What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Megan Finch

The software I have used to create my magazine...

• Photoshop• Indesign• Microsoft Word• Microsoft Powerpoint• Prezi• Slideshare

IndesignIndesign helped me to create my whole magazine and put everything together. I mapped out the basic structure and then Indesign to bring it alive, I was able to visualise what worked well and what didn't.I believe that Indesign was the best choice for making my magazine on, as it provided me with all the tools and access to things I would need. It was easy to paste things from Photoshop and other applications onto my magazine.

Photoshop

Using Photoshop has given me lots of skills which I did not have at the start of the year.

I now know how to use the snipping tool to remove backgrounds, crop photos,

filtering, blemish control and lots more. When creating my school magazine, I didn’t

know how to use Photoshop and missed out on making my pictures look bolder and

more professional where as my music magazine picture was high quality and I spent a

great deal of time perfecting it on the software.

When comparing my music magazine to my previous school magazine which I created at the start of the year we can already see my skills using Indesign and Photoshop are developing. I feel more confident now using the applications than I did before.My school magazine cover looks completely amateur for the reason I was new to Indesign, this was more of a trial run. Once I had taken the time to use the software, I became a whole lot familiar with the tools available, and soon produced my better quality and over all looking music magazine.

The fonts on my school magazine cover are all different and it is completely informal and wouldn’t be classed as a magazine. However, my music magazine has a good quality picture which I was able to edit the brightness, saturation etc of and use Photoshop to make it look presentable. My music magazine also includes the essentials of a conventional magazine structure such as the bar code and price tag. The stories on my music magazine cover are all to draw the audience in where as on my school magazine they have been crammed together and catch nobodies eye.

Comparing my contents page from my school magazine to my music magazine there is again an immediate difference in quality. Even though the target audience for both magazines are quite different, the music magazine contents page is much more professional and the pastel colours work well. Everything is lined up to perfection and the pictures are carefully edited on Photoshop where as on the school contents page, it seems like everything was rushed and shoved into boxes instead of editing them carefully. After researching conventional music magazine content pages, I immediately could see how amateur my school one is and how much could be improved. The fonts look tacky and the pictures are all from one photo shoot which I was adamant to improve when making my music magazine.

After researching conventional music magazines I noticed that most have an advert on the left hand side page. I thought this would be an excellent opportunity in my music magazine to create my own advert. I created a ‘Dior’ advert because young girls admire the adverts they have in magazines and it would be nice to include this which I didn’t in my school magazine.