Looking back at my preliminary task, what do I feel I have learnt in the progression from it to

the full product?

By Brigit Gunton

Preliminary task – College Magazine Final product – Music magazineFront Covers:

Some of the text is on top of the same colour.

The background has lots of colours going on which makes it hard to add text on top of.

The lighting on the image isn’t very well planned, as you can see the reflection on the background. Also the image is perhaps too close up for a magazine cover.

The text is bolder, with a drop shadow added so it is easier to read.

There are more professional details added such as the issue number, date and price.

The photograph is more thought out, with better lighting, background and props (such as cigarette) to portray target audience.

Contents page:Preliminary task – College Magazine Final product – Music magazine

The layout of the college magazine isn’t very neat and there is no real order of columns, with text and pictures organised and incidentally blank space, where as the final product, is colour coded for each section and in one neat column making it easy to read. Also the contributors section at the bottom adds something different and makes it stand out from normal contents, as it makes it feel more personal to see the people who make it.

Small added detail that shows it is more thought out such as the quote from the interview.

The stages I went through when creating my music magazine...

Research• Audience• Market

Planning• Pitch• Layouts/flatplans• Stylesheet• Planning photographs• Planning articles•

Production• Image manipulation (more complex such as smudging and sharpening)• Text manipulation (e.g. Drop shadows)• Layout design & manipulation

However I didn’t go through the same processes when creating my college magazine. As I missed out both stages of research, audience and market. I didn’t create a pitch or plan my articles. I simply drew a rough sketch of some flat plans, went out took the photos and put it all together whilst making the headlines up. I also used simple photo editing tools such as the brightness and contrast levels.

Main Tasks...Activity Technologies Skills LessonsPhotographs Using a camera Composition, props and

angles The first set of photos for my college magazine were taken with not much thought gone into what the photo was representing. Such as the location, the clothing and the model used. Where as when it came to my second photos, I chose the character to fit my genre and image, then added props such as a cigarette. I also considered things such as the light and the angle.

Creating my articles Microsoft Word Good vocabulary, literacy, composition etc.

My first articles were not planned which meant I had to try and make them up as I went along. This faced me with many problems such as the articles not being as easy to think of and not as specific to the magazine genre. Although my second articles were targeted at exactly the age, type and style of audience I wanted it to be.

Creating the flat plans Photoshop and drawing Organisation For my college magazine I only drew about 1 or 2 flat plans and they were quite similar, which didn’t give me much choice or variation. So in the planning for my final product I made more of a variety. I also analysed existing product layouts to gain inspiration, which I did not do in the preliminary task.

Using Photoshop...Activity Technologies Skills Lessons

Adding Drop shadow Photoshop Photoshop tools I learnt to use this on my final product as it is an essential tool to make text stand out. You can also change the colour and direction of the drop shadow and use an inner shadow.

Changing sizes Photoshop Photoshop shortcuts and tools Although this sounds easy, there are short cuts and keys to learn to change the size of images to make sure they don’t get pixelised.

Using Layers Photoshop Photoshop tools In my college magazine, I simply used the basic layers and learnt to put them higher up in the list to come out on top. When I got to my college magazine I experimented with putting slightly different but similar layers on top of each other to create effects with the photos and also how to rasterize layers.