Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task (the

College magazine), what do you feel you have learnt in

the progression from it to full product?

Holly Peacock

College Magazine

Music Magazine

When comparing my college magazine with my music magazine, it is clear that my skills have developed hugely. These skills include InDesign skills, Photoshop CS6 skills and also photography. When I created my college magazine my skills were very basic and limited. This was due to the fact I wasn’t fully familiar with the software we were using when producing this. Now, I have a much deeper understanding of how to use these software’s and how they can really benefit my magazine, giving it a sophisticated, professional and realistic view.

When I was creating my college magazine I literally had no proper skills for designing or an exact idea of how I would approach it. For example, I struggled with cropping and removing the backgrounds from images. This was due to the fact that I didn’t know which tools were used for what. When removing the background of this image, I used the eraser which was very time consuming and doesn’t look suitable. It is very messy with rough edges, showing a lack of skill and also knowledge. Now I know that even if the edges of an image look rough, you can take advantage of the different effects and filters Photoshop has to offer. I found out that Photoshop is the most suitable program to use when editing images, graphics etc. This is as InDesign is very much focused on text, layout and designs. Photoshop is much more complex and allows you to do various things to improve the full presentation of images. Not only this, but I didn’t know how to edit the colouring, saturation, contrast and so on of images. Therefore, when I created my college magazine I opted for making my image black and white as it was the easiest and quickest option. Even with this, the image looks incomplete and very unprofessional. Now, when I created my music magazine I had a much more wider knowledge of how to work each software and also how to fully manipulate them in order for them to benefit my magazine’s overall look. Before adding my photo’s to my magazine, I ensured that I had enough images and that they were suitable for the image of my magazine. This was useful as it meant that I didn’t rush my work and use the few images I had. I took time and precision which was the first step to creating a proper magazine. Then, I used tools such as the magnetic lasso tool which allowed me to remove backgrounds or enhance them. However, due to this, I decided not to remove my background in the end as it reinforced the text and other graphics, especially on the front page. When researching other magazines, which I used for inspiration I identified that it’s not required to remove a background from an image on the cover. This prevented white space which looked unprofessional and like I’d run out of things to put on the cover. The background also enhanced my text by making it stand out amongst the bright colours and making it eye catching to the audience. Furthermore, I also edited my images by changing the colouring to a red tint which fit in with the overall house style and main colour scheme of the text. This meant that my magazine had a full finish to it as it all fit in together but stood out at the same time. When I created my college magazine I was oblivious to knowing that this was available to do.

Not only this, but when I was creating my college magazine I struggled with how to manipulate the text to make it enhance the magazine fully. On my college magazine, it is clear I had basic skills on how to use ‘standard’ text only. I didn’t really consider how colours work together and stand out. Therefore, I often used dark colours on top of a darker colour. For example, on the cover of my college magazine, I used dark red on top of a black box and this wasn’t effective at all. This is because it doesn’t look appealing, nor stand out amongst everything which it should. Therefore, this meant that my magazine looked quite plain and unprofessional. Now, with my music magazine, I fully took advantage of what I could do with the text, such as the extended T for Tennessee on my front cover. This was for effect to emphasise it, so it would sound more exciting to the audience. Moreover, the colour also worked well with my photograph, not taking away any of it’s importance. Furthermore, when I was creating my music magazine I discovered that you can carry excess text over onto the next college by clicking on the yellow button on the text box. This was helpful as it wasn’t as time consuming or messy as it was previously, when completing it manually.

On the contents page of my college magazine, it is very bare and full of ineffective white space. This doesn’t look appealing at all to the target audience. It looks very dull and boring. Especially the use of the text and image do not work well together because they both look like they are just there for the sake of it. This is not what I intended, but the writing needs to make a link with the text. Moreover, the block text is all a similar size which doesn’t highlight the different hierarchy's of importance on the magazine, so it can all be a bit confusing to the audience. The white space makes the page look very informal and you know the magazine isn’t going to be very good. Therefore, when creating my music magazine contents, I actually focused on what the audience wanted with the contents and different parts were emphasised more than others due to their importance. This worked by me giving different parts of information, such as the features different sizes to the rest of the page. I put parts in different sizes so people would notice the bigger ones first and know they’re most in context and important. The images work well with the text as they each promote each other and stand out to the audience, giving the initial message of music to them.

When I created my college magazine, I didn’t really do a proper, in-depth research of other magazines and how they interpret different magazine conventions within their productions. This resulted in during the production of the college magazine, not really knowing what else to do. Whereas, on the music magazine I always had something I knew I should be doing or adding to the magazine to constantly improve it. This helped a lot as I had ideas from other magazines which worked as a guide to me. As I didn’t have a clear image of what I wanted to create with the college magazine, it meant that I often ended up with irrelevant things placed all over the magazine, that didn’t really appeal to the audience. So also, I learned about what exactly the target audience of my magazine likes and how to involve them in my magazine.

On the college magazine, the audience is very mix and matched. Therefore it means that it featured a lot of irrelevant information to most people. For example, like it listing a range of artists such as Katy Perry to Arctic Monkeys who normally appeal to different types of people. This can mean that it isn’t as successful and people would find it boring due to it not fitting in with their interests. Therefore, when I was creating my music magazine I made sure that it appealed fully to the target audience and stayed that way all throughout the process.

Overall, I have learned that you always need to take time and precision when creating a magazine as such. This means that you will be able to learn how to use different software's, especially by not being afraid to experiment with the different tools they have to offer. Also, it is important to use your own ideas and try to inco-operate different aspects of other magazines all in one. This meant that my final production of my music magazine was effective and had a professional approach to it. It is vital to always refer back to your target audience as they’re the reason you’re creating your magazine, also you need to actually include information of what your magazine is about, other wise it is entirely pointless. Planning previously to your creation of the magazine is very useful as you will always know how you want things before you actually create the magazine. Now, it is obvious that different genres of music tend to each have a generic style and approach to how they create their magazine with all different kind of factors. These include the language they use, the width and shape of text they use, the images and the overall colour scheme etc. The image has fully transformed into a much more professional approach and just generally more appealing.