Preliminary Analysis

(A)   What existing magazines did you look at for inspiration for your magazine? What features/ conventions did you use?

Before creating my preliminary magazine cover and contents page I looked at lots of different magazines. I then took lots of ideas from these when I created my work. I used the rule of thirds layout for my cover and contexts, which worked really well. I did this because the majority of magazines I looked at used this layout idea and they looked really affective. The colour scheme I used also stuck strongly to the 3 colour pallet rule, which I also noticed worked really well in many magazines. I took the idea for the style of my masthead from ‘Cosmopolitan’ magazine as I found they used a similar style text and pink writing throughout they’re issues and it made it look very consistent and easily recognisable.

(B)   What specific skills have you learnt/ developed during your project? Be specific.

During the making of my preliminary magazine cover and contents I improved and developed many of my computer skills as well as learning new things on Photoshop. The addition of photos on the magazine allowed me to refine my skills for cutting out pictures and moving them into the layout I want them in. I also learnt how to edit the contrast and colours within my pictures which allowed me to give them a better look.

(C)   What aspects of your Prelim work did you feel was successful?

I felt that the most successful part of my Preliminary work was the development of my skills, which came from good time management. Allowing myself more time let me work more on my Photoshop skills and play around with the final layout and accuracy of my cover and contents.

(D)   What would you improve? Explