Question 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product ?

I think I have made progress in many ways since I made my college magazine. One thing I learnt was to put borders around my images in photoshop. I did this by using the rectangle tool to draw boxes around my images. By creating these borders it allows the images to stand out from the page and highlights them making my magazine look more professional. Another thing I have learnt is to use rulers so that my text and images are all in line. This allowed me to align all of my text so it my magazine looks more uniformed and neater. I learnt how to use the blur tool to blur some of my images. I did this on my double page spread to draw emphasis to the person in the image but also to the cartoons and create an image as if she was in a world of her own and the real world around her was just a blur. This then related it to my article I had written which continues with this theme. By adding effects to some of my images may have also made my magazine more appealing as my audience may appreciate different styles of images. Another thing I used was the crop tool. I used this to cut out any unwanted parts of the image and so that all my images were of the same size. By using this it made my pictures look better than those in my college magazine as it allowed the images to look more natural and un-stretched. In the making of my music magazine I also learnt how to use Serif drawplus x2. I used this to create small cartoon images to add to the photos on my double page spread as I wanted to create a fictional story feel to my images as this relates to the theme of the article itself. I also thought that these would appeal to my audience as the cartoons make the images more artistic and more interesting. I believe that my audience would be artistic themselves and would therefore enjoy the look of my article as well as its contents. I think I have also improved on my writing technique and the way I address my audience. For example in my music magazine I addressed my audience (on the contents page) with a letter from the editor where I didn't for my college magazine. By putting a letter on the contents page introduces and invites the audience to the magazine but also makes them feel included. I learnt how to download and change the font of text making it more visually appealing for my audience. I used a better layout than that of my college magazine making it clearer and more appealing to my audience. This can be seen on my contents page as there are seperate 'Regular' and 'Feature' sections separating the contents of my magazine so it is easier for my audience find the articles they are looking for. This also follows a convention of a normal magazine as many have separated contents pages. I also learnt new research skills as I had to find and research different types of music magazines and find the codes and conventions to follow to form my own magazine. I improved on these skills as my research had to be far more detailed for me to be able to create my final product.