1. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do
you feel you have learnt in the progression from it
to the full product?
Published 31/01/14 by Sophie Arthur
and conventions when making my product
which I was able to follow. This means that
my product had a more professional looking
layout to my preliminary task. As my
preliminary task allowed me to have an
insight of how important it was to have a
detailed plan of my product before producing
the magazine, and to use my time effectively.
This means that when it came
to making my music magazine,
“I was more aware
I was more aware from the
from the beginning
beginning that I needed to have
that I needed to have a detailed plan of how I was
going to spend each time period
a detailed plan,”
of producing my magazine.
As I was more aware of the tools Photoshop
allowed me to use before planning this
product, my plans were more realistic and
Lasso tool and text tool practise
therefore easier to stick to when producing
exercises completed in lessons
my product.
My skills with creating the magazine also
improved as I became more comfortable with
magazine terminology using wordclouds,
My skills with creating a magazine have
improved as my skills with software such as
Photoshop have improved too. My skills have
developed in using certain tools for example
text tool, lasso tool etc. which means that I
was able to use these tools more effectively
when making my actual product which
therefore made my product look more
professional.
The paper plans for my preliminary task compared to the
ones for my final product.
For example, when planning my preliminary
task I planned on using a font that didn’t
properly exist, and therefore had to spend a
lot of time on only the masthead.
Wordcloud of magazine terminilogy created on ‘Jason
Davies Word Cloud’ website.
and by looking at professional magazines
with a similar audience (e.g. NME and MOJO)
FC of NME magazine
meaning that I was more aware of popular
and professional magazine layouts, forms
My preliminary task FC compared to my final product FC

2. When it came to making my product, I was
more aware of what fonts were available to
use and how long I should be spending on
the masthead in comparison to the rest of the
magazine. My skills with the software (for
example Photoshop, InDesign) have
developed in many different ways since the
production of my preliminary task. My
photography composition has improved as I
have learnt how to more effectively place
pictures and have chosen a more specific
place for each graphic feature to go, rather
than just placing them in the middle.
My preliminary task contents page compared to my final
product contents page.
Central images used for my preliminary task and final
product.
The rest of my page layout and design has
improved as my skills have developed as I
have been more aware of ways to help my
product look more professional e.g. I learnt
how to orientate my text (using the text tool)
towards the right and learned how to place
parts images over other features (e.g. text)
using the magnetic lasso tool. My use of fonts
has also improved as I have better planned
my product to ensure that the fonts used are
consistent throughout the product, with a
specific font for a certain feature. I have also
been able to find and use fonts better suited
to the genre of my magazine as my skill of
finding fonts online and being able to transfer
them onto Photoshop has also improved. I
have selected a more appropriate mise-enscene for the images used in my product as
rather than taking the photo anywhere I
ensured that the settings, props, costumes of
the model and anything else important were
selected effectively to suit the magazine
genre. My research and planning that was
undertaken after creating the preliminary
task helped me to ensure that the content I
would include in my final product would be
relevant and suit the genre of the magazine
well. This contrasts to my preliminary task as
I has not seen a school magazine before and
did not look at the contents pages of any as
research, I just assumed what content would
be relevant.