Question 7 =]

Looking back at your preliminary task, of designing the front page of a school magazine, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Before I started producing my music magazine, I produced a front cover and contents page of a school magazine. As this was the first task I was set in Media AS, it was difficult to get straight into it as it was the first time I was using an Apple Mac and the first time I was using Adobe Photoshop CS3. After a few classes, I got the hang of it, although I was not using any intermediate skills, just beginner ones. Knowing my preliminary task was a school magazine, I knew the target audience was kids of around 11-16 year olds. I based my colours and fonts on this fact as well as the fact that it had to be a magazine about the school. As ‘Acland Burghley’ is a school based around arts, I wanted to make my magazine fun and lively, using loads of bubbly colours and fonts. Although it was a bubbly magazine, it was still much simpler than my music magazine.

When it came to the real task of making a music magazine I found it easier to just get straight into it as I had had some practice with the prelim task. I could then use more intermediate skills in order to make my music magazine resemble an existing, selling music magazine. I feel now that I have a better understanding of how the use of different colours, fonts and images change the target audience and the way people look at the magazine in general.

Overall I have found producing these two magazines different but they got simpler as I continued to explore them both. They compare and contrast in many ways. I feel my music magazine has gained a lot from the prelim task and I do not think it would have been as good, if I had not completed the preliminary task.