Did you
plan your magazine? If not, what have you learnt about the importance of
research and planning?
For my
research, I looked at a copy of Q Magazine
and analysed what made the magazine look appealing, using terminology that I
have learnt. This was helpful as I could see what successful magazines do to
make their covers look really great.
I didn’t plan my magazine but I did have a rough idea of
what layout I wanted – a big image on the right with the text on the left to
make it easy to read at once. However, if I had a set layout that I was going
to specifically follow I could have completed the preliminary task much faster
as I would have spent less time doing things like adjusting image sizes or
fonts.
What
technology did you use to complete the task and how did you use it?
For the task I have used Serif PagePlus on the computer. This is a good
bit of software to use because it gives you a template of the page, a variety
of text features, and the ability to insert and edit photos. This made it
suitable for me to make my magazine on. I was able to use the text feature to
make my masthead and text boxes and then alter the fonts and size. For the main
cover photo, a feature that was very important was Cutout Studio, because it
let me remove the background in the image. This made the cover look much
smoother and more professional.
Did you encounter any
difficulties? If so, what were they and how did you overcome them?
One issue that I encountered
during the making of the magazine was trying to cut out and crop the images I
had got, so they would look much better on the magazine. To solve the problem,
I used the Serif forums to find out about the crop tool and Cutout Studio,
which I was then able to use without any problems. Other than that, I found the
software very easy to use and understand.
How successful was your
magazine? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you
improve/do differently?
Overall, I think that my magazine has been a success because it has a
bright front cover with a snippet of the articles inside, has different fonts
and sizes to catch the readers’ eyes as well as having a bold picture. The
contents page is very clear and concise to make it easy for the reader to
choose a page, while also having images to help support some of the articles.
However, some things I will look to improve on in the final music magazine are
developing more of a house style to improve the identity of the publication, as
well as making the backgrounds less bright to draw the viewers’ attention more
to the pictures and text, and also make the contents page a bit more dynamic.
What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will
this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation
coursework, do you think?
In this task I have learnt how to use
Serif PagePlus, which is very important if I want to make a high quality music
magazine. Also, by looking at and evaluating current magazines that are
successful I have gained an idea of what makes them more successful than other
magazines and how they lay out their front covers for example.
