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

Preliminary Task- College Magazine Final Product- Music Magazine

Conventions and criticisms of my preliminary task:

Other feature stories included in my college magazine are way to detailed. To many different stories that I have tried to include and fit on to the front page which makes it look to crowded and unprofessional.

The Masthead is in very messy font and is only really small which the name of the magazine then doesn’t stand out to the readers because the size isn’t much different to the other stories on my magazine so it makes it appear not important to the magazine.

The other feature stories do not have a varied font style, this becomes very unattractive to the target audience and the readers as it is not eye catching at all.

The main feature story is very unclear and not appealing at all. The fonts are not clear and the pull quote is very small which doesn’t attract audience attention.

The skyline on my college magazine is in a very unclear font as the colour is very similar to the background colour so it doesn’t stand out and isn’t a sell point to readers because it is hard to read.

Font size is so small which makes it barley impossible to read. This would not encourage readers to even consider purchasing the magazine because it is hard to read the writing,

Main feature image has been poorly Photoshopped because it was the first time I had ever used the program, so the image is blurred and not large enough.

When we first got given the brief for the college magazine. The brief was to create a front cover for a college magazine and a mock contents page just a computerised box contents page. The preliminary task allowed me to learn conventions and codes in which are typical of magazine front covers, this then gave me a full insight in to what is needed for a successful front cover and let me explore some certain areas in which I could gain skills before beginning to construct my music magazine. When creating my college magazine it let me explore some different areas in which I could gain some skills ready for the product of my music magazine.

Layout of the magazine- When I started looking at existing college magazines I noticed the differences in the layouts of the magazines. It is important because where things are placed on the magazine could increase or even decrease the amount of sales. In my college magazine I hadn’t had much experience in seeing what is effective from a front cover and the feature stories are just placed everywhere and anywhere on the front cover and this made it look very messy and not attractive to the readers at all, also the barcode and price have been placed on the bottom left of

the magazine which is not usually typical, but with my music magazine it gave me so much time to research in to the layout out magazines and what is best way to set it out, as in my music magazine the main feature image is very large in the middle of the magazine which gives it the centre part and is the most important part of the front cover because it is attractive, I have only used a few feature stories instead of loads so they could be placed easily on the front cover at the sides and it makes it look more professional and systematic, as my college magazine does not

indicate the main story very well or clearly as m music magazine does as it is very large and placed at the bottom, but my college magazine was great in teaching me the codes and conventions to creating and effective magazine and my music magazine is a perfect example of displaying how I learnt the conventions and layout of music magazine and what makes them look good.

Photography- I didn’t know anything about taking photos when I started my college magazine. When I started my college magazine I learnt all the different camera angles and all the shots you could take photos at. The main feature image of my college magazine is a medium long shot and my music magazine is a medium close up image. I realised that learning how to use a camera properly and that lighting was important when producing my magazine because depending on lighting and actually the mis-en-scene around the image itself. With my college magazine I used

just a little handheld camera and I didn’t know how to change the settings or that lighting would effect the way the picture looked but after taking the many photos I had for my college magazine I realised that I needed to use the green screen room to actually take good photos and make sure the lighting was good for taking photos. With my music magazine my model has been placed in

the centre with a bright lighting and the model wore darker clothing so the feature stuck out and make it the most effective part of the front cover. The brightness was high as well which then made the model more visible. By adjusting the settings on my camera and becoming more used to the photography part of it my music magazine looked so much more professional and makes

her stand out against the rest of the magazine.

