Looking back at your preliminary task, what do

you feel you have learnt in the progression from it

to the full product?

My skills with creating a magazine have

improved as my skills with software such as

Photoshop have improved too. My skills have

developed in using certain tools for example

text tool, lasso tool etc. which means that I

was able to use these tools more effectively

when making my actual product which

therefore made my product look more

professional.

Lasso tool and text tool practise

exercises completed in lessons

My skills with creating the magazine also

improved as I became more comfortable with

magazine terminology using wordclouds,

Wordcloud of magazine terminilogy created on ‘Jason

Davies Word Cloud’ website.

and by looking at professional magazines

with a similar audience (e.g. NME and MOJO)

FC of NME magazine

meaning that I was more aware of popular

and professional magazine layouts, forms

My preliminary task FC compared to my final product FC

Published 31/01/14 by Sophie Arthur

“I was more aware

from the beginning

that I needed to have

a detailed plan,”

and conventions when making my product

which I was able to follow. This means that

my product had a more professional looking

layout to my preliminary task. As my

preliminary task allowed me to have an

insight of how important it was to have a

detailed plan of my product before producing

the magazine, and to use my time effectively.

This means that when it came

to making my music magazine,

I was more aware from the

beginning that I needed to have

a detailed plan of how I was

going to spend each time period

of producing my magazine. As I was more aware of the tools Photoshop

allowed me to use before planning this

product, my plans were more realistic and

therefore easier to stick to when producing

my product.

The paper plans for my preliminary task compared to the

ones for my final product.

For example, when planning my preliminary

task I planned on using a font that didn’t

properly exist, and therefore had to spend a

lot of time on only the masthead.

When it came to making my product, I was

more aware of what fonts were available to

use and how long I should be spending on

the masthead in comparison to the rest of the

magazine. My skills with the software (for

example Photoshop, InDesign) have

developed in many different ways since the

production of my preliminary task. My

photography composition has improved as I

have learnt how to more effectively place

pictures and have chosen a more specific

place for each graphic feature to go, rather

than just placing them in the middle.

Central images used for my preliminary task and final

product.

The rest of my page layout and design has

improved as my skills have developed as I

have been more aware of ways to help my

product look more professional e.g. I learnt

how to orientate my text (using the text tool)

towards the right and learned how to place

parts images over other features (e.g. text)

using the magnetic lasso tool. My use of fonts

has also improved as I have better planned

my product to ensure that the fonts used are

consistent throughout the product, with a

specific font for a certain feature. I have also

been able to find and use fonts better suited

to the genre of my magazine as my skill of

finding fonts online and being able to transfer

them onto Photoshop has also improved. I

have selected a more appropriate mise-en-

scene for the images used in my product as

rather than taking the photo anywhere I

ensured that the settings, props, costumes of

the model and anything else important were

selected effectively to suit the magazine

genre. My research and planning that was

undertaken after creating the preliminary

task helped me to ensure that the content I

would include in my final product would be

relevant and suit the genre of the magazine

well. This contrasts to my preliminary task as

I has not seen a school magazine before and

did not look at the contents pages of any as

research, I just assumed what content would

be relevant.

My preliminary task contents page compared to my final

product contents page.