The student felt they improved in all areas of design and development from the preliminary task to the final music magazine. For the music magazine, the student conducted more market research which helped guide the initial design. The student established a clear house style for the music magazine using consistent colors, layout, and branding. However, the student realized they did not take enough photos for the music magazine, limiting content. Overall, the student felt the music magazine looked more professional due to careful planning, preparation, and implementing new skills and techniques learned.

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

2.  When comparing my music magazine to the
preliminary task, I feel that I have improved
my abilities in all areas of design and
development. I performed much more
research into target audience and existing
products on the market which gave me a
much clearer guide in the initial design
stages, such as fonts, layout and the sorts of
models and mise-en-scene o use in my
images.

3.  The preliminary task- a student magazine –
definitely looked like a student magazine.
The house style and colour scheme was
inconsistent and the layout was unclear and
messy. With my music magazine however, I
stuck with mainly here colours: black, white
and red in order to maintain house style. I
also put the masthead on the contents page
and smaller, next to my page numbers to
anchor my brand identity.

4.  One mistake that I made with my music magazine
that I didn’t make on the preliminary task was not
taking enough images to use. For my music magazine
I only had three images of the model that the splash
focused on and then an image of two other models.
This limited me in terms of what I could include on
my contents page, making I seem a bit devoid of
content. Where my student magazine’s contents page
did seem more unorganised and basic, whilst my
main project was more professional, the student one
did have more images, in terms of environments and
appealing backgrounds for my models. However the
exiting products I researched often did have plain
black backgrounds in order to focus on the
eccentricity of the model themselves.

5.  The images themselves for my music
magazine were more professional however,
as I used a range of shot types, including
medium close ups and close ups. This added
a level of professionalism and variety to the
project which the preliminary task lacked.

6.  My skills in the software used, improved
greatly during the main task. I implemented
the use of Photoshop to edit my images more
effectively to fit the genre and style of my
magazine. I also used inDesign’s text
manipulation much more effectively; utilising
columns, text wrapping and tracking and
kerning to make it more professional and was
able to alter these things to appeal to my
target audience.

7.  Due to more careful planning, preparation and
research, my music magazine, overall, ended up
looking more professional and appealing to my
target audience, by implementing new features
and techniques that I did not know about during
the production of the preliminary task. I was able
to create an indie magazine that did not conform
to conventions but did take inspiration from
similar products currently on the market and
looked of a higher quality and professionalism
than the student magazine created during the
preliminary task.