Photoshop- Photoshop is the software in which I used to create my college magazine and also my final product of my music magazine. I had never used Photoshop before, so by constructing my college magazine this gave me a little bit of time to get used to Photoshop and how it works, I didn’t know how to manipulate images and crop the backgrounds out and change hair colour, eye colour, lipstick and anything like that, till I could when producing my main product. By doing the preliminary task it helped me develop my skills and actually learn how Photoshop worked which

was very useful. My techniques have dramatically improved from my college magazine to my final product, this is evident because in my college magazine front cover the cropping from the background is very bad and not professional at all because it is really not smooth around the edges and I just left the photo with no editing to it. As with my music magazine I had so much more time to work at it and my Photoshop skills kept improving and this is evident because my model in my music magazine has had her skin healed, hair changed, lips made to appear brighter and lighting and contrast with the brightness have been changed to make the music magazine look so much more professional and I used the shapes on Photoshop and also added other images to my music magazine which I would have struggled with before. So by creating my college magazine first let me explore Photoshop and what you could do on it before I actually constructed my

final product.

Conventions College Magazine Music Magazine

Masthead. The Masthead on my college magazine is very small and I used a very unclear font which found it difficult to read and understand. Which made it unattractive to the reader.

My music magazine Masthead was shorter and a lot larger. It took up most of the top of the magazine which is appealing and then stands out against the rest of the front cover.

Barcode/Price/Issue. My college magazine had a barcode and price but didn’t actually the state the issue number which could be a put off to the readers because they don’t know what issue the magazine is up too.

I made sure my music magazine had all three because then this follows typical conventions of a magazine. By including a cheap price this then attracts my target audience and then by adding the barcode is just what is needed on a magazine.

Main Feature image. With my college magazine I hadn’t used Photoshop before so this image was blurry and not cropped very well. The image is not really in proportion with the rest of the front cover so this makes it look unprofessional.

I had, had more time on Photoshop with my music magazine and then I could spend more time editing my image. It is much more professional and the background had been completed removed, I changed the colours and brightness.

Plug. The plug was very simple and I just used a yellow circle tool and used a simple Photoshop font to add text to it. It was just very big at the bottom of the magazine and actually took up so much more space then I should have.

I had studied other music magazines by this time. I used the Leeds Festival official logo to advertise for tickets on this plug, I cropped the background from it and placed it on the plug which is appealing and attractive to readers.

Main Feature Story. The main feature story was not clear to the other feature stories because the font was unclear and not very large so this made it hard to decide which was the main feature story. Colours didn’t show up very well on the background as well.

The main feature story was very large and at the bottom of the music magazine to be the thing that gets noticed first. The font is very bold and the colour is a deep red which stands out from the rest of the magazine.

Other Feature stories. There was way to many other stories on the front of my college magazine, which made it messy and unprofessional. I used a large variation of fonts which made it hard to read.

I used three other feature stories on my music magazine which made it clearer and easier to understand. I put them in boxes with large writing so they was understandable.

Overall layout. The layout was not professional at all for my college magazine, the text was all over the place and the fonts were all different, this didn’t look right on the front cover because it was hard to read.

The layout is so much better for my music magazine because everything is set out systematically and is better presented so everything can be seen and read easily.

Colour scheme. I only used a couple of colours for my college magazine which made it very boring and not attractive to the audience at all. Made the fonts unclear.

I stuck to three colours of red, yellow and black. These colours are typical of the Indie genre, and is a convention of magazines sticking to about three colours. Looks bright and appealing.

Skyline and footer. I used a skyline for my college magazine which was snappy but was too small and didn’t go right across the top of the page and the colour didn’t go right with the background.

I decided against a skyline for my music magazine because I wanted a large masthead. But I used a footer to display Indie artists this looked so much better than a skyline.

Completing the college magazine was great in helping me understand

the codes and conventions which are linked to constructing a

successful magazine.

The college magazine let me explore what looks good and what doesn’t look effective

on my magazine.

The preliminary task really let me gain skills in Photoshop, without completing this I would have struggled with using this software to complete my final product, but I got to try all the tools and how to edit images professionally. This is was very useful in giving me an insight in to Photoshop because this is what I needed to use to actually complete my magazine. So it taught me where things should be placed on my magazine, what fonts I should use and colours. It really helped me improve my skills so my final

product looked as professional as it could.