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

The front cover for my preliminary task

This is my preliminary task's magazine front cover, since finishing this i have learnt a lot about the processes that go into making a magazine and how to produce one. I believe this development can be seen when looking at a comparison of both my school magazine and my music magazine, this comparison can be seen below

I feel i have learnt a lot from doing my preliminary task and then my final music magazine, one of these things is how important a masthead is on the front cover of a magazine. My school magazine's masthead is extremely poor in my opinion looking back, this is due to the masthead being essentially the same colour as my background, thus making it camouflaged  and blending in. This means that the masthead is very hard to make out and read. However i feel i have learnt from this in my music magazine because i have deliberately made my masthead stand out here, this is managed by using an unconventional text and bold image inside it.

Another way in which i feel i have learnt from the progression in magazines is about photography. In my first task my photography is of a low standard, making it look extremely unprofessional. For instance the model itself is looking sideways on the cover, this is going against a convention as one convention of successful music magazines is having the model looking into the camera when the photo is taken, this makes the model look at the reader who picks up the magazine. I have learnt from my school magazine that this side view doesn't work and i don't like it, so in my final product i have over come this problem and shot a canted angle of my model, holding a boom box and looking aggressive. However unlike my preliminary task the model is facing the camera. Also in my school magazine the cover shot hasn't been edited much, i took the shot and in paint cropped the head out, meaning it wasnt edited to remove skin blemishes, or sharpen the image, or brighten up the face as its looking dark. On the other hand this realisation was good for me because it meant that my final product was as i made sure i edited it heavily, to make it look like a more professional image.

From comparing these two covers i can also see that i have learnt to use the boxes, which house the straplines more effectively, in my preliminary task the shapes are big and bulky and just dont create a higher standard where i have used them. However i have learnt from this and in my music magazine chosen much greater shapes by just picking rectangular boxes and adding text to them. To make them stand out more i have used alternate colours form my house style, to increase the simple effect. In my opinion i can see that less is more when it comes to the layout, a more neater and simpler design makes for a better cover.

The contents page for my preliminary task

This is my preliminary task's magazine contents page, since finishing this i have learnt a lot about the processes that go into making a magazine and how to produce one. I believe this development can be seen when looking at a comparison of both my school magazine and my music magazine contents pages, this comparison can be seen below

After looking at this comparison i have learnt quite a lot about contents pages themselves, and how they work and how to make them effective.

For instance you can see that the layout for my preliminary task wasn’t that well planned, it also didn’t work. To build on this i researched this a lot to find a layout for my contents page that would work. I came across the older layout for the NME music magazine, and thought that i could use this layout to model mine. I believe by doing this i have learned how to essentially make a really effective contents page, which is easy to understand and easy to follow, also looks good for the eyes of the reader.

I have also learned that a contrasting house style colour scheme, like mine works quite well. Because the bold blue works with the red to make the text inside the boxes stand out. This i have learnt also makes my contents page look more professional and ultimately clearer when reading.

Oh the whole i have learnt that there is a lot on time, planning and preparation that go into creating a magazine. I have also learnt that to have a successful magazine you need to get sort out the brand identity, house style and target audience before you start to produce your ,magazine as this makes the overall project easier due to you knowing how to approach your magazine. Anotther thing i feel i have learnt from the progression is that you need to make titles and subheading clear , and stand out to make the contents page more effective.