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

I feel that my knowledge and skill in using photoshop has developed since working on the preliminary task of the college magazine and since moving on to the music magazine. I have used a wide range of photoshop tools while making my music magazine, these include:

The brush tool:

I have used a variety of brushes to create a grunge feel to the feature article. This is also a theme associated with the music genres included in the magazine so I therefore wanted my magazine to have an overall grunge theme. The advantages of using brushes is that it gives me more of a chance to change the overall design but a disadvantage is that most brushes appear blurred which can ruin the overall image.

Blending Options:

I have also used blending options to create shadows for some of my fonts; some of my fonts didn’t really standout from the background so a drop shadow helped make the font standout from the background. This can make the font easier to read but it doesn’t always make the font standout from the background enough.

Layers:

When creating my images I used multiple layers to make it easier to change the layout of my magazine. Having certain fonts and images on different layers made it easy for me to move things around the page and I was also able to hide certain layers so I could see how my magazine would look without a certain font of image.

Colour Selection:

The colour selecton tool is very simple to use, I found it very helpful when creating my magazine as I was able to use different tones for my text. When i originally went to pick the font for "Rock Star" I wanted to use green as it would standout from the background, when I was playing around with the colour selection tool I was able to find an appropriate tone to go with my magazine cover, contents page and feature article.

Progression from College magazine to Music magazine:

I feel that I have improved my photoshop techniques since working on the college magazine. The design for my college magazine was very basic compared to my music magazine. The image on the right doesn't really appear to be a magazine whereas the image on the left looks like a proper magazine product as it follow the cconventions when it comes down to layout. My target audience has been addressed more effectively in the main task then they were in the preliminary task, my college magazine was aimed at students so therefore only students would read my magazine, for the main task I focused on certain music genres but my target audience is much more diverse. I have researched different publishers and exsisting magazines to help me develop my own ideas for my magazine, this also helped me develop more of a proffessional style when it came down to my magazine layout. I learnt how to use different images and effects to attract a certain type of audience and how clothing is important as fans will recognise the music style of the band through their clothing. My teacher was very supportive during the project as he gave me advice and criticism when it came down to improving each section of my magazine. Below is a photograph showing my first draft (left) of my front cover, it appears to be more of a poster than a magazine cover and my teacher gave me advice on how I could improve the layout. It was important for me to research different written article to improve my journalism to make my article sound like something you would see in a real magazine.