Evaluation question 7

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

Throughout the creation of my second magazine I learnt many new skills that therefore showed improvements in the final outcome of my music magazine compared to my preliminary task which was a school magazine.
Front Cover

When comparing the front covers of my music magazine and my school magazine there are noticeable improvements. I started each magazine cover by taking the main image and as you can see the music magazine (on the left) is a lot clearer and has a better quality image than my school magazine (on the right). This is due to the fact that I learnt the skill of using a professional camera (Canon 600D) where as I only used an Iphone5c for my school magazine which is only an eight mega-pixel lens. Not only was the camera quality better for my music magazine I had access to a white background studio with  LED lighting that also improved the quality whereas only natural lighting was used for my school magazine. During the creation of my school magazine I faced many challenges using Photoshop and found myself very confused at times but  perceived on to make it the best I could. Before I started the main construction of my music magazine I watched tutorials on YouTube where I developed key knowledge that helped me create an improved music magazine. I learnt how to enlarge my background image therefore in my music magazine there isn't any dead space due to the image filling as much as possible where as the image on my school magazine is very zoomed out. I also learnt how to effectively layout my music magazine by taking inspiration in my research and planning from magazines that I'd seen and liked, for example I added more cover lines to my music magazine and included a bold strapline. I ensured that I added popular artists and bands because I learnt that this was a way that I could attract different audiences who enjoy there music which would make them want to read the magazine. It is important to have a clear colour scheme that isn't bland so it makes the cover interesting and that is why I used the colours red, white and black because they go well but also contrast each other at the same time which helps them to stand out. In my school magazine I stuck to the colour scheme of blue which is very simple and doesn't stand out as well. When comparing the puffs on my magazines, the school magazines puff has a lot of dead space and the writing isn't well positioned where as I made the writing central in white font on a black background so it stood out on my music magazine. The mastheads of both of my magazines are my favourite part but for my music magazine I learnt that it is important to be creative during the construction of my masthead so it stands out compared to others and that is why I included an image of an actual record.

Contents Page

When comparing the two contents page I feel like I have made vast improvements from my school magazine to my music magazine. I learnt that in a professional magazine there has to be at least sixty pages or more to meet the standards of the consumer due them paying slightly more for magazine and under each image on the page has to be a page number and a few words saying what the page is about. On my both magazine I continued using the same colour scheme to ensure fluidity from the front cover to the contents but on my school magazine by only using blue it made my magazine quite dull. On my music magazine I learnt how to create my own QR code which proved quite difficult at first but I soon got use to making it! Unlike my school magazine I also added a page number to the contents page which I had not known to do before when creating my school magazine. Throughout the process of my media As level when I created my music magazine I had applied a lot of the knowledge I had learnt to all the pages I had made.