1. Q7 Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
I think that in my project I have definitely learnt a lot in making a magazine, I think
that in my preliminary I knew basic knowledge of how to place photo’s on photoshop
and how to write text and move it about, I also knew how to make a background and
put shapes on the page, that was basically all that I knew.
But in my actual project, I have learnt a lot more from start to finish. The most I have
learnt is probably on Photoshop, I think that on Photoshop I have learnt how to
manipulate shadows and lighting to make different effects.
In photoshop my skills have improved a lot, as looking back at the preliminary I think
that what I did in that wasn’t professional at all, It was very basic and laid out very
badly. Also I had the most basic of photo’s with not much effort. My text was also
just a plain white default times new roman text.
Looking at my new project now I know that I have made a professional looking
magazine, my title looks good. In this magazine I actually have a colour scheme set
by my audience rather than random colours, and I have a lot better quality of images.
In my research for my prelim, I didn’t really do any research at all, apart from looking
at another magazine on the internet, but in the new magazine I have spent a lot of my
time looking for good magazines to get inspiration from.
I looked for inspiration on layout, images, articles and also text. I definitely think that
the research has helped me a lot, as I know that it is similar to layouts of other
successful rock magazines, and all of the text goes together perfectly and colour
scheme goes well with my title and images.
What I am most proud of though is my layout, I have spent a lot of time changing
things about and from my screen grabs you can see that a lot of it has changed for the
better, and I don’t think that without research I could have got the ideas for my
magazine design.
How I planned my work in my prelim was very quick and basic, what I did was just
make a design from scratch with not much detail or effort, but on my new plan I spent
time researching other magazines and having a mix of layouts to create the best layout
I could put together, my inspiration for my plans came mainly from research on the
internet.
During my prelim I had to take a front cover photo, it was a very basic photo of a
friend with a basic pose that wasn’t very rocky at all, it didn’t really give any
indication to an audience as to what genre of magazine it is.
But on my new magazine I know that my photo’s are 100 times better, I spent time
putting effort in and outside of lesson to make sure I had the right lighting angles and
the right positioning to get the right angle for the layout of my front cover so no text
would clash with the front cover.

2. I definitely think that my skills of taking photos has improved from none to quite
decent, I now understand that you have to have a good idea of who your audience is
and what type of musician they want to see.
While doing my new magazine I definitely think my design skills have improved a
lot, I know that in my prelim there was no design to it, it was all just from scratch, but
in the new one I took time to research other designs and modify them to my own taste
and style of magazine.