The document summarizes the progression of skills from an initial school magazine project to a more advanced music magazine project. Some key techniques used in the music magazine included: 1) Using multiple layers and overlapping images on the cover to create visual interest. 2) Adding shaped text boxes and tilting photographs and text boxes on the double-page spread for variety. 3) Gaining confidence using Publisher in addition to Photoshop to complete elements like the double-page spread. This showed growth in skills and a willingness to experiment with more complex techniques and different programs over time.

1. 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?

2. Here are the pictures of my school magazines and the music magazine I have developed, on the next slide I will comment on how I have improved since I created the school cover. These are my music magazine coursework pieces These are the school magazine pieces which I completed at the beginning of the year

3. Techniques I used in my school magazines I wanted to make the cover of my magazine look attractive and appealing. I feel I managed to do this by changing the brightness and contrast of the photograph. By doing this I managed to make the cover look more attractive. For my school magazine I used a glow on my font. This technique was fairly simple, but a easy way to add effect to a area of writing The technique which I used for this area of the cover was slightly more complex. The background was separate to the picture therefore I had to use the picture of the sky as my background and then cut around the pictures from another file and then paste them onto the cover file I changed the opacity of the rugby ball, I wanted to use this effect to make the cover look more interesting rather then having the images as all the same opacity.

4. How have you progressed? There are many ways in which I have progressed since I developed my school magazines. I used fairly simple techniques when I completed these two first magazines, this was because I was new to the whole practical side and was not confident when using photo shop. I feel I have progressed a huge amount, I used much more complex techniques during the production of my music magazine. I grew increasingly confident in the use of Photoshop and even managed to use a totally different program during the production of my double page spread. On the next two slides is a list of the techniques which I used for the production of my music magazine, these show the ways in which I have progressed since my preliminary task.

5. Ways in which I have progressed: In the title of ‘THE FAME’ I created two titles, changed the opacity of one of them as well as the colour, pasted one on top of the other and then moved them so they were slightly out of line ‘ YOUR HOTTEST MAG’ was quite a time consuming part of the cover. I had to find a image of a stamp and then cut out the outline, fill each section in with black colouring and then insert text into the middle of the image I used a much larger number of layers on this cover. This is because I wanted to have the effect of pictures over lapping each other as well as fonts and images on top of the main photograph. Both the school magazines were all one single layer. I also added shapes with inserted fonts onto my front cover. I used these as I feel they grab the attention and this is another way in which I have progressed since my school magazines. On my front cover as well as my contents page I titled the text, this is a simple task to compete however it is a way in which I have progressed since I made my two school magazines I also inserted shapes on my contents page, I used the line tool to outline words and make them stand out clearly to attract the readers attention to that particular part of the page

6. Below are a list of tools and techniques I used during the production of my double page spread, they are ways in which I have progressed since my preliminary task I used publisher to complete my double page spread. I felt that if I was able to obtain the effects I wanted then it would be a good idea to use publisher instead of just using photo shop all the time. Publisher allowed me achieve everything I wanted to therefore I was glad I used it. I managed tilt photographs and text boxes to get the effect I wanted. I wanted my double page spread to be more simple then the contents page and my front cover because they were very busy. I was confident when I used publisher and managed to use it without great difficulty, I feel this is a huge progression for me because I am now confident when it comes to using other programs, not just Photoshop. Although I used publisher for the majority of my contents page I still used Photoshop to help me during the production. I had to cut of the Polaroids and place a picture of ‘Maisie-mae’ in them on Photoshop and then transfer this onto my double page spread in publisher. Over all I feel that creating my double page spread on publisher was a great progression and has built my confidence in the use of other programs.