3. Preliminary Task
◦ Before starting to create our final project my full class was assigned a
preliminary task to create a magazine individually for our school to use. We
had quite an easy starting point as we were given the genre, the purpose as
well as the target audience we would be creating the magazine for. We
only had a limited amount of lessons to create this product but we
managed to get out around school to collect different images we could
possibly use and got to work straight away. The genre we were given was a
school magazine, the purpose was to inform pupils of what was going on in
and around school as well as important issues such as exam schedules and
the target audience was the age range of the pupils attending our school –
11-18
4. Creation of my preliminary task
◦ Before I started the preliminary task we were set I had a basic knowledge of
Adobe Photoshop. I only knew of the basic skills needed, such as how to cut
around an image or adding colours and text.
◦ I’m not overly happy with my preliminary task now I have compared it with my
final product, I think it looks quite unprofessional, plain and lacks originality as
most of my class have produced nearly identical pieces of work. I think I
could’ve used better techniques and now I have learned how to properly use
them I think I could do a better job. However, based on the understanding
that at the start of the project I knew very little I do have to give myself credit.
◦ The colour scheme I used fits with the colours of my school logo which continues
throughout the magazine.
5. Developing My Skills
◦ I have used the things I don’t like about my preliminary task to try to improve
the quality of my final product. I have tried to make my music magazine look
more professional by learning different tools and techniques such as how to
properly airbrush an image, cleaner erasing and making the edges
transparent to make the image blend in with the background a lot more. I
have also followed typical conventions of a music magazine by researching
different magazines to give me an idea of what I needed to include to
make my magazine look real and professional. I believed that by doing this I
have in fact improved the quality of work I have produced. I was also
introduced to the most popular genre, bands/artist and price choices etc
which is vital while choosing a target audience.
6. My Final Project
◦ The completion of my final project shows the amount of development I have made
since the start if the year when I created my preliminary task. After researching into
different magazines I managed to make a more professional product. Before creating
my product I was unaware of how much time an effort would be needed to create a
full magazine. Taking photos, choosing which photos to use then editing those chosen
took the longest amount of time. What you would think as simple decisions such as
font type and size, thinking of bad names as well as article content and layout was
also quite time consuming and gave me an insight of how long an actual music
magazine such as Kerrang! or NME would take to create and complete. I used the
information I had gathered however to make a better end product.
◦ I have also clearly improved my Photoshop skills as the edges of the images look far
more professional and are erased much more precisely.
8. Comparing the two products
◦ Looking at both products side by side you can clearly see the areas where my
editing skills have developed. My completed music magazine looks far more
professional and looks more like a magazine which could be published. The
school magazine lacks originality and is of a much poorer quality and standard
compared to my final product. You can now can see obvious signs of my
understanding of the typical conventions of a magazine.
