Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt the progression from it to the full product?Looking back on the preliminary when I made my school based magazine, I have noticed that my knowledge of Photoshop has expanded increasing. I have learnt what the main tools are used for and I learnt many techniques. I think that it was useful to have conducted the preliminary task before moving onto the main task as it helped me learn basic Photoshop skills and conventions of a front cover, contents page and double page spread. I feel like I understood the conventions of magazines better than I did before, by analyzing different, magazines I now understand how music magazines have used different features to attract and address their audiences. I then knew how to approach my magazine as I found out what conventions encourage readers to pick magazines up. There are a lot more features that I now understand since doing the main task, which has an overall better and professional appearance than my preliminary task.

Examining both of these pieces of work together I can see how much my skills have developed:My masthead for my preliminary was very basic and not very colourful; it was boring, placed on a white background with lots of space which wasnt filled in.

For my main development, I produced a colourful bold font that incorporated my genre well. It was predominately placed in at the top of the page where all my readers can clearly view the magazines name.

I took basic images around college for my first photo shoot, but when it came to the main task I used images from a different area to appeal to my target audience and genre.My preliminary task was very basic in terms of typography and images; I used the same basic fonts throughout the preliminary task. Therefore I used two different fonts within my main magazine; this created an outstanding composition which appeals to the audience.

The original preliminary task was lacking colour. During my main task I decided to edit all my images and like them in with my social class of young unskilled workers within my genre. This made my compositions strong and created a large contrast between my prelim and main piece.When creating my preliminary production, I didnt use grids to line up and split my work into sections; therefore it wasnt concise and didnt convey a professional looking front cover.

As you can see from the images above the presentation of my music magazine is much more advanced and professional, it contains more conventions and is able to address an audience more effectively. As I learnt a lot more about the conventions I was able to include more onto my music magazine, for example a puff, I didnt know beforehand what one was and know I am able to include it in my magazine in the correct way. I have contained and used the conventions well, whereas Ionly included around two or three on my school magazine that werent use effectively, but to just fill the space. I believe my understanding of magazine conventions and forms have improved a lot than before, I learnt through analysis of music magazines what features work good to attract an audience, as well as my audience research.

The puff I used is on my magazine as a short snippet of text to gain my audiences attentions, this was an effective way of during in the interest of my target audience. It is also a key convention within my magazine, allowing me to direct my focus to my viewers by linking the text back to my indie festival genre.

Mast Heads

My final products in comparison to my preliminary products are much more detailed in terms of the layout and pictures. Looking at the fonts on my preliminary, they seemed really basic and plain which made the whole products unprofessional and not appealing, however, on my final products the fonts I used differ greatly as I spent a lengthy period considering which fonts to use and not to use. I feel my photo shoot was more successful in my main task. The reason for this is because it was all preplanned based on audience researching. I was able to evaluate my audience research and incorporate it into my final piece. I took into account everything; location, shot types/angles, editing, mise-en-scene and genre.

In comparison to the masthead of my college magazine, the masthead I created for my magazine is a lot more sophisticated and unique. This is because I have been able to download new font styles ad model it in my way and style. With the help from dafont, I created a masthead that links to the genre as it is bolder and it stands out.

My overall knowledge of software has improved enormously. I have learnt new techniques on Photoshop and Quark as well as gaining skills that helped me make a professional looking music magazine. As I was completely new to Photoshop at the beginning, I didnt even use the software within my school based magazine, however as you can see my photo editing on the music magazine has increased massively, just from one glance of my front cover. My design skills are greater than before as I know how to make a page look professional and appealing to the potential buyer, by just changing simple things like fonts can make a big difference in the quality of the magazine. With the research I have got a much deeper incite to my audiences wants and needs to help gain more information and knowledge about what they like including.

I think I have developed critical evaluation skills through the collaboration of my magazine evaluation. Before I started this project I didnt think I would be able to create such high standard, high quality final product, but know I have completed everything I am extremely happy with my product, the evaluations and the skills I have learnt. I have specifically learnt that you need to know the back ground behind a genre and then an audiences wants and expectations to be able to complete a magazine effectively.