1. • Comparing my music magazine to my college magazine of the preliminary task, I have learnt a number
of things during the process of research, planning and production.
• For my college magazine, I did not undertake as much research on understanding who my audience
actually was and the type of magazine that they would want to read. When producing my music
magazine I had a much better grasp on how much the audience would influence the type of media
product that I created. For example, for my music magazine when researching my audience I made
sure I had a thorough understanding on the psychographics of them, instead of just the demographics
that I mainly focused on with my college magazine. Psychographics gave me a much more detailed
understanding on the personal values of my audience, such as activities they enjoy in their spare time. I
could then use this information to feature articles in my magazine that my audience would be
interested in reading about based on their interests, whereas for my preliminary task I simply made up
articles to feature that did not actually reflect the personal interests of my audience.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do
you feel you have learnt in the progression from it
to the full product?
2. • In progression to the main task I also learnt how important the planning stage was in order to produce a high
quality product at the end. For the preliminary task, when producing my college magazine I did not properly stick
to my flat plan designs. However for the main task, I produced my flat plans on InDesign and created mock-ups
with similar images I intended to use for my real images so I could get a proper idea of how my magazine may
turn out finally. I realised this was important for my main task because it would show up any issues with my
design such as placement of cover lines over the image early on, so I could edit these earlier instead of when fully
submersed into the designing process. I also did not stick to my photoshoot plan for my preliminary task; in
progression to the real task, I learnt that having a photoshoot plan I was one hundred percent happy with meant I
full understood my audience and the type of images they would want to see, instead of changing my mind last
minute because I did not actually know what types of images would appeal to my audience the most.
• The poorer quality of my blog posts for my preliminary task compared to those of higher quality for my main task
also show how the quality and detail of planning will result in a much higher quality media product; for example,
for my preliminary task I did a handwritten photoshoot plan whereas for my music magazine I did a much more
detailed plan on Piktochart with specific details that would enable me to undertake a much better, well-organised
photoshoot. Here I learnt that a thorough, detailed planning process and a clear idea of the type of magazine I
wanted to produce was crucial to creating a magazine that effectively appealed to my target audience.
4. • During the production stage of my music magazine, this is where I felt I learnt the most from the
preliminary task. I had a much more fluent understanding of Photoshop and InDesign and how to use the
different tools on both software's. One of the main things I learnt was how to import typography from
the software DaFont into Photoshop and then InDesign. During the preliminary task I was simply using
the different fonts on Photoshop; however I wanted my real magazine to look much more professional so
created my own fonts on DaFont, learnt how to edit them on Photoshop and then import into InDesign.
Also in progression from the preliminary task I learnt how to make my cover lines look a lot more
readable; I did this by making sure my main image was not too ‘busy’, with too many colours that would
make the cover lines hard to stand out above. I also realised that less is more with cover lines; I put fewer
on my music magazine compared to my college magazine and made them a lot shorter, overall making
my final magazine looking a lot less cluttered compared to the preliminary task.
• In the progression to the main task, I realised the importance of a main cover line and the overall effect it
can have on the front cover. It anchors meaning to the main image, is the second thing that captures the
reader’s attention after the masthead and makes the page look ‘complete’. In my preliminary task I did
not really have a main cover line, and the main image had no proper meaning or a link to an article
inside. Therefore, when progressing to the main task I realised it was a key convention of a magazine
front cover and wanted a cover line that stood out boldly and linked clearly to the main image. I achieved
this by making it a different font to my other cover lines, compared to my college magazine where they
were all the same font, and placed it clearly on my main image so it was evidently anchorage text.
