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LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK (THE SCHOOL MAGAZINE), WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

Looking back at the school magazine I created, I felt that I have learnt a lot in terms of the programmes that I have used, I have used a lot more techniques and tools on Photoshop on my music magazine than my school magazine.

• From previous experience of creating a magazine with my school magazine, I felt I had a good understanding of what I needed to do.

• The target market/audience/social group changed dramatically between my school magazine and my music magazine. My target audience for my school magazine targeted just the pupils in my school whereas in my music magazine, I targeted teenagers and young adults everywhere within the 16-25 age range.

• As you can see from my school magazine in the previous slide, I was very inexperienced with what was needed to create an effective magazine that stood out and caught potential readers eyes, but during the whole creation of my music magazine, I learnt a lot of different techniques that improved the quality of my final product (Music Magazine).

Through good research I found out that the picture is one of the most important aspects in magazines. In terms of the picture I feel like I have learnt a lot as you can see from the transition of my school magazine picture and my music magazine picture. As you can see the picture on my school magazine that the model isn't facing the camera and wont attract the audience as they cant see his face. My music magazine is much more professional and effective. It is facing the camera and is looking directly at the potential customer, which will catch their eye and attract them too the magazine. With this I learnt that I have to make sure my model is clearly visible and face is visible, so the target market can be attracted and interested in the magazine.

• With my school magazine, I felt like I didn't’t know enough about the conventional techniques that magazines have. As you can see in my school magazine I had no idea of the conventions of a front cover photo, I just took pictures that I thought would look good on the cover, not what looked professional in real magazines. I learnt from this in my music magazine as I chose a good model to pose in a professional way in a good location.

• I also learnt that I needed to choose an image that is relatable in my music magazine. In my school magazine, although the image is relatable and you can tell it is in school, doing sports, the image isn't suitable and relatable because he is not looking down the lens of the camera, which is what most professional magazines do.

• Another thing I have learnt and improved on from my school magazine to my music magazine is the importance of the masthead. The masthead for my school magazine was not suitable for the title of a school magazine and looks very unappealing. Learning from this mistake I researched into different professional magazines to see how they have laid out their mastheads and the look I needed to create to make it look professional.

In the preliminary design I didn’t put any thought into how I wanted the colors of my titles to be portrayed, I just picked whatever looked good. As you can see from my school magazine I didn't’t put any thought into what colors suited the magazine. In my magazine I took this into consideration and researched other magazines too see what kind of color schemes they were using. With this I asked 10 students what colors they thought would be best suited to a blue background. The results were mostly bright colors like yellow. I decided that yellow was the best color for my masthead and other bits of text as it really makes the magazine stand out.

From the preliminary magazine one of the major things I learnt was how important the layout was. As you can see from my preliminary task, there's not really a layout, I just put things where I thought it looked good, but didn't’t lay it out in a suitable, effective way. On my music magazine, I tried to lay it out in a more effective way and I believe I achieved that.

• As you can see from my magazine front cover, contents page and double page spread, I edited some of the photos a lot to look more appropriate and used different editing skills such as spot remover and removing unnecessary background props. Editing is not something I did in my preliminary magazine which is why it doesnt look professional and like a real magazine whereas my music magazine does. I learnt that if I do not edit out what I think the target audience do not want to see on my magazine, then it would not get the attractive appeal I want it to have and achieve.

• In terms of relation between my two magazines I made sure I picked a model that was relatable to my target audience, that I set out to create my magazine for. By using a late teenager/young adult as my model, this would be something that my target audience can relate too and create a relationship between the model, magazine and reader.

• Another key thing I learnt was changing the font for different parts of the magazine. In my school magazine I only used about two fonts for the whole magazine. I learnt in my music magazine that if I wanted it too look professional, I would have to use a variety of different fonts. In all I used around 4-5 fonts in my magazine for the different aspects of the magazine.

• Another thing that I learnt from the preliminary to music magazine was that none of the stories in my preliminary magazine had relation to the main model on the front cover. This is very unprofessional and after doing research I found that big magazines such as Kerrang, Complex & Vibe always have a main story presented about the main model, presented in large beside the model. I took this into consideration and made sure my main model had a main story on my double page spread.

I think the main feature which makes my music magazine a lot more professional than the preliminary magazine was the quality of my music magazine compared to the preliminary magazine. The quality of my music magazine was much higher compared to my school magazine, this came down to all the aspects of the techniques I used, for example in my music magazine I used a professional dslr camera which a much higher quality whereas on my school magazine I used a lower quality camera. There were lots more aspects that made my music magazine a lot more appealing, eye-catching and of higher quality – the range of colors, the location, the model, the way the model poses, the layout and the stories all contributed to making my magazine look a lot more professional and of higher quality.