I've learned several important lessons from completing my magazine project. For the front cover, I learned about genre-appropriate aesthetics and how to select more professional, high-quality images and design. The photography, styling, and layout created a more polished feel. For the contents page, spreading content across two pages rather than one sheet allowed for a cleaner design. I also learned that repeating the main cover image and choosing more formal colors and fonts resulted in a more professional end product that better followed magazine conventions. Completing this project helped me appreciate the effort involved in magazine design.
2. Front Cover
I’ve learnt, especially in Photoshop, the difference of magazine aesthetics when placed in genre. My two products, when
compared, are very different and this is due to genre. Because of my chosen genre, I learned to keep to fairly formal, stark,
simple colour scheme, as compared to my college magazine’s vibrant, almost playful colours. I learned also how to produce
a more professional and apt images for my front cover. The photography is of better quality than that of my preliminary task.
The mise-en-scene is far better too, my model in my product seems very apt for the genre, and though my model in my
preliminary task fits, it seems somewhat less professional. I also learned that sometimes it is better not to overlap the main
image with cover lines so as to give a more dramatic effect as well as enhance the importance of the model. I also learned
to utilize space better and keep to a single image for the main cover. I’ve also learned that skylines are not always needed. I
feel my colour palette I used in my product are much more professional to those that I chose in my preliminary task. I’ve also
learned that the front cover of magazines are very changeable, including that of a single magazine company—a
magazine’s layout often changes per week, and these tasks allowed me too appreciate the effort involved in this.
3. Contents Page
I feel I learned the most in my contents page when producing my product in comparison to the
work of my preliminary task. One of the largest changes was the fact that I quickly found that it is
much easier implement content over a space of two pages rather than one singular A4 sheet. I
learned that repeating the main image from the front cover is not often adherent to the
conventions of magazines. My colour scheme, again, I felt was far more effective, my product
had a far more formal effect than the work produced in my preliminary task. I also felt that my
choice of background colour was better. The font I used was more effective and also my studio
photography was one of the greatest changes to that of my preliminary task.
