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

I’ve learnt a lot in the progression from the preliminary task which was to create a college magazine to the full product which is my music magazine. One of the things I’ve learnt/ realised was that by doing planning and research before carrying out my music magazine, it had a huge impact on the outcome of my magazine. I was able to have a full understanding of what and how real music magazines make their music magazines so successful and in drawing their target audiences. This was something I didn’t do when creating my college magazine therefore the outcome wasn’t very good because I didn’t use the rules and conventions of real magazines; it didn’t look like one, even though I included things that are put into real magazines such as the cover lines, selling line, and barcode and so on. So I learnt that before doing something especially when creating a magazine that research and planning is really important.

Comparing my college magazine to my music magazine, you can identify that I was unaware of some of the tools used in Photoshop which I used in my music magazine to make it look more professional such as: Using strokes around pictures and texts to make the text stand out and the use of the curve tool to make the model more interesting to look at because of the editing, toning and brightness/contrast used.  I was also unaware of the website ‘dafont.com’ which I discovered through doing research and planning and now there’s a clear change from the masthead in my college magazine to the one In my music magazine.

  Time management was another thing I learned in the progression from the preliminary task because I didn’t have/ spend as much time in creating my college magazine in comparison to my music magazine. My media teacher looked over my work and was pleased as I completed all the tasks, finished early and had time to spare as this meant I could check over my work and make sure there was no mistakes made.

Also, I learned how to produce good quality pictures with the camera I used. When taking pictures for my college magazine the pictures weren’t really good in terms of the lighting on the front page of my college magazine, and then drastically changed to a bright photograph on the contents page.

I learned also that putting writing over the picture isn’t really a good Idea because as you can see in the contents of the college magazine the writings not really clear and you cant read it; It clashes with the background. This is where the guide tool and new guide tool comes in which helped me structure where on the page to put my pictures and text which was done clearly and successfully in my music magazine.

In addition the uses of colours weren’t really thought about as I used loads of colours and didn’t stick to or plan the theme colours I wanted in the college magazine. Whereas, in my music magazine I challenged that and done the complete opposite. I chose the theme colours I wanted my magazine to have and then stuck with those colours throughout the magazine (In the contents and double page spread.)