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

                                                           (After)                                              (Before)

                                                         (After)                            (Before)

From creating my main coursework pieces, I have come to realise that good research is vital to creating a authentic magazine, and that it takes a lot of work and time to develop a good design.

In comparison to my preliminary task, I believe that the audience appeal to my music magazine is better as I have taken more care into the research i have conducted. From closely analysing existing music magazines such as Classic Rock, and Kerrang, I was able to build a better identity for my own magazine in terms of its layout, image, and content.

The research of other music magazines I conducted also helped me in how to develop my own magazine in a way that would appeal to my target audience. One thing I had to decide on was of the content of the double page spread. In the end I settled on an interview with a member of a band as i felt this would most appeal to my target audience. I also had to think about the mode of address, and the register used in the text in the double page spread e.g. whether or not i included swearing, or slang. Once again i referred back to existing music magazines for inspiration, and decided that including swearing in my journalism would suit my target audience in terms of the genre of music they listened to and their age.

In order to create a magazine that looked professional, I had to first develop my skills using photoshop in terms of the tools and techniques I used. I used the blending option stroke to outline certain words that needed to stand out from the background. I also used the various image manipulation tools to vary the contrast in colours on some of the images. I also used both the quick selection tool, and the magic wand tool to remove certain parts of an image, and to remove any white space behind an image. On the contents page in particular, I have varied the opacity of some coloured text boxes so as to not detract from the main image itself. In addition, I used the technique of text wrapping around the pull quote on the double page spread. I also used the photoshop ruler function when considering the layout of text on each page. This allowed my magazine to look more professional and tidy. Overall I believe the development in my photoshop skills has made my music magazine a lot better than my preliminary task.