1) The student learned important skills for creating a successful magazine, such as professional layout, composition of photographs, and photo editing. 2) Their final product showed improvement in taking higher quality photographs using proper lighting and rules of composition. They also learned to use photo editing tools like Photoshop. 3) Through the process, the student gained a better understanding of design principles like the Gutenberg diagram and how to address a target audience through an effective magazine layout and content.

1. Looking back at your preliminary task, (college magazine) what
do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full
product?
Preliminary task Final Product

2. At the beginning of the course I didn’t know much about the layout of a
magazine and what should be included in the contents pages and on the front
cover since doing my preliminary task and finishing my final product I can see
that I have developed a lot of skills that are needed to create a successful
magazine.
Preliminary contents layout Final contents layout

3. Significantly during this course I have learned how to take more professional
photographs that are suitable for different pages of a magazine and discovered
how to manipulate them well using adobe Photoshop. As you can see in the
preliminary task I took a basic none composed photograph that is poorly edited
using a vignette and modifying the hue and saturation. However in my final
production I used the studio provided to use soft boxes and take a more
professional photograph that was well composed and lit. I also was able to remove
any imperfections using the healing brush tool and create a more radiant look.
Also the photographs I took in my preliminary task did not contain direct
address or the rules of thirds these of which are big techniques used when
taking photographs for magazine covers and pages. In my final production I
made it a priority to use direct address to help engage the reader into the
magazine this brought my magazine more to life and gave it a professional
look.

4. In my preliminary task I also didn’t fully understand the Guttenberg design principle this
was required when designing the layout of my pages. Along this stage I feel that I have
learnt how to correctly set out a professional style magazine using the primary optical
,strong and weak fallow and terminal areas.
Over the time of the course I have believe I have learnt how to correctly address a target
audience through a magazine. From this came the skills to efficiently research existing
products and gather information needed to create a successful magazine.