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1. Looking back at your preliminary task,
what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
At the beginning of the year we started the courseby completing our preliminary task which meant
that we had to create a magazine for our school.Within this wehad to have a front page and
contents page. We took the images ourselves and chosehow we would design our front cover and
contents page. There is a very significantdifferencein my magazine at the startof the course, and my
magazine now. I feel that itshows how all of my skillshavedeveloped and what I have learnt to be
ableto do over a short time period.
The firstthingwe had to do was take some photos. For this,we simply went off around the school in
groups and took a few pictures which were unorganised,unprepared and of our choice, we did this in
lesson time. As it was unprepared, we did itin the clothes that we were originally wearing;therefore,
it would reflect the standard of magazine we would be creating. The group that I was workingwith
took about 20 photos and we only ended up using5 of them. I thought this was completely different
to when I was actually makingmy magazineas I prepared for it a lot more. I knew what my model
would be wearing and how my images were planned to come out. I made sure that I had drawn up
my sketches of what I wanted to have as an image and my initial ideasfor my pages, to get a rough
idea of what I was lookingto create. I also made sureI made myself aware of whom I would be
targeting my magazine towards when choosingthings such as the outfit, hair and makeup. In
comparison to my preliminary task,I took around 200 photos overall in my actual magazine
preparation.This meant that I had a lot more to choose from, allowingmyself a back up choiceif I
decided to change my mind. It meant I could play around more with my designs to see what images
would look better in certain places.
The main difference which came between my two magazines was the software that I made iton. The
preliminary task was madeand designed on photoshop, and my actual music magazinewas made and
designed on InDesign.InDesign was a new software to me but I found itrelatively easy to pick up on
with the help of others and when I was experimenting with new ideas. It allows you to get a better
view of where you magazine is goingand yiu can be a lot more creativethan you can on photoshop.
As itis easier to use than photoshop, ithelped me a lot because itmeant that my pages were turning
out to look a lotmore realisticand I could usedifferent techniques to improve my work. Although
Photoshop works to create magazines,InDesign is a more technical programme used by professionals
which obviously increased my overall skillsusingmedia software.
Whilstcreatingmy school magazineI had to usemy initativeas I hadn’t used photoshop before. I had
to experiment a lot when I was tryingnew things as I wasn’t surehow to do simplethings.As I was
new, I made my school magazinesimpleand basic. All of the text was in the same font and sizeand I
only used blue and green for the entire magazine which,because of the photo, was hard to read. I
only used these colours becauseitwas the matching colours of the images that I had used – green for
the grass on the contents page, and bluefor the bus on the front page. Again,comparingthis to my
final magazineis a bigdifference. I carefully choseall of the colours and they were all chosen to fit
with the style and the audience of the magazine so they look very effective. I then went on a font
website called ‘dafont’ and searched for a specific fontthat again would fit the styleof my magazine
and appeal to the target audience rather than usinga font that is already available.I thought this
would look a lot more effective in the long run, as itisn’tan ordinary look to my magazine, itlooks
creative.
Creating my music magazine has also taughtme how to editing photos includingcuttingout the
background and addingtints etc to get a better overall image. As I was new to media, I didn’t know
how to do this,but as time went on, I learntthat on Photoshop I have been ableto use slight

2. airbrushingtools to make sure my model looks ata high standard on my magazine. I didn’tdo this on
my school magazineas itwas at a lower standard,and my skillsand knowledge of the software wasn’t
developed as much. I found itfits my overall theme for my magazinea lotmore as it runs with the
target audienceI was aimingfor.