Question 7 - Pre Technology

Although my final magazine can be improved, it is of much better quality in comparison to my first attempt at making a magazine front cover for a college magazine.

One main change which has occurred in regards to quality is the layout of the page. The college magazine has been put together with no planning at all which is why it does not look well presented or aesthetically pleasing which is why it will be unable to attract any sort of audience, where as the music magazine has more planning behind it, even though it can be drastically improved. The image used on the college magazine was a last minute image which was chosen in desperation which is why it does not look well as a front cover. Furthermore, the text on the college magazine has been poorly laid out as the text is not easily readable as the text colour merges with the background. The most important part of the page, masthead, is partially visible which makes it look unprofessional in comparison to the music magazine where the masthead is clearly visible. Despite this both front covers are not of high standard which could be easily improved by changing the type of image which has been used, by giving more thought and time into the image to be used. Although the text was readable on the music magazine, it was still poorly laid out which meant it did not look very appealing to the reader, this could have been improved by taking time into positioning the text into different areas on the page and choosing a layout by referring to the target audience for guidance/advice.

During the transition from college magazine to music magazine I have learnt several things, this includes the ability to use new programmes/software, learn how to use DSLR cameras (although I didn’t use one for any photos) and many other things. By learning how to use new programmes such as Illustrator and InDesign I was able to make the magazine look more engaging as I was able to edit various features with easy after mastering the different tools available for each programme. It was made clear to me that I had to change the text whenever I am using a background image, this was necessary for the front cover and double page spreads as there was a substantial amount of text on all pages, if the font colour was not chosen carefully the text would not be visible on top of the images therefore making the pages look unprofessional and unappealing.

I also learnt a lot in terms of features and tools of editing software such as Photoshop. I had to alter the images which I used for the background of the pages in order to make the text more visible, I did this my altering the brightness, contrast and opacity. I also used the smudge tool to smoothen edges on the images to make them look more aesthetically pleasing. I also used the rubber for manipulation, I used the rubber tool to remove any rough edges.