Through creating a school magazine and music magazine, the author learned many important lessons about magazine design and production. Some key things learned were: choosing models that face the camera to engage readers; using proper layout, formatting, and editing to make the magazine look polished; matching fonts, colors and stories to the target audience; and improving overall quality through higher quality photography and design. The progression from the school magazine helped the author understand what is needed to create an effective magazine that would appeal to readers.

2. LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK
(THE SCHOOL MAGAZINE), WHAT DO YOU FEEL
YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM
IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

3. Looking back at the school magazine I created, I felt that I have learnt a lot in
terms of the programmes that I have used, I have used a lot more
techniques and tools on Photoshop on my music magazine than my
school magazine.

4. • From previous experience of creating a magazine with my school
magazine, I felt I had a good understanding of what I needed to do.
• The target market/audience/social group changed dramatically between
my school magazine and my music magazine. My target audience for
my school magazine targeted just the pupils in my school whereas in
my music magazine, I targeted teenagers and young adults everywhere
within the 16-25 age range.
• As you can see from my school magazine in the previous slide, I was
very inexperienced with what was needed to create an effective
magazine that stood out and caught potential readers eyes, but during
the whole creation of my music magazine, I learnt a lot of different
techniques that improved the quality of my final product (Music
Magazine).

5. Through good research I found out that the picture is one of the most
important aspects in magazines. In terms of the picture I feel like I have
learnt a lot as you can see from the transition of my school magazine
picture and my music magazine picture. As you can see the picture on
my school magazine that the model isn't facing the camera and wont
attract the audience as they cant see his face. My music magazine is
much more professional and effective. It is facing the camera and is
looking directly at the potential customer, which will catch their eye and
attract them too the magazine. With this I learnt that I have to make sure
my model is clearly visible and face is visible, so the target market can
be attracted and interested in the magazine.

6. • With my school magazine, I felt like I didn't’t know enough about the
conventional techniques that magazines have. As you can see in my
school magazine I had no idea of the conventions of a front cover
photo, I just took pictures that I thought would look good on the cover,
not what looked professional in real magazines. I learnt from this in my
music magazine as I chose a good model to pose in a professional way
in a good location.
• I also learnt that I needed to choose an image that is relatable in my
music magazine. In my school magazine, although the image is
relatable and you can tell it is in school, doing sports, the image isn't
suitable and relatable because he is not looking down the lens of the
camera, which is what most professional magazines do.

7. • Another thing I have learnt and improved on from my school magazine
to my music magazine is the importance of the masthead. The
masthead for my school magazine was not suitable for the title of a
school magazine and looks very unappealing. Learning from this
mistake I researched into different professional magazines to see how
they have laid out their mastheads and the look I needed to create to
make it look professional.

8. In the preliminary design I didn’t put any thought into how I wanted the
colors of my titles to be portrayed, I just picked whatever looked good.
As you can see from my school magazine I didn't’t put any thought into
what colors suited the magazine. In my magazine I took this into
consideration and researched other magazines too see what kind of
color schemes they were using. With this I asked 10 students what
colors they thought would be best suited to a blue background. The
results were mostly bright colors like yellow. I decided that yellow was
the best color for my masthead and other bits of text as it really makes
the magazine stand out.

9. From the preliminary magazine one of the major things I learnt was how
important the layout was. As you can see from my preliminary
task, there's not really a layout, I just put things where I thought it
looked good, but didn't’t lay it out in a suitable, effective way. On my
music magazine, I tried to lay it out in a more effective way and I believe
I achieved that.

10. • As you can see from my magazine front cover, contents
page and double page spread, I edited some of the
photos a lot to look more appropriate and used different
editing skills such as spot remover and removing
unnecessary background props. Editing is not
something I did in my preliminary magazine which is
why it doesnt look professional and like a real magazine
whereas my music magazine does. I learnt that if I do
not edit out what I think the target audience do not want
to see on my magazine, then it would not get the
attractive appeal I want it to have and achieve.

11. • In terms of relation between my two magazines I made sure I picked a
model that was relatable to my target audience, that I set out to create
my magazine for. By using a late teenager/young adult as my model,
this would be something that my target audience can relate too and
create a relationship between the model, magazine and reader.
• Another key thing I learnt was changing the font for different parts of
the magazine. In my school magazine I only used about two fonts for
the whole magazine. I learnt in my music magazine that if I wanted it too
look professional, I would have to use a variety of different fonts. In all I
used around 4-5 fonts in my magazine for the different aspects of the
magazine.
• Another thing that I learnt from the preliminary to music magazine was
that none of the stories in my preliminary magazine had relation to the
main model on the front cover. This is very unprofessional and after
doing research I found that big magazines such as Kerrang, Complex &
Vibe always have a main story presented about the main model,
presented in large beside the model. I took this into consideration and
made sure my main model had a main story on my double page spread.

12. I think the main feature which makes my music magazine a lot more
professional than the preliminary magazine was the quality of my music
magazine compared to the preliminary magazine. The quality of my
music magazine was much higher compared to my school magazine,
this came down to all the aspects of the techniques I used, for example
in my music magazine I used a professional dslr camera which a much
higher quality whereas on my school magazine I used a lower quality
camera. There were lots more aspects that made my music magazine a
lot more appealing, eye-catching and of higher quality – the range of
colors, the location, the model, the way the model poses, the layout and
the stories all contributed to making my magazine look a lot more
professional and of higher quality.