Q7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your full project.

BEFORE - FRONTCOVER AFTER-FRONTCOVER

Preliminary Contents Page Final –Contents Page

Final Double Page Spread

Preliminary Front cover-picture

• My Preliminary front cover is very basic as I show know signs of knowledge of

conventions of magazines such as limited amount of colours that complement each other.

• Also I show very little presentational skills as the magazine seems very simple and you can clearly tell that there has been very little effort put into this piece of work. This was mainly due to my lack of experience and knowledge on technologies such as Photoshop which is essential when creating a magazine.

• Very simple font has been used and the variety of colours may appeal to a feminine audience instead of a unisex audience that I had wanted my magazine to appeal to. Also the colour scheme does not go well with my environmental background as the trees make it hard for the reader to read my sell lines as a result the reader will not find this magazine appealing as it lacks basic conventions such as colour scheme and the font.

• The magazine front cover is not attractive and eye-catching this is essential when trying to appeal to a young teenage audience.

Final front cover

• In my final front cover I have shown the range of Photoshop skills I have developed over this period

of time.• Also I think that I have made my front cover very conventional therefore it adheres to many

conventions of a typical music magazine • For example: The main models pose that centers on the page, use of limited amount of colours,

barcode and website and a the title of the magazine at the top of the magazine. These conventions in making sure my target audience recognize my magazine as a music magazine as it holds all basic conventions that are associated with music magazines.

• In making my magazine I used the Photoshop skills I developed through early stages of production such as using the blur tool and using the clone tool to make my hair look more realistic and to get rid of all the small areas of background that remained in the hair .

• I also took a great deal of effort into finding a font appropriate for my genre hip-hop and R&B genre. When I found the right font I easily inserted it onto Photoshop and was able to resize it to fit into my front cover .

• I have also made my magazine £4.99 a price that most magazines not only in my targeted genre have. This front cover is also attractive as it is red a bright colour and has many superlatives used in it.

Preliminary contents page

• As you can see my preliminary contents page is very basic and lacks many fundamental conventions contents pages need like images .

• There are many things that my preliminary contents page lacks when compared to my final contents page:

• 1.Presentaion- my contents page lacks style this will lead to a lack of interest from my target market. The text should be made more eye catching by using different forms of punctuation and colours.

• One of the fundamental flaws in my contents page is lack of imagery. One of the main features that appeal and attract an audience is pictures as it gives them an idea of what type of magazine it is and what it has to offer further inside the magazine. By having no images my magazine looks boring and is unable to draw the reader in as they don’t have much of an idea of what the magazine is, it may specialise anything for all they know this is unconventional.

• Overall, I would say that this whole contents page has very few conventional aspects of a school magazine therefore is unable to draw in the target audience as they may be unaware of what the magazine is and offers. This also makes it look unprofessional so it will therefore this may lead to a lack of appeal to many people targeted.

Final Contents Page

• As you can see I have learnt a range of skills that I incorporate into my Final contents page • As you can see I put a lot more effort into the production of my final contents page than my first contents

page. • By consistently using a limited amount of colours in my front cover, contents page and double page spread I

was able to make them all ties in and look .• There are more than one image’s used in my contents page unlike the preliminary work. This gives the

audience a taste of what the magazine contains.• By looking at many Kerrang Contents pages which successful fill the page with not only a lot of contents but

pictures to I decided to do the same this gives the effect that the contents page is full with allot of content. Keeping the reader interested.

• There are also many unique features in this contents page that help distinguish my magazines from other’s from the same genre like XXL and Vibe. For example the website and front cover(re-sized) next to the editorial. This shows effort and thought in production. That might appeal to the audience as it shows the editor has taken time to write about this issue suggesting it is very detailed and offers a lot.

• Also my editorial indicates that I am trying to target a specific audience which is evident through the use of language which only people with certain interest could understand and be familiar with.

• Overall, I believe that this contents page shows my progress and development of the little Photoshop skills

had at first. E.g. Well cropped images, framing for pictures and shapes, the use of clone tool, and blur tool.

Double Page Spread

• Unlike my contents page and front cover this is my first time creating a double page spread. Therefore this piece of work shows my developments an advancement of PhotoShop skills.

• I use many conventions which are typical in a double page spread such as a floating quote this is effective as it draws the reader in to this specific section as many readers are not often bothered reading the whole article the floating quote makes sure they are drawn into this specific section which may be very interesting to their personal interests.

• A big image is used of my artist in the studio this is essential as it gives my readers the opportunity to take a look at this artist in the studio which many fans from my target audience often desire to see where the “magic takes place” this will therefore attract my audience.

• The questions I asked my artist and her response are highlighted in different colours which still fall in order my colour scheme. This is essential as it allows the reader to skim through the article and read which question and response to a specific issue they are fascinated by. This will save them time but also may appeal to them as it is easy and straightforward to read.

• Overall I believe my double page is very well very presented and simple. This is conventionally seen in other Hip Hop and R&B magazines as they are trying to draw focus to the artist .

• Taken as a whole, I believe that I have improved immensely from when I started of in the preliminary process especially in in my ability to use the Photoshop tool as I have had little previous experience with this. Also my ability to carry out sufficient market research that is vital in for my decision making has improved as am now able to extract data needed and directly effecting my work. Communication with my target audience has also improved . This has been partly learnt from the research and planning process as my analysis of many different genres of music magazine has allowed me to see how actual editors target their audience. I learnt that using superlatives, appropriate register and direct mode of address are the most effective ways of communicating with your audience as they are typical conventions often found in magazines therefore they can recognise this convention.. I have also learnt many presentational devices that help you attract your target audience. E.g. Use of colours, images, cover lines and special effects. My Photoshop skills have developed vastly this is clearly seen in the progression from my preliminary to actual final magazine. I am now able to crop pictures properly, manipulate images and text to fit around a specific object or image, remove unwanted images and objects . the composition of my text is now more conventional and accurate, this has helped me target my specific audience more effectively. Lastly, I have learnt a lot about the conventional aspects of every music genre especially The Hip Hop and R&B one, as this is the genre I choose to specialise in.

Images of music magazines including mine