
my model looks like a musician as she is
holding a microphone and is singing into
it. This is something I could compare to
existing media products because I think
that the pose could be found in other
magazines like NME or Rolling Stone. I
have specifically set my model up to
look like this so that it attracts an
audience. Whereas in my college
magazine, the original photo was of the
model standing against a tree which I
later cropped and cut out. This has no
relevance to college life at all and
therefore upon seeing it, an audience
wouldn’t recognise that it was about
college.
6. The developments between my contents pages
are very vast as there are some aspects I enjoy
about both of them. To start with, the use of my
images are a lot more effective in my music
magazine than they were in my college
magazine. The reason being is that when taking
my photos for my college magazine, I didn’t
really think about what would be appropriate to
include. As you can see, all 4 images used do
not tie in with college or necessarily college life
at all. The pictures consist of my model standing
against a tree, shopping and eating food. Whilst
these may be things a college student can do, it
doesn’t actually show the audience anything
about college life inside of the campus, and
therefore it isn’t going to attract the intended
audience. Another fault I have is the fact I have
used the model in every single photo across my
contents page which should really have only
been used in one, if any at all. In existing media
products, you do not see the main feature
appearing in every single photo on the contents
page.
7. My music magazine is a lot more efficient in
terms of it’s images because I have used ones
that relate back to the coverlines on my front
cover and other ones besides my model. I have
included my musician in two images across the
double page spread but this is because on my
front cover, I had coverlines associated with her,
so they are there for a particular purpose. I have
included a variation of coverlines which will
attract the audience in and I have made sure to
address all the issues previously mentioned on
my front cover. The layout is completely different
to that of my college magazine which I enjoy
looking at because it is quite different. It has a
very simplistic yet effective design which will be
easy for the reader to navigate around and collect
all the information they need. Whist I do like the
layout of my folios on my college magazine and I
think it looks very similar to most magazines, I
wanted my music magazine to represent my
genre, which I think it does.
