My Magazine

It was a lot of work trying to finish my magazine, there were many little problems that slowed me down and made it hard for me, even at the end there was a problem with the printer which delayed me for a little while.However I did manage to finish it and below is my finished magazine;

Front Cover

Contents Page

Magazine Article 1

Magazine Article 2

Improving my work

I had to make many improvements to my work because I had so many problems with the production of it. There were only small changes I had to make with my analysis work, however there was a lot of things I needed to redo for my actually magazine, so I started again with most of it because the layout and colours I had used didnt really work and did not fit the genre of RnB. I had to choose a different colour scheme, which I found really hard but managed to come up with an idea, from this I found it much easier to do the colour scheme for the whole magazine whereas before it was just random.
I then improved the layout because there were a few problems with that and after that I had to do the appendices of my work, here I put my first draft and the original images which I had changed within my work.

Evaluation

Over christmas I had to work on my evaluation, there are 7 questions which I answered and I had to explain all the decisions which I made within my magazine. This is a very hard thing to do and it makes you think about the reasons behind the decisions and that maybe there would have been a better way of doing something so that it follows the conventions of an RnB magazine.
I changed the age range for my magazine, because now that I have made the draft, I think that it would be better for a younger audience so I lowered the target audience to 14-17, I think that more people from this target audience will buy it than from my original one. The evaluation really made me think about my magazine and reconsider the colour scheme of it because I realised that it did not really follow the conventions of an RnB magazine and when I got my draft back, it said this too. There are other things which I needed to improve to get a higher grade because although there weren't many problems with the my analysis work apart from a few little things, my lack of ablity with photoshop and my problems with the colour schemes and a few problems with the layout meant that I had to come up with some better ideas. I also chose to redo my pictures to make them follow the conventions a bit better.
There was a lot of work which I needed to do with my coursework and with just over a week to go I am going to have to work very hard to try and get it done to a standard which I'm happy with and which will get me a good grade. Below is my evaluation.

Making Magazine

I have finished my final draft of my magazine despite the fact I had a few problems along the way. I had a big problem when the practice front cover I had made got deleted some how so I had to redo it and it wasnt as good as the one I had made originally but I didnt have enough time to make it any better. I have also done the front cover however I struggled to choose a colour scheme and worked hard trying to get it right. There are still a few issues which I will need to work on before the final deadline such as the main image because I had a few problems and a lack of time with the pictures, so I might need to work on them.
I didnt have so many problems with the rest of the magazine and as with the front cover the main issue is the images I used because I dont think they really fit the genre of magazine I'm making which is obviously a big problem but I will wait and see what my teacher says. Another thing was that when I printed out on of my double page spreads the writing was quite hard to read and I probably need to change that as well but thats easy enough to do.
The next thing I must do is all the evaluation work for the magazine, explaining why I did all the things I did and the impact that what I did will have on my audience. Then once I get my work back from the teacher I must make the changes that she suggests and change anything that I would like to change.

Making Magazine

These last few weeks I have been making my practise front cover and contents page and my actual magazine. I struggled at first to make my practise front cover because I didn't understand photoshop, however I am beginning to understand it now and I have finished my practise front cover and contents page (which I did on Publisher).
I have also done a lot towards the real magazine I am making, I have done one of the double page spreads which is a review of different songs including one from my made up band and I've started the second double page spread which is an interview with my made up band. I have done the contents page as well, however I have not yet started my front cover and I need to get the image of my made up band sorted, so there is still a lot to do and the finished magazine needs to be in, in just over a week. Below are my Practice Front Cover and Contents Page;

Practice Front Cover














Practice Contents Page

Photoshop

This week I had to learn how to use photoshop so it will be easier for me when I have to make my actual front cover. Photoshop is very hard to use and as I have never used it before I struggled to get used to using it and finding all the tools, it is quite complicated and you need a lot of patience for it which I really do not have!
The next task was to design a practice front cover and contents page, the front cover had to be done on photoshop and the contents page could be done on either photoshop or publisher. I have done my contents page on publisher, but I have not done much of my front cover yet because I was unable to take a picture with a still camera, so that is my task this weekend. I have also got to do some research in to articles to help me decide what mine will be like and I have got to design my magazine by drawing it to help me consider how I want the layout of my magazine to look.

Contents Page analysis

This is my contents page analysis and images of the contents pages I analysed: