For my preliminary task I had to produce the front cover and contents page of a school magazine. There is a huge difference in my preliminary front cover and music magazine cover, one main factor of this is the photograph and editing.
My front cover was taken in front of a green screen and it was my first time using it so I didn't know the best way to go about it. One mistake I made was not laying something green on the floor so I could edit the carpet out therefore I had to cut the bottom half of the picture out. It wasn't too bad in the end and I used it as a learning point when it came to my music magazine front cover. I also didn't know how to remove a green screen and there was a problem with iMovie on the Apple Macs which took up a lot of my time. However I finally managed to remove the green screen and applied a simple white geometric background. I didn't edit my original photo as I didn't know the tools that were available to me on Pixlr, for example I could have applied a filter and changed the exposure to make it look more professional. Also the quality of my image isn't very good and this is due to putting it through different process to remove the green screen.
My music magazine front cover wasn't taken in front of a green screen which meant I had less trouble when it came to editing. The picture was originally taken in black and white I then brightened it up and sharpened the image to achieve a more professional finish. I also blurred some of the background to get rid of any imperfections
My school magazine is very different to my music magazine in that it has more cover lines and doesn't fit the minimalistic approach that I took on my music magazine. My masthead doesn't stand out as much compared to my music magazine. Also their isn't a direct colour scheme that flows throughout, however I used the same fonts which is similar to my music magazine. The main difference in the two covers is the level of professionalism, style and quality. My school magazine is less professional, has a cluttered and approach and the quality is poorer due to the technology and editing skills I used.
The differences between my preliminary and final contents page are similar to my front cover. I didn't get the dimensions correct for this page meaning it doesn't look professional and also the image doesn't particularly link to the page. I didn't make any changes to the images such as tweaking the exposure or adding an effect. These could have helped improve the professionalism of the image which could have helped improve the overall look of the magazine. Although it is simplistic and less cluttered than the front cover, the quality still isn't good. I didn't do enough research into school magazines to get an idea of how to layout my contents page which limited my ideas of how to approach it. I also didn't research enough into how to edit and didn't pay enough attention to detail as each part of the magazine is vital. Whereas with my final contents page I had some more experience and spent a lot more time editing each section as paying more attention to detail and exploring ideas. For example 'contents' on my school magazine is rather simple and not intriguing compared to my final contents.
Overall, from this process I have learnt how to create a more professional and higher quality magazine. Learning from mistakes in my preliminary task such as the green screen, it's allowed me to improve and know how to take overcome challenges. I've also worked on my editing skills which has allowed me to explore and work with the typical conventions to make them more appealing and improve the look of the magazine. Another thing I've learned is that attention to detail is important in every aspect as it's all apparent to the reader.
