The author reflects on improvements made from their preliminary magazine design task. They improved the background by removing it to allow for more cover stories and content. They also learned to select images more carefully to look more professional. For the masthead, they explored more fonts to choose one that portrayed the magazine's theme better. They included more varied cover stories with different fonts and colors to attract different audiences. The puff used in the final design was more professionally made in Photoshop to stand out and target the intended audience.

1. Evaluation Q7
Looking back at your preliminary task, what
do you feel you have learnt in the progression?

3. Image
Looking back on my preliminary task, I can see
I have improved. One of the places I have
improved is the background. In my preliminary I
decided to keep the background however in my
final magazine design, the background has been
cut out. I decided to do this because it leaves me
with blank space to fill with cover stories and
puffs. The background on the preliminary makes
it look messy and doesn’t allow me to fill the
space intelligently. Additionally, the subjects in
the image do not appear as though they are
models for a magazine, instead it looks as
though it’s a picture taken for social media.
Therefore since my preliminary, I have
improved the way I take images and edit them to
make my magazine appear more professional.

4. Masthead
The masthead used in my preliminary task was
a font provided by adobe photoshop. I did not
do enough research and exploration of the
other fonts available to me and therefore the
masthead font looks as though it was rushed
and no thought was put in to the making of it.
However the font used in the masthead of my
real magazine cover, presents my magazine as
professional and original. It is an original font
and connotes the gritty and urban theme I was
trying to portray with it. Overall improvements
have been made since the first preliminary, and
I have managed to present my magazine as
more sophisticated.

5. Cover Stories
In my preliminary task, I only included one cover story
and one main cover story. In the images on the right, the
two above show the stories displayed on my preliminary
task. As you can see I tried to use alliteration to make the
story more interesting however it is only 1 story
compared to the average 3+ on any other music
magazine. The font and colour is also unprofessional and
does not portray my magazine as sophisticated and
attractive. The other images display the cover stories on
my final front cover. The stories are more varied and
fonts alter depending on topic/story, I decided to do so to
attract people with witty stories and presentations. The
constant use of red, black and white exhibit my magazine
as neat and tidy as well as gender neutral, which helps me
target all audiences. Furthermore the number of stories
displayed on my front cover shows I spent time and effort
thinking of stories and relating them to both the feature
article and the rest of the magazine. This therefore shows
an increased amount of effort and time, I put into the final
design in order to make my magazine attractive for all
audiences.

6. Puffs
The puff used on the preliminary task was made
with a shape from Microsoft word, showing the
simplicity of it. I believe for the target audience it
was successful because I am targeting mainly
students, and therefore I decided to choose a more
simple and bright puff. In comparison to the
preliminary puff, the puff I used in my final cover
page, shows a more professional and sophisticated
theme. I used photoshop to create this puff and
added different fonts to make it stand out which is
what a puff is supposed to do. This therefore targets
my audience because they automatically see the red
and ‘The top hits’ title.