7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

• In my opinion I have improved massively since the start of my preliminary task to my music magazine. My school front cover was minimalistic and simplistic, in my opinion it’s quite dull and doesn’t sell very well. It doesn’t conform to enough of the conventions in order to draw attention which I think my music magazine does. It doesn’t include enough sell lines or anything interesting e.g. a puff or skyline. Considering what I am able to achieve now in my opinion it’s too simplistic. The only aspect I like is how I laid it out, although if I were to re-do it I would pay more attention to the photos and how these were shot as I could’ve done a lot more to make them more interesting. In my opinion a lot more research went into my music magazine and this is a contributing reason as to why it has come out so successful. In addition when I created my school magazine I wasn’t familiar with the programs e.g. Indesign and Photoshop and have developed greater skills and knowledge on how to use them whilst creating the magazines.

• As I have continued through these tasks I have learnt different terms and conventions that need to be applied in order for the magazine to be successful e.g. strapline, skyline, puff, masthead, sell line. Which then need to apply to the rule of thirds and the Z theory.

Front Page

My School Magazine

My Music Magazine

Contents • My preliminary task and my AS task contents pages differ

entirely. I can clearly see a major difference. My contents page for my school magazine lacks a sense of individuality and isn’t attractive or engaging to the eye. Something I did well with my school magazine contents was my ability to include a variety of photos which I then also did in my music magazine as it is a typical convention of magazines.

• In my opinion after my preliminary task my skills have developed entirely and has enabled me to create a realistic looking music contents page. From the preliminary task I think my typography skills have improved massively and my keen eye to use different fonts and placement of fonts has got better. I didn’t realise how important planning was in the first task and threw my contents page together whereas with my music magazine I had to think closely how a professional magazine would look and how the layout will affect my audiences perception. By doing this it lead me to create many different contents pages.

My School Magazine

My Music Magazine

Time Management • Learning time management • During the school magazine I panicked with timing and this

lead to me to not do as much research as I could have, I bared that in mind when creating my music magazine and managed my time well by creating a schedule to ensure I didn’t get myself into a similar issue with this task.Throughout my AS task I ensured I kept a tight schedule to allow me to complete the work at a comfortable pace without being overloaded with work. The schedule allowed me to finish my magazine at an earlier date so I had the time to make changes and improvements so it was at its best standard.

• My free periods were spent in the media suite as I wasn’t able to download the necessary software to complete my production at home. Though I had a schedule I didn’t think it pressured me at all, I treated it as a piece of homework or a task that needed attending to at a specific point and it helped me a lot in the long run.

Improving with Programs• InDesign was a difficulty for me during my preliminary task

and I wasn’t confident in using the software as the tools confused me. As I progressed onto my AS work, I gained a greater knowledge on the tools and what things did what and I think by having an awareness of some of the tools from my preliminary task it enabled me to broaden my range of skills in the second task.

• Editing in my opinion was a major aspect in the success of my magazine. Considering I didn’t have access to PhotoShop at home I used a website called ‘BeFunky’ which allowed me to edit my photos to a good standard with a variety of tools available. I was comfortable using this editing site and knew how to get the best result with my photos. In my point of view I am a lot better at editing photos in this task compared to my preliminary task as I am more adventurous with my editing and know how to manipulate pictures to get the best end result.

• Overall I think I have dramatically changed by comparing the two tasks. I think personally I was more interested in the second task and I had a greater control over what I did by being able to choose what genre of music I wanted and how I wanted it to look. I think it has ultimately affected by quality of work.

• I think I took it more seriously and understood how each convention impacts the quality of the final outcome, I took my photography more seriously which overall impacted my outcome making it seem a lot more professional. I also took the opportunity to use different programs to create texts and interesting versions of puffs to ensure my magazine would stand out. This furthermore ensured that the outcome of my music magazine was a lot better than my school magazine.