From creating a preliminary school magazine to the final product, the student learned several skills. These include researching professional magazines in their target genre to learn effective designs, improving photography skills like using a tripod and outdoor shooting, selecting an appropriate font, and including relevant details like a barcode and advertised price. The student also strengthened layout design skills by making the contents page busier with more images and information, drawing inspiration from examples like Clash magazine. These skills helped the student successfully create other magazine elements, like a double page spread, showing progression from the preliminary to final versions.

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

2. Front Cover
From the preliminary magazine to my final front cover I think I have learnt a
number of skills in order to make my magazine look professional. In order to
make my magazine look more professional I looked closely as real magazines
such as ‘CLASH’, ‘LOUD AND QUIET’ and ‘DAZED AND CONFUSED’. By
doing this, I learnt how other magazines attracted an audience which was
similar to my target audience. On the preliminary magazine my picture was in
the studio at school but for my final draft I decided to take pictures outside and
also use pictures in the studio. This enabled me to develop my skills with
cameras and lighting to ensure that my pictures where the best quality they
could possibly be, when taking pictures for my preliminary I didn’t use a tripod
however for my final magazine I did to ensure that my images were clear and
not blurred. I decided to take pictures out side because I thought it would
attract a greater audience because it is more colorful and I think the picture
looks more aesthetically pleasing then the preliminary. I also think that I have
developed my presentation through things such as the font I have decided to
use. I think the font in my preliminary does not suit the a magazine whereas
the font on my front cover of my final magazine is more suited to the
magazine of my chosen genre. I think I have learnt how to be inspired by
magazines through looking at them while still maintaining my individual style.
I have also researched how much I think my magazine should cost and
therefore added a barcode onto my front cover. I decided to make my
magazine £4.00 because I thought that this meant I could make the best
quality magazine while creating a profit for myself.

3. Contents page
I also think I’ve improved from my preliminary contents page
to my final double page as I have looked at real magazines
when trying to make my magazine look as professional as
possible. I decided to make my contents page busier by
using more images and also more information about the
content. I think that this makes my magazine resemble a real
life magazine from my genre because magazines from the
indie genre tend to have a busier contents page. I was also
inspired by clash’s ‘clean’ layout so I feel my final draft has a
number of inspirations as I think it looks clean but at the
same time. I think my images are of a much better quality
on my contents page. I also used a variety of backgrounds for
the images on my contents page.
Double page spread
Although I did not do a double page spread the skills I
developed from making my front cover and contents page
have enabled me to make a successful page. I learnt how to
take good quality images, use fonts that looked good and
also how to write an article by looking at styles used
specifically to certain genre magazines.