“I was more aware

from the beginning

that I needed to have

a detailed plan,”

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do

you feel you have learnt in the progression from it

to the full product?

My skills with creating a magazine have

improved as my skills with software such as

Photoshop have improved too. My skills have

developed in using certain tools for example

text tool, lasso tool etc. which means that I

was able to use these tools more effectively

when making my actual product which

therefore made my product look more

professional. My skills with

creating the magazine also

improved as I became more

comfortable with magazine

terminology using

wordclouds, and by looking

at professional magazines with a similar

audience (e.g. NME and MOJO) meaning that

I was more aware of popular and professional

magazine layouts, forms and conventions

when making my product which I was able to

follow. This means that my product had a

more professional looking layout to my

preliminary task. As my preliminary task

allowed me to have an insight of how

important it was to have a detailed plan of my

product before producing the magazine, and

to use my time effectively. This means that

when it came to making my music magazine,

I was more aware from the beginning that I

needed to have a detailed plan of how I was

going to spend each time period of producing

my magazine. As I was more aware of the

tools Photoshop allowed me to use before

planning this product, my plans were more

realistic and therefore easier to stick to when

producing my product. For example, when

planning my preliminary task I planned on

using a font that didn’t properly exist, and

therefore had to spend a lot of time on only

the masthead. When it came to making my

product, I was more aware of what fonts were

available to use and how long I should be

spending on the masthead in comparison to

the rest of the magazine. My skills with the

software (for example Photoshop, InDesign)

have developedin many different ways since

the production of my preliminary task. My

photography composition has improved as I

have learnt

how to more effectively place pictures and have

chosen a more specific place for each graphic

feature to go,rather than just placingthem in the

middle.The rest of my pagelayout and design has

improved as my skills have developed as I have

been more aware of ways to help my product look

more professional e.g. I learnt how to orientate

mytext (using the text tool) towards the right and

My preliminary task compared to my final product

Published 31/01/14 by Sophie Arthur

are consistent throughout the product, with a

specific font for a certain feature. I have also been

able to find and use fonts better suited to the genre

of my magazine as my skill of finding fontsonline

and being able to transfer them onto Photoshop has

also improved. I have selected a more appropriate

mise-en-scene for the images used in my product as

rather than taking the photo anywhere I ensured

that the settings, props, costumes of the model and

anything else important were selected effectively to

suit the magazine genre. My research and planning

that was undertaken after creating the preliminary

task helped me to ensure that the content I would

include in my final product would be relevant and

suit the genre of the magazine well. This contrasts

to my preliminary task as I has not seen a school

magazine before and did not look at the contents

pages of any as research, I just assumed what

content would be relevant.

learned how to place parts images over

other features (e.g. text) using the

magnetic lasso tool. My use of fonts has

also improved as I have better planned

my product to ensure that the fonts used