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

As my first task on this course was to create a school magazine, I was able to grasp a good concept of what lay ahead and I had sufficient time and practice at developing and furthering my skills with various technologies, for example; Photoshop and InDesign, this enabled me to produce a high quality product.

I identified my strengths and weaknesses in regards to the software as I had plenty of time to practice. I used my time effectively and managed to create many different versions and figure out exactly what it was I wanted my products to look like. Because I had made a magazine product already, I had an idea of what worked well and how I should display my pages. During the research and planning stages, I looked into what styles of magazine appealed to my target audience most so I could produce my own magazine with confidence and have ideas of what I felt would attract my audience well. Through creating the practical work I have learnt about how to lay out the images and text in an effective way to attract the primary audience.

There is quite a difference in quality between my school magazine cover and my music magazine cover. My school magazine cover looks extremely amateur and pretty basic, the reason for this would be down to it being my first encounter with Photoshop and InDesign and it was more of a trial run rather than a piece of work which I was very serious about however my music magazine took a lot of thought and care, I took the time to think about how to make it effective and impacting. My aim was to create a professional looking cover and something that would really grab the audience’s attention. Through research I became aware that you need to create a bold magazine if you want it to stand a chance in this competitive business and so you will see an increase in the use of colour, fonts and sizing from my school cover to my music cover. I moved away from the dull colours that created a boring and depressive cover to vibrant and eye catching colours that draw people in. The words “Hunter Nash” and “Exclusive” are in a big and bold text with a drop shadow effect making it appear positive and lively, the words are not easily missed and are clearly a key aspect of the cover, whereas on my school magazine there is no such use of this therefore it is unclear which is the main story for the magazine.

There is a clear difference in usage of photographs in the two magazine covers. My school magazine cover photo is dull and colour looks awful, this is because I was just getting to grips with cameras and I didn’t understand how to get the white balance right. After this I learnt how to work the camera well and how to sort out the white balance on a camera. There was some positives which I drew away from the school magazine and incorporated into my music magazine and these were: It was clear what the magazine was going to be about, also I liked the position of the model on the cover. The page in my school magazine was dull, it doesn’t make me want to read it and so I don’t know how it would make the rest of the school want to read it. However my music cover photo is of ‘Hunter Nash’ and automatically the reader expects there to be a feature on this artist later on in the magazine. The model is looking straight at the camera and so directly at the audience too, almost as if he is grabbing the audience. The page is vibrant and cheerful looking. I would want to read this magazine and I believe that my target audience would too.

Overall, my music magazine is on the whole, a more professional looking magazine than my school magazine. It is an attention grabbing product and in my view would stand a good chance against other music magazines of this genre. I am very pleased with the 3 music magazine products and any changes I would make; would be extremely minor. I have learned a great deal through this whole process and that is portrayed when you compare the school magazine to the music magazine.