The document summarizes the learning and improvements from the author's preliminary school magazine task to their final music magazine product. Key points include: developing a consistent color scheme and brand identity; adding more cover lines in an intentional layout; using appropriate tools like the magnetic lasso to refine images; including typical magazine elements like editorials; and choosing fonts, colors and styles more fitting to engage the target audience. The author demonstrates gaining a deeper understanding of magazine composition and layout through research, and applying those lessons to create a more professional and appealing final product.

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

2. Front Pages

4. It is evident that I lacked the ability to precisely cut around her hair in order to enhance realism. In addition I used the ‘lasso tool’ to cut around her, oblivious to the effectiveness of the ‘magnetic lasso tool’, which through using, I would have been able to refine certain areas.

5. Furthermore, as I had not browsed and conducted research on authentic front covers I was not aware of the font style, colours or even the size in which would be appropriate for the text to be. There are far too little cover lines on the page, which, in effect, make the magazine cover look too spacious and empty. Also, s makes it look as if the magazine consists of a limited range of features, and so the lack of cover lines may marginalise or decrease the amount of people who would want to read it as the displayed features may not appeal to them.

6. Although I did know about adding effects to text, I believe I misused them as the colour of the cover lines are not bold enough and somewhat blend in with the background, ultimately diverting attention elsewhere, similarly, the font is too small and each additional cover line is too close to each other.

7. The image of the ‘model does not reflect the concept of the article, as well as the fact that the main cover line should be the most prominent after the masthead, however, on my preliminary task the main cover line does not stand out and so is not instantly recognisable as the main article of this magazine. The font would have needed to be larger and perhaps have more effects applied to it in order to allow readers to immediately know what the main feature of the school magazine is.

8. Correspondingly, there is no regular colour scheme applied, apart from the minor similarity between the colour off the girls top, and the masthead and so makes the magazine look extremely unprofessional.

9. At the time of crafting this page I had not taken into consideration the target audience of my magazine, but I believe that the masthead is quite conventional for the target audience as it can appeal to both children and adults due to its simplistic yet sophisticated form, however, I believe that a wider range of colour should have been adopted on this page in order to further engage the younger audiences, immediately making the magazine appear more interesting.

11. Music Magazine Front Cover It is immediately noticeable when comparing my preliminary task with my final music magazine, that I have expanded my knowledge of the necessities of a good magazine. I have adopted a consistent colour scheme, of red, purple and white, rich colours in which I believe would attract teenage readers and engage their attention. While looking at other pop magazines such as the one displayed to the bottom right of this slide, I noticed that pop magazines tend to use bright colours in order to communicate the quirky and cool sense surrounding the genre, Through the progression of constructing my full product I was continuously learning new skills whether it be effects with text, airbrushing or even new conventional layouts/compositions that would reflect the professional look of an authentic music magazine. Simultaneously, I have inserted much more cover lines onto the page and have positioned them with an intentional and structured initiative in order for it to appear crowded with lots of features, ultimately appealing to more readers , in contrast to my school magazine which displayed a lot more background and made the magazine appear empty and boring. Also I have placed the cover lines around the artist in order to compose a balanced composition which placed equal significance upon each aspect , however this was not the case in my school magazine, as I had inserted too many cover lines in one area. The artist dominates most of the page, indicating that she is the focal point of the issue, as opposed to my preliminary task where the image of the ‘model’ is placed as the bottom right of the page father than being in the centre, which indirectly plummets her significance. Additionally, the astute choice of colour for the cover lines and mast head are striking and bold, immediately capturing readers and provoking interest in reading the issue. In contrast, my school magazine had clashing colours and narrow text which was overpowered by the other aspects of the magazine. This front cover highlights the implementation of floating quotes, a price tag, barcode and a distinctive main cover line, features that my preliminary task did not showcase. For the music magazine I adopted more convention such as writing large number Within the additional cover lines, and a puff. Learning which tool would be appropriate to cut around the main artist neatly was a key factor n making my music magazine appear professional- I used the ‘Magnetic Lasso’. From constantly referring to real music magazines such as ‘Top of the Pops’ and ‘Smash Hits’ I was able to emulate certain aspects such as font type, composition & layout in order to make it more authentic, an element that my preliminary task lacked.

14. Although I intentionally continued the ‘aqua’ colour scheme from the front page, the larger title reading ‘CONTENTS PAGE’ is blue which is quite a random choice of colour and the font has no relevance to the type of magazine it is.

15. As I was unaware of the type of layout a professional magazine would adopt I simply rote the page title and page number with a line of dots separating it, ultimately making it look extremely untidy. Also, there are not enough page references and features within the magazine.

16. On my music magazine, the main artist (Persia White) is the largest image on the page automatically, illuminating the fact that she is the main focus of this issue, whereas the smaller but appropriately sized additional images, give readers an insight as to what the other features of the magazine will be linked to, without diverting attention wholly to them additional stories.

17. I have also pursued the colour scheme adopted on my front page in order to establish a secure brand identity and so that it is instantly noticeable that the pages are somewhat linked.

18. Also, I have included an editorial section in my music magazine contents page, an aspect I was not aware of while creating my school magazine, however, through browsing through real music magazines, I found that they had this element in common and so attempted to emulate it.

19. The features of my magazine have also been categorised into sections of different themes, however, whilst composing my preliminary task contents page I did not acknowledge that this was necessary in order to make it easier for readers to allocate a particular section of interest.

20. I have also used different colours to make the page appear more interesting and also reflect the vibrant nature of the pop genre, however my preliminary task does not display any form of structure or thought into font style, and shows an evident lack of knowledge surrounding key elements to a good contents page.