This document discusses a student's experience creating preliminary work and two music magazines as part of a course. For the preliminary work, the student tried out ideas and got familiar with software that could be useful. When creating the magazines, the student found it challenging not having all needed software and sticking to the timeline. The student improved at choosing fonts and colors, photography, layout, and including typical magazine elements in the second magazine. Overall, the experience helped the student develop technical skills in software like Photoshop and conventions of magazine design.

1. Student Magazine and Student Magazine

2. Preliminary Exercise
This was a task we did before we started making our music magazines. It allowed us to try
out ideas we had for our magazine and see what went well and what didn’t. As well as this,
it meant that we could experiment and get used to different types of software that may be
useful when constructing our music magazines.
I thought that this task was a very useful thing to do as it gave me new ideas and I was able
to look back at this piece of work when constructing my music magazine and maybe take
ideas that I had forgotten about and introduce it with my other pieces of work.
However, at some points it was hard not to just copy this piece of work or elements with in
it as for me if I have a piece of work in front of me I find like even if I am not realising it, the
work I produce comes out looking a lot like the other piece of work.
Overall I am proud of the student magazine that I produced, even though there were quite
a few things wrong with it as I looked back after producing my music magazine. As you will
be able to see in the next few slides, there are many improvements that I could have made
to make it better.

3. Front cover- Student magazine
• I both like and dislike the picture on this front
cover. I like how the girls look like the are
engaging and they look like they are students
and this fits in with the genre of the magazine.
However, I think it would have been more
affective if you could actually see their faces
more and with direct mode of address to include
the audience more. And also think it would have
been better if it was a closer image.
• The heading on the magazine doesn’t look
professional and I don’t believe it is large enough
that I catches your eye. If you compare it to the
rest of the font on the page it doesn’t really look
any different and it is meant to be the biggest
thing on the front cover.
• The font looks quite childish in a way. It doesn’t
look very professional. Also, the fact that some
of the text is outlined in blue doesn’t look very
professional in my opinion, although it does
make them stand out more, but it takes away
from the heading.

4. … Continued
• The page looks quite bare, it has large gapes
where there is not writing or anything. A reason
for this is that it would go into the image which
wouldn’t be very good. It just doesn’t look very
evenly spread out.
• “Different theme everyday” goes onto the
models hair a bit to much I think, as well as “Get
involved..”. This goes into the model on the right
to much and the text book.
• Not all of the writing is capitalized which I think
looks a little odd looking back at it.
• I like the colours used though. It has a contrast
between the different colours, like it has a light
green and then a darker colour of purple. I also
believe the black works well as it makes the text
seem more important and stand out.
• You also can’t tell what the main story is. It
doesn’t stand out and it should be clear and
large.

5. Contents page- Student magazine
• It doesn’t actually say contents on the page
which is a convention of a contents page. It
doesn’t clearly seem like a contents page in my
opinion.
• Heading isn’t big enough.
• I like how the writing is set out on the page and
how there is a large heading for each section
making it clear and east to see.
• I don’t think that the title of each feature is easy
to distinguish from the rest of the information. It
should be more bolded and easier to see as it
just looks the same.
• Part of the ‘plus’ at the bottom of the page is cut
off and this shouldn’t happen as it may lead to
less legible text.
• I think that the two top imagines (shown by the
boxes) should be the same size and split down
the middles as it looks a little odd and off
balance.

6. Hardest things to overcome
• When producing the magazines I found it quite
annoying as I didn’t have all of the software I needed at
home. For example, I didn’t have Photoshop so I wasn’t
able to edit the pictures for the magazine at home. This
meant that I had to put off doing some of it meaning
that I didn’t completely stick to the time I had planned
as it took longer.
• Trying to find fonts and colours that didn’t make the
magazine look childish was an issue I had to overcome.

7. How I progressed
When looking at both of the magazines, I think that I did the font and heading
better in my student magazines. As you can see below, the country pop one
looks a lot more professional and suited to it’s genre than enterprise note
does. The spacing on enterprise note is less accurate and some letter are
higher or lower than others. Both the colour and the font goes well together
for country pop and it looks less childish and more like one you would find on
a real published music magazine.

8. … Continued
My photography definitely improved from the student magazine. As you can see
below, they backgrounds are very different. The picture of the student magazine has a
less relevant and attractive background with just a grey fence and is very plain. But if
you look at the music magazine one it is much more appealing. I didn’t do much
editing on the student magazine picture at all, but for the music magazine picture I
changed the contrast and colour and made the models stand out more from the
background and used more of my skills to make it more attractive and different. As
well as this, the use of direct mode of address with the models looking at you for the
music magazine makes the audience more engaged instead of just looking at the
models engaging like it is for the student magazine.

9. … Continued
Another progression that you can see is the layout of the magazine. As you
can see below, there is a lot more space between the model and the text for
the music magazine. This is a good thing as it doesn’t cut into the model or
the image like the student magazine picture does.
On the student magazine front cover there are many things that have been
left off such as a barcode, competitions, taglines and buzz words . On my
music magazine I have included all of these things to make sure that it is
appealing and is a success.

10. What I have learnt from the
coursework
• From carrying out this coursework I have developed my skills with
using technical programs and software. Before I started, I couldn’t
use Photoshop and I have developed my skills and I can now use
many of the tools confidently. I had also never used audacity to
edit voice clips and I have improved my skills when using simple
software such as paint, word and PowerPoint.
• I have also developed my photography skills and different types of
shots.
• I have learnt many different codes and conventions from this
coursework. I have learnt how to set up a music magazine and can
apply all of these code and conventions to magazines. I am able to
spot these codes and conventions when looking at other
magazines and can explain them in detail.