Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in theprogression from it to the full product?

By MattHolden

  • Starting Preliminary Task

    This was the first step of starting to research a magazine of any kind, so I started off by looking at different pupil's versions of magazines, and chose what I liked about them and what I disliked about them. This helped me realise the basics about the layout of magazines.

  • Preliminary Task Final Product

    My final product had quite a bit room for improvement, but I gained the basics of how to use computer programs from creating this front cover.

  • General Research

    This is when I started to research things that you would not noramly think of when looking at a magazine. This included researching media institutions who could publish a music magazine, the history of music magazines and all the different genres. From doing this I learnt a lot, and I was starting to realise where my magazine could be improved. Over the next month I had in my head where I could improve on almost everything.

  • Planning For Construction

    The planning for construction included me looking at many other current examples of music magazines. While doing this, I came to the desision that I would make my magazine a classic rock magazine, so I mainly focused on current magazines such as Classic Rock and Mojo. While doing this, I looked at examples of their flat plans, front covers, contents pages, double page spreads, artilces, colours, fonts and photos. This helped me learn how to make things look professional and not clutered.

  • Rate Cards and Surveys

    This is what I based my target audience on. I took multiple surveys asking people about my magazine, and compiled the results into a rate card. I refered to this multiple times when I needed a bit of information about my audience.

  • Article Drafts

    I hadn't done an article in my preliminary task, so this was quite new to me. I wrote this before I decided gig review was the way to go, however for what it was, it worked nicely and only needed a few corrections.

  • First Shoot Plan

    This is when I started to plan for my first photo shoot. I decided that I needed older people in the photos, so I asked my teachers to participate. That was my subject sorted, and my time and date were quickly arranged. We decided to do it in the music departmen so we could have access to all the instruments.

  • Layout Planning

    This is when I started to plan th layout. My preliminary task's layout was very clutered and crowded, so I knew from my research how to solve this problem. This is me putting this into action.

  • Start Of Construction

    When I started my construction, I had a clear idea in my head of what I wanted my magazine to include. This changed a lot over the construction, but ultimately for the better. From looking at examples of professional photo shoots I was able to get some really good photos that were perfect for what I wanted them for. This however, was after one or two unsuccessful shoots.

  • First Photo Shoot

    This was when the actual photo shoot took place. I decided that the photos were not the best, so another shoot or two would need to be done.

  • Second Photo Shoot

    For this photoshoot, I went to a gig and asked the venue owners for a photo pass. This enabled me into the pit at the front of the hall. I took photos of three bands and I feel that these were good photos and great for what I wanted them for. These photos were much more professional and better looking than those that I used for my preliminary task, and the ones in the first shoot. This is because of how much research into how it is done in magazines normally.

  • Front Cover Change

    At thi point, I decided hat my current front cover was not good enough. It was not much better than my preliminary task, and I believed that I could make it much better. I started again from scrap and believe that it came out better than the other two by far.

  • Final Contents Page

    This contents page was a great improvement to my preliminary task when looking at the photos layout and quality content. I feel that this could not have been done with out th planing and research I have done prior to this.

  • Final Double Page Spread

    The layout for my double page spread is worlds better than the layout of my preiminary task. The colours, fonts, size comparisons and pretty much everything else is improved.

  • Article Change

    This is when I changed my article about the band in the first unsuccessful photo shoot, to a gig review of the second photo shoot. I feel this was a great improvement and apealed much more to my target audience.

  • Final Product

    This is my final product. It is much better than my preliminary task, and this is because I have used all of what I have learnt since then. I used methods of taking better photos, using better layouts, better colour schemes and making the content of the magazine itself much more interesting, and ultimatey greater.

  • Final Front Cover

    After changing my front cover completely, half way through the construction, I feel that it came out better than any other option. The photo was one I salvaged from the first photo shoot, and the colours dont make the page hard to look at. The original idea had a blurry photo and a difficult layout. From experience and research, my final front cover shows how much I have learnt since my preliminary task.