Looking back at your preliminary task, of designing the front page of a school magazine, what do you feel you have learnt in in the progression from it it to the full product?

From my first designing of the front page of a school magazine I have learnt many things about the different photo types, the page layout, about the deadlines and about research and planning.

From designing my front page of a school magazine I have learnt many things about photo shots such as composition and how it can affect the image, I also learnt that when taking photo’s you have to make sure they aren’t blurred and to make sure that they aren’t too light. I also learnt that when taking photo’s you have to consider what the model is wearing, how they appeal to your target audience, and what effect (mise en scene) it gives off. Also when taking photo’s I found out that there are many different effects that can be used, which is what I did on the front of my school magazine, however I realized that most magazines that inspired me such as XXL, VIBE and KERRANG don’t use effects on their images so I decided to not use any effects.

Since the creation of my school magazine cover and contents page I have also adapted the structure of the magazine cover and contents page. My first school magazine cover was structured similarly to my actual production work cover due to how this is an effective structure and due to how I was inspired to use this structure from magazines such as XXL, VIBE and The Source. However when structuring the contents page I decided to change the structure from the one used with the school magazine. I changed my contents page structure by having the image on the top half of the page instead to at the side like in the school magazine. I used this structure because it is very similar to the structure of the KERRANG contents page which inspired me.

When looking back at my preliminary task I also realized that I needed to improve my planning and research so instead of just improvising I researched other magazines such as XXL, VIBE, The Source and KERRANG which I used to help me plan, structure and format my production work to a higher and more efficient standard.

Since the preliminary task I also learnt important lessons about my organization and how it needed to benefit my magazine. My preliminary task organization was of a low standard due to how the contents page and front cover had basically the same layout. To change the organization of this I structured my front cover and contents page differently, by comparing them with other magazine layouts and how they where organized and used a similar structure.