The student learned many valuable skills from constructing their preliminary magazine to their final magazine. Through the process, they gained a deeper appreciation for planning and research, learning how vital it is to understand the target audience and draw inspiration from other magazines. Proper layout, alignment, and use of margins became clear as important for a professional appearance. Text size, font choice, and placement were also improved based on learning what looks most realistic. Consideration of color schemes, photography skills, and photo editing in Photoshop enhanced the overall quality and appeal of the final product to the target audience.

1. EVALUATION QUESTION 7-LOOKING BACK AT
YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK WHAT DO YOU
FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROCESS
OF CONSTRUCTING THIS PRODUCT?
From creating my
preliminary magazine to my
final magazine I have gained
many different skills and
massively improved my
knowledge and appreciation
for the process.

2. PRELIMINARY COVER AND
FINAL COVER

3. PRELIMINARY CONTENTS
AND FINAL CONTENTS

4. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT-
RESEARCH&LAYOUT
From the start of the process and while creating my magazine on Photoshop I have learnt the absolute importance
of planning and preparing to create the magazine. I completed many different types of research to enable me to
know as much as possible about my target audience, current magazines designs and why this is effective to be
able to create a successful magazine (to the right are photos of some of my planning). Having done no research
for my preliminary magazine I have learnt how vital research is for inspiration and having a security of creating a
magazine that appeals to my audience. Without my research my magazine would not be able appeal to my target
audience and I would have had little inspiration while creating the magazine, as I frequently referred to my
research while creating my magazine.
Throughout this process I have learnt the importance of planning and setting out a layout I could stick too. For my
preliminary magazine I did not use margins or align text once, which created a very unprofessional and un-neat
look. For my music magazine I massively used and relied upon the use of margins to enable me to create a sleek
and professional look with even alleys and gutters, and with every component of the magazine from the text to
images well aligned and clear to create a professional look. I also learnt how key margins and alignment is,
although the effect may not be obvious to readers ( such as myself before I started creating my magazine) having
neat margins really pulls the magazine page together allowing the magazine to look professional and genuine.
Fitting into layout skills that I have learnt is how and what styles appeal to my audience. From my research I am
able to know that my audience prefer a simple and non cluttered design, a style which I have aimed towards while
creating my magazine. This is a improvement from my preliminary magazine where my design is cluttered and
un-organised. I have not overlapped any text onto any photos for my cover and contents pages as I have learnt
from my preliminary magazine that this is looks messy and unprofessional. As shown on my preliminary
magazine I have text placed over the people in the photos and I feel this detracts from the impact of the photo
which is why I have not carried on this design into my music magazine. Instead, I chose a design where I could
place text under or above the main image as I feel this looks more professional and sleek as well as attracting my
target audience more. I have also used a lot more negative and white space within my contents page as this
creates a less chaotic and more professional look. This shows how I have learnt that sometimes less is more and
how to utilise white space to make this look effective and appealing.

5. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT-TEXT
Another key component of creating a magazine that I learnt about was the text size; as evident from
my preliminary magazine I started out using text that was far too big for a magazine making the
magazine look ineffective and very unprofessional. I have improved on my text size by continually
making the text smaller until I reached a genuine magazine looking size. I have kept improving on
text size from my preliminary to my draft magazine to my final magazine showing how I have learnt
about text size continually throughout the process.
Another way I have improved my text element is by choosing a different font that was more suitable
for a magazine; as also shown by preliminary magazine I did not pick a font that would be commonly
linked to a magazine. This made my magazine cover look a lot less realistic, something which I have
learnt from and improved upon for my music magazine, choosing to use the fonts Droidiga and
Wicker SF. These fonts enable my magazine to look more professional, sleek and a definite
improvement from my preliminary. I also used my research into successful magazine designs and
fonts to be able to choose my fonts.
Continuing with my improvement with text, I have also learnt where best to place and categorise text
to create a reader friendly look that will appeal to my target audience. With my school magazine I
kept to my very simple colour scheme and did not use colours to highlight information and did not
really think why I was using each colour for each piece of text. With my music magazine I used the
muted pink colour to highlight information and this helped to make my magazine look interesting
and appealing to my audience. This shows how I have learnt to put more thought and planning into
the smaller details. I have also used text size to help show audiences the more important information
and create a more interesting looking page which is something I did not do for my preliminary
magazine, where all the text was the same size looking bland and boring to audiences.

6. WHAT I HAVE LEARNT-COLOUR,
PHOTO’S&PHOTOSHOP
The colour scheme is another important part of the magazine that I have learnt and improved on
while creating my magazine. For my school magazine I kept to a very simple and basic colour
scheme of same shade of royal blue as the school logo, black and white; this is a very simple
colour scheme that would not really appeal to any audiences and only has a simple link to the rest
of the magazine. For my music magazine I put a lot more thought into choosing my colour scheme
(using my research to do this) aiming to appeal to my audience. The colour scheme I chose
consisted of five colours, which is a more in-depth than my three colour scheme for my
preliminary magazine. I learnt that the colour scheme is a very important convention of the
magazine and helps to tie the magazine together and is a major factor in appealing to audiences.
My photo and photography skills have also been improved upon. Although I am moderately
pleased with the quality of my photos for my preliminary there has been a definite improvement of
my photos for my music magazine. I learnt the details and essentialness for planning before the
photos as unlike for my preliminary magazine where there was very little planning involved. For my
music magazine I planned who the artists would be, their hair, makeup and the different outfits
they would wear. This was a massive benefit for me as it allowed to create the look I wanted and
take the photos I wanted. I have learnt and improved more on my knowledge of lighting and how
this can effect a photo, which I learnt by experimenting with different lighting. I choose to have the
lights completely focussed on artist as this highlighted on them was the effect I wanted. My
photography skills have also improved with me gaining more confidence, knowledge and
appreciation for the photography element of the magazine. This new knowledge of camera work
enabled me to try to vary my shot distances within my magazine and take good quality photos.
My overall Photoshop skills have also massively improved during this process as I have learnt how
to use the software a lot better and more accurately. I have improved my knowledge of the features
and tools that Photoshop offers and I have learnt how to use these effectively for my magazine. My
knowledge using Photoshop has increased during this process allowing me utilised the new
techniques I have learnt such as guidelines, photo editing, colour matching and layer manipulation
to allow me to use Photoshop with more confidence.