Q7. Looking back on you preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in

the progression from it to the full product?

What have you learnt about the conventions of magazine productions and what progress have you made from the student mag?I have learnt that magazines must have a very similar format, but a twist on the way each of them are produced.

Be it through the house-style, or the layout, each magazine goes through a unique process in order to be distinguished on the market amongst a myriad of other magazines. From the student mag, I have learnt to make sure that all text is aligned neatly, and that everything looks as tidy and uniform as possible, because that is what makes a magazine look relatively realistic.

Working within a short space of time also allows you to think quickly and make snap decisions, so there is no room to dwell on mistakes or imperfections; the best thing you can do is learn from tem and find ways to make them apply to the next thing you work on- in media or anywhere else.

Did you think about every aspect of both productions and scrutinise every decision you made?I did not think the school magazine through as thoroughly, because I had a shorter amount of time to work on that one, so whatever imperfections were visible in that magazine, I took as a learning curve and a stepping stone towards the creation of the music magazine. Every decision I made in the music magazine, however, were heavily scrutinised to ensure that the best quality product was created at the end. The finished product isn’t perfect, but I tried my best with it, and there’s a lot I would change if I was to work on it further. I could develop the house style and implement more colour into the front page, and in choosing the fonts, I could have branched out a bit more and been a bit more creative.

I did tend to scrutinise each decision I made, but perfection can never be achieved and I made sure I did my very best to strive for anything close to it, and to be, most importantly, content with each part of my magazine: front cover, double page spread, and contents.

Did you think about the production as a journey from the initial sketching to the final product?I did my best to view the production process of my magazine as a journey, though it is quite hard to do that since it was a very fast paced one. I couldn't take my time in this instance, but in the future I would like to pace myself as much as I possibly can and view each stage as another milestone. There weren't many opportunities to step back and have an in-depth look at what I had created at each stage, but I was fairly pleased with the end result, although I can spot a lot of things I would do to tweak certain parts of my magazine.

What did others say about your magazine since you finished it?Quite a number of people were impressed with the final outcome, and liked the way that it looked. Only I of course, knew where my many faults were, however, they weren’t so noticeable. Many people gave positive comments, and we exchanged a few editing tips in addition to that.

Overall, people said that it looked quite professional, but most importantly, they could tell what genre I was trying to depict through this magazine.