I have included the preliminary task that I did before creating my music magazine. The task was to create a school magazine in order to practice using photoshop. My school magazine was quite simple and lacked some of the vital conventions needed for a magazine such as slogan, cover lines and colour scheme. Looking back at my school magazine it looks rather dull and boring and doesn't really have anything on it that would encourage the reader to pick the magazine up and buy it. In comparison, I believe my R&B music magazine has far more conventions needed and is far more advanced than my preliminary task.
I have learnt from going from the preliminary task to my final product how important research and planning is for creating a magazine that is attractive for the target audience. My research and planning influenced decisions such as cover lines, slogans, buzz words, fonts, content and colour scheme. This was vital to get right in order that my target audience actually want to buy my magazine and having my 'PULSE' next to 'Autograph' it is clear how this research has helped with my editing. My Photoshop skills have improved massively as I learnt how to use far more features and how to achieve the goal I had in my head on Photoshop. Drafting also helped with making my final product, as I have included on my blog I first drew out a plan of what I imagined I would make my magazine look like, after doing research and planning those plans have changed somewhat to adapt to what my target audience wanted from an R&B music magazine. Attention to detail was very important to creating my final product, e.g. website, social media links, ensuring that each underline follow the pattern and where the same size. Taking constructive criticism from my target audience helped me when choosing what to get rid of in order to ensure my magazine was perfect. E.g. I changed the font of 'DJ BOD' on the front cover over 5 times before I found one that I and the people in my target audience I asked liked.
I have had to change things on my magazine many times throughout the production process but I feel that it was definitely worth it, I enjoyed learning about media institutions and magazines and how they are sold and distributed along with creating my own magazine. I have taken a lot of time over my final product and I feel that it shows and I think that it attracts my target audience well and is suitable for 16-25 year olds both with language and visually.
