Before beginning the Music Magazine task, I had to complete the Preliminary Task based on creating a new magazine for Sixth Form students. In order to do this, I had to produce a: Target Audience Profile, Mission Statement, Contents Page Mock-up, Front Cover Mock-up and a finalised Front Cover made by Adobe Photoshop. This was an important stage in creating my Music Magazine as it was like a practice run and gave me a chance discover my strengths and weaknesses. Then I had the opportunity to improve the things I wasn’t as confident in so that the real task would go smoothly.
In order to ensure my Front Cover and Contents Page was successful I had to follow the conventions that are linked with magazines:
As the model is female, to appeal to both genders I used quite dark colours to enforce a more masculine presence so that the males wouldn’t find it too girly and decide not to read it.
For the Front Cover I placed my model as the main focus smiling directly at the camera. She wore a purple jumper and held books and an iPod. I chose a medium shot and those specific items so that my magazine would connect and relate to the reader; the books show it has a heavy academic influence while the iPod suggests an essence of fun. This shows that the magazine will include articles to deal with the reader’s studies but will not take its self too seriously or be formal. The masthead is easily seen as it is large and hangs at the top of the page slightly on top of the model’s head. I used black for boldness, red on the stating letter ‘A’ and dark blue on the exclamation mark to establish the style with the reader. The colours fit with the school’s colour scheme and the red emphasises the ‘A’ almost suggesting the grade students should be aiming for/achieving. I continued the colour scheme in the text and placed majority of the sell-lines on the left-hand side as people read naturally left to right.
For the Contents Page I continued the colour scheme and font as the Front Cover for familiarity and to enhance the symbiotic link in the magazine. For easy navigation around the page, there are subtitles with a list of the items featured in the magazine, their page numbers and a couple featured pictures. I also included an Editor’s note for a more personal feel.
I would definitely say that the layout of the magazine is a strong point in the Preliminary Task. Immediately you can recognise that it is a Front Cover or Contents Page of a magazine (and of the same magazine) as I followed every convention. However when I do it again I would like to be more adventurous and maybe even challenge some conventions so it isn’t as basic. I realised that I needed to work a little bit more with Adobe Photoshop to make the final pieces completely professional like music magazines you would see being sold and have an actual photoshoot when taking the photos. There is only so much Adobe Photoshop can do and I shouldn’t rely on it to improve my photos but spend time creating a look for my model, preparing the setting and trying out different shots/styles of images.
To conclude, the Preliminary Task has shown me that I had greatly improved on Adobe Photoshop and found it easy to use the different functions since my assignment from GCSE. I found doing a rough mock-up before creating the products useful as it gave me a clear plan of the structure: where everything was going to be placed and how much space things would take-up, so when it came to the final pieces I didn’t have to make loads of decisions (i.e. ‘where I want my featured image to be’ etc). Also creating a plan for what was going to be done each session helped with good time management. The Preliminary Task was definitely a helpful process to begin my Music Magazine Task. It gave me an introduction on the products I would have to make and techniques that I will continue in the Music Magazine tasks.
