Since creating their preliminary magazine cover, the author has learned many new skills using Photoshop and Indesign. They have improved at editing images, using different fonts and layouts, and incorporating typical magazine elements like editorials and subscription boxes. Their pop magazine cover and contents page now look more polished and professional compared to the preliminary versions, demonstrating their continued development of software skills and knowledge of magazine design conventions.

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

2. Since my preliminary task I have learnt many things when creating a front cover. I have learnt so much about the software, Photoshop. I can now edit pictures, use the clone stamp, change the colour of lips on an image, whereas back when I created my college magazine cover, I didn’t know how to do these things. I learnt how to edit images as well as text. My images on my ‘Just POP’ cover, have white borders which I learnt how to do through the process of creating my music magazine. The masthead in my school magazine has the same font as the coverlines, so it doesn’t stand out from the page as a trade mark. So for my pop magazine, I ensured I changed the fonts, using a different font for my masthead and the small coverlines. My barcode was also very big in the school magazine so I have reduced the size and placed it in the conventional bottom right corner. I have also learnt many conventions of a magazine since then like colour schemes. I have learnt how to alternate between colours on my coverlines without looking too random. On my school magazine, the coverlines looked unprofessional due to every coverline being different colours. Since then, I have learnt to choose colours carefully and not to use too many colours on the page because it can look too domineering and overpower the page. Overall, I don’t like my cover for my preliminary as I think it doesn’t look as professional compared to my pop magazine. This is due to the lack of experience with the software and the lack of knowledge of typical conventions used on a magazine cover.

3. My pop contents page has definitely improved since my preliminary task. In both pages, I have followed the conventional layout of rules of thirds. This helped my pages look more professional. However, I feel that the preliminary page has too much white space. To improve this, I have used more images in my pop magazine, as my results from my questionnaire said that the readers liked a more image based contents page. My images have also improved since then too as they now look more edited and professional as I have changed backgrounds to white. Also, I have learnt that many magazines have editorials and a subscription box. Therefore I have incorporated this convention onto my pop magazine. This makes the page look more busy and professional. Looking back I think my contents page looked quite good as it followed many conventions of a contents page, like the page numbers and sub-headings being in bold colours. However my pop magazine has developed from that, as I have learnt additional conventions like editorials.

4. I have developed the skills to create a double page spread as I didn’t create one for my school magazine. The conventions of the spread was easy to create in Indesign as it is a publishing software, and I think my page was overall successful.

5. My developments in using Photoshop and Indesign has improved incredibly since my preliminary task. In Photoshop for my school magazine cover, I could only import images and create text. Now I have the ability to use different tools like the magic wand tool, hue/saturation edits, strokes, clone stamps etc. The knowledge of knew tools helped me create a more professional cover compared to my school magazine cover. My skills in Indesign also has improved significantly. When creating my music contents and double page spread, I aligned text, wrapped text around images, used drop capital and placed text in a column format. However when I created my school magazine contents page, I could only import text and images. Moreover, I have learnt that developing skills in both software's, gave me a more professional and conventional pop magazine.

6. Overall I have learnt how to use software to create a magazine and how they pay a big role in making the page look professional. I have also learnt the conventions of a music magazine and how coverlines, images, language and colour play a big role in attracting the target audience.