The author reflects on progress made from an initial college magazine cover and contents page to a fully developed music magazine. For the preliminary task, the author lacked experience using design software and knowledge of magazine structures. The college magazine lacked creativity and vibrant colors. For the music magazine, the author's skills using Photoshop and InDesign improved, allowing use of attractive colors, well-structured content, and custom masthead. Comparing the two works shows the author now better understands creating appealing, reader-focused magazines.

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

2. In my preliminary task I had to create a college magazine front cover on photoshop and contents page
on Indesign, I had to use the resources at hand to create my very own first magazine, it was like a tester
in comparison to the music magazine, I have developed my skills and knowledge on magazine overall to
create a better one. You can see a clear difference between my music magazine and my college
magazine which had been created at the beginning of my media course, therefore I was very knew to
these technologies as I had never used them before, and found it very difficult and confusing to use at
the beginning, it also did not make it any better that a majority of the class knew how to use it and also
felt confident using it whilst I lacked the knowledge. I tend to find new things very difficult to grasp, it
took a while but I am finally confident in using both photoshop and indesign.
My college magazine looks really rushed and has not been structured well as I wasn’t aware of the
different structures, and had not taken much notice in magazines- as I do not read them, I used my
knowledge in newspaper structures to guide me.

3. Colour scheme and masthead
My music magazine uses colours such as black, white, grey and red, whilst my college magazine
consisted of red,blue and black, which had no vibrant or unique colours therefore did not attract the
audience.
My college magazine is in very basic font, it is called ‘Leyton Lifestyle’ the masthead colour is red,
my music magazine masthead colour is black and red and I called ‘beat’.
I have created my
own masthead
which can relate to
my music magazine.
My college
magazine, which
has no creativity
or colour

4. As you can see to the right Is my music magazine and on the left is my College magazine, there is a
clear difference and you can see that I now have a better understanding in creating and distributing
magazines.
You can undoubtedly see that I have put much more time and effort on my latest magazine which is
a music magazine.

5. Difference between my first contents page compared to my most recent, it shows
that I have developed my skills and knowledge as you can clearly see that my
latest contents page is structured better along side various attracting colours,
good pictures and well structured content. Both college magazine and music
magazine have been created on Indesign.

6. • I have learnt a lot over the time period, since completing my preliminary task I have become more
confident in using technologies, I have also used a range of colours and content within my
magazine. I have learnt to structure my magazine to make it more appealing and attractive, many
little things attract a customer/ viewer.
This is my double page spread that
I have completed fort my music
magazine, you can see the
structure and the colour scheme
which makes it look like a real
music magazine and the colour red
makes the page look much more
vibrant with a full image on the left
for fans too keep.