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

Front Cover

From the preliminary magazine to my final front cover I think I have learnt a number of skills in order to make my magazine look professional. In order to make my magazine look more professional I looked closely as real magazines such as ‘CLASH’, ‘LOUD AND QUIET’ and ‘DAZED AND CONFUSED’. By doing this, I learnt how other magazines attracted an audience which was similar to my target audience. On the preliminary magazine my picture was in the studio at school but for my final draft I decided to take pictures outside and also use pictures in the studio. This enabled me to develop my skills with cameras and lighting to ensure that my pictures where the best quality they could possibly be, when taking pictures for my preliminary I didn’t use a tripod however for my final magazine I did to ensure that my images were clear and not blurred. I decided to take pictures out side because I thought it would attract a greater audience because it is more colorful and I think the picture looks more aesthetically pleasing then the preliminary. I also think that I have developed my presentation through things such as the font I have decided to use. I think the font in my preliminary does not suit the a magazine whereas the font on my front cover of my final magazine is more suited to the magazine of my chosen genre. I think I have learnt how to be inspired by magazines through looking at them while still maintaining my individual style.

I have also researched how much I think my magazine should cost and therefore added a barcode onto my front cover. I decided to make my magazine £4.00 because I thought that this meant I could make the best quality magazine while creating a profit for myself.

Contents page

I also think I’ve improved from my preliminary contents page to my final double page as I have looked at real magazines when trying to make my magazine look as professional as possible. I decided to make my contents page busier by using more images and also more information about the content. I think that this makes my magazine resemble a real life magazine from my genre because magazines from the indie genre tend to have a busier contents page. I was also inspired by clash’s ‘clean’ layout so I feel my final draft has a number of inspirations as I think it looks clean but at the same time. I think my images are of a much better quality on my contents page. I also used a variety of backgrounds for the images on my contents page.

Double page spread

Although I did not do a double page spread the skills I developed from making my front cover and contents page have enabled me to make a successful page. I learnt how to take good quality images, use fonts that looked good and also how to write an article by looking at styles used specifically to certain genre magazines.