From the Preliminary task, I have learnt more and more how to use manually several professional technologies like Photoshop and InDesign to create media products. I have also learnt that the audience is who I mainly need to think about when designing my product, and how my products effect them psychologically. It all depends on the audiences view and the genre that I have chosen for my magazine. My magazine needs to appeal to my target audience the most, as well as keeping an open mind for different audiences no matter who, what or where because if it was to get published then it would mean a greater market and a much more successful magazine. I have learnt several key facts when designing/creating a magazine; they cannot be too vibrant and wild nor too simplistic. For example, if a design is too colourful and crowded, it may not appeal to the audience and they may miss important elements; whereas a design with just the masthead, important information and a main image is too dull to attract an audience. Despite this, I did not carry out as much research as I did for the main task. For my main task I researched and analysed magazines such as Kerrang!, NME and Rock Sound to scrutinize their use of conventions for their specified genre which is rock, alternative and indie music, as well as making sure my own product wasn't too different to others on the market; I figured that something too extravagant or too dull most probably wouldn't sell.
I was aiming to achieve a higher grade for my final magazine than I did in the Preliminary task. I produced drafts of layouts and titles for the front page, contents and double page feature spread so that I had a plan to look at when it came down to creating them on InDesign - I experimented with several ideas but found that my original idea was much more successful and a better choice to use. I found that experimenting and recreating from my plan useful but sticking with my original draft benefit my design a lot more. I had the knowledge of how my finals were going to look, even in my head after looking at my simple, planned out drafts.
I continued to research into magazines until I evaluated other magazines and their use of fonts, images & image sizes, colour scheme, layout, etc. This research was extremely helpful as I was able to compare my magazine as well as refer to other rock/alternative/indie magazines for ideas on images, colour scheme, layout, etc. Evaluating all these magazines helped me notice the differences between my Preliminary magazine and my Music magazine; I hadn't edited any of the images used in my Preliminary task whereas all the images for my Music magazine were i.e. editing the lightness, contrast, colour balance, cut out and other artistic options.
I feel that I have made a huge improvement from the Preliminary task particularly because I felt that I had enjoyed it more because it focused on something I love, have learnt more aspects of Photoshop and InDesign as well as in class. I also believe that I could have improved several other aspects of my Music magazine, such as placing more in the left third, and my images being cropped, altered and made slightly bigger to attract my audience to my magazine more. However, I'm very pleased with the outcome and the product was a overall success when relating to my chosen genres and target audience.
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