I also produced a mock-up of what I thought my front cover would look like. This was a rough mock-up drawn on a piece of paper, simply showing the basic positioning of text and images. This gave me a guide to try and stick to, although there would obviously be changes made when I saw how it looked on the real product.
Looking back at my preliminary cover, I can see that my attention to detail was not very high. The layout is very plain, images do not blend in with the background and it looks more like a poster than a magazine front cover. I have also not included an issue date or a price – a very important part of magazine codes and conventions. This is something I would have to remember to include in the main task.
A mock-up of what the school magazine contents page was also produced to give an idea of how it would look in comparison to the design of the front cover. Producing the mock-up gave an insight into how I would design my contents page for the main task later on.The Main Task
The main task was to produce a front cover, double-page spread and contents page for a new music magazine. I was able to use what I had learnt during the preliminary task to help me with my design and production of my main media products. Again I would be using Corel Draw to produce my products. This time I would have experience of this programme and this would help me design and lay out the products in the most suitable way for my target audience.
After producing my preliminary front cover, I learnt about the importance of image and text positioning for a front cover. I made the mistake of using three images in my preliminary task, and arranged them on a coloured background. This made the front cover look amateur and as if it had not been thought through. Therefore when producing the front cover for Key Change, I chose to use one main image that would take up the whole page. This showed one of the improvements in my magazine design knowledge.
Image manipulation/layout skills and improvementDuring the main task I had the chance to practise my photography skills and organise photo shoots that produced images that caught the decoder’s attention. After photos had been taken I also enjoyed the process of manipulating the images to make them more attractive and relevant to the overall magazine layout. This was the first time I had needed to take such notice of how photos looked, meaning my attention to detail increased greatly – using Corel Draw enabled me to adjust photos’ brightness, contrast and saturation, as well as being able to rotate and crop them. I took a long time doing this, resulting in photos that I was very pleased with and felt confident in using them on my final media products.
Examples of photo editing
The photos taken for the main task were a lot better than those taken for my preliminary task. My preliminary task photos were not thought through well enough, and the decisions of how and where to take them were made too quickly, resulting in photos that although were relevant to the type of magazine, did not blend in with each other, were of a lower quality and lacked any eye-catching element. However, I learnt from this and subsequently planned thoroughly for the style of photos I wanted to take and include in my music magazine.
Construction of the Imaginary Entity
Constructing the imaginary entity was a great help in helping me improve from the preliminary task to the main task. By having a clear idea of who I would be aiming my magazine at, I was able to focus my attention on producing images and laying out text in a way that the decoder would understand and find appealing.
Using the questionnaire in class to get feedback on my first attempt at my front cover was extremely useful; from what my peers said about colour, layout and other aspects of my design I could improve it until it met the needs of the decoder.
Textual Analysis Skills
At the start of this project my knowledge of magazine codes and conventions were limited, meaning that my textual analysis of magazines and other media products was often very brief. However, after spending a lot of time researching magazines and practising my analysis skills I have learnt a lot more about how to judge the design and presentation of magazines. I am a lot more critical and am able to use what I have learnt to comment on popular magazines, as well as being able to improve my own media products. My knowledge of semiotics has also deepened, enabling me to both analyse signs and come up with my own ideas when designing and developing my own media products.
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