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

1. Q7.Looking back at your
preliminary task, what do
you feel you have learnt in
the progression from it to
the full product?

2. Introduction
• For my preliminary task I created a front cover for a college magazine as well as
a mock up design for the contents page. During the process of this I did not do
any prior research into magazine designs and what my audience would expect
to see throughout my magazine. As a result of this I was unable to achieve I high
quality product that would be appealing to my target audience.
• When moving onto my music magazine I was able to research into the genre
and find out who my target audience is as well as what they would be expecting
to see in my magazine. I was able to do this by looking at various magazine from
the same genre and analyse there front covers, contents page and double page
spread as this is what I was going to be creating.
• Another stage of my music magazine included planning. This consisted of
making a pitch idea, creating layouts and plans, and decided where I was going
to take image and how.

3. Planning
Throughout making my music magazine, I have learnt
that planning is an important part to make sure the
magazine is at a high quality and looks like
professional.
For example planning the photos that I was going to
use for certain parts of the magazine is important so
that you can design the layout of the whole page. You
will also have a clear idea of what you will need the
model to wear or look like. To help me think of the
photos I could put in my magazine I looked at the style
of photography that other magazines have used as
well as finding images from google to create an image
of what I wanted my images to be like.
For my college magazine I had not planed what my
front cover was going to look like which made it look
unprofessional and I did not keep to the convention of
a typical magazine image, this is a medium shot that
fills the page.

4. Photography
For my college magazine I did not plan my photography. Not planning my photography meant that I
did not take a high quality image that would be suitable for a magazine front cover.
When doing the photography work for my college magazine I decided to use a medium shot which is a
convention of a magazine. However there is a lot of space at the top of the image making the subject look
very small on the front cover when it needs to be standing out on the page. While taking this image I didn't
use a suitable background. If I had done some research on this I would have realised that a background
that isn’t plain and has a lot of colour will distract the viewers attention from the main subject.
Before doing the shoot for my music magazine
planned and researched what I was going to do
to get the best results. Throughout my
research I was looking at the style of images
that are used on a magazines and what makes
them appealing for my target audience. When
it came to planning I used to use someone that
look like they would be an artist from this
genre as well as thinking about there style of
clothes. I also thought about the location. I
decided on using the studio to take my image
and used a white back ground allowing the
subject the be seen clearly and it will sand out
from the white back ground.

5. When I was using Photo Shop to improve my college magazine image I
did not have a good understanding on how the different aspects of photo
shop that would improve this image. For my music magazine I was able
to take more time understanding how the levels and the spot healing
tools work as well as other aspects that improve the overall look of the
image. I had not previously used the levels before in photo shop and did
not I have good understanding of it while improving this image on my
college magazine. Also the spot healing tool is used to take away
anything that you no longer want in the image this made the image look
more professional and like a magazine front cover if I know how to use
this tool on my first magazine image it will have given it a more
professional look.
Photoshop:
I was able to create a professional looking image on my music
magazine by learning the skills that I needed from sources
such as YouTube and Google.

6. Fonts
While first designing my college magazine I didn’t take into consideration about the
layout of where my text would go on the page. When I came to the editing process I
found that I was limited to the amount of space that I would be able to put text into. To
add to this I did not use a suitable font for both my masthead and the text around it,
this made the text unclear as well as it not following the conventions of a masthead.
However when planning my music magazine I made sure that I was allowing enough
space to have the amount of text that I am wanting to fill my page. I also spent time
finding a suitable to font style for both my masthead and text. As a result of this I was
able to create a front cover that looks professional and that would appeal to a wide
range of readers.

7. Contents page
For my preliminary task I did a
basic plan deciding on the layout
of the text and images. As I
started to plan the design of my
new contents page I decided to
further research the conventions
as well a layouts that appeal to
audiences. This design shows a
different layout of images as well
as deciding to have the text in
columns rather then rows, I
decided this from my research.
I also thought more about the text that has been used. In my preliminary task I kept the font simple and
it did not fill up as much space. However in my second contents page I decided to try and find as a more
unique and creative font design, as well as this I also made the decision to have it going across the top
of the page. I feel this makes the page look fuller as well as it looking as if it is meant to be there.

8. Research:
Before I started making my magazine I researched different music magazine brands so
that I could see what they front cover, contents page and double page spread looked
like to get ideas on how to design mine. I was also able to find out the conventions
that each magazine has and what each reader will expect to see. I had not done any
research before starting my preliminary task so I had not looked at any magazines to
get ideas. This means that it was very basic and did not look like a professional
magazine and would not draw in the readers attention. I have learnt that if I had look
at other magazine I would have been able to see the conventions such as the type of
masthead, style of images, pull quotes and more and featured them on my front
cover.