Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to

the full product?Clara Schjødt

I have learned about

• Research– Forms and conventions– The market and ownership– Audiences

• Planning– Style Sheet– Pitch– Flat plans– Layout drafts– Photography plans

• Production- Editing photos- Editing the layout- Taking good photographs- Making the magazine look aesthetic

pleasing.

Research

In my preliminary task I did not do any research at all, and I didn’t see the point for why either. By doing the research for my final product I have learned a lot about forms and conventions for music magazines in my genre.

For my preliminary task I didn’t know enough about my audience, and it was therefore hard to aim my magazine at any particular social groups or genders. For my final task, I made a survey monkey that gave me some really useful knowledge about who my readers were and what their interests were.

PlanningI have learned that planning is extremely important in order to get a good result. In my preliminary task I didn’t plan anything at all, and therefore spent unnecessary time on the production of the magazine. I have learned how to make a style sheet, where colours, fonts and ideas were planned.

The style sheet gave me an idea of how my magazine would look like. I found the fonts I wanted to use, the colour scheme and some ideas of what images I would need.

The photography plans made the production a whole lot easier as I knew what to do and where and who to photograph. I made a more specific layout draft, and came up with the final decisions for how my magazine would look like.

Production

Comparing the preliminary task with the final product, I can se a huge improvement. For my preliminary task I only used Photoshop, while on my final magazine I used InDesign as well. InDesign is better at creating layouts, while Photoshop works best for editing photos. I therefore found it a lot easier to make the layout look professional in InDesign.

Also, for my preliminary task I had no idea of how the layout for the magazine would look like, so I improvised everything and you can really see how little effort is put into the work. On my final result, I put a lot of time and effort into the production to make every details as close to my planned layout as possible. This really paid off, as the result of the magazine was so much better looking than the preliminary task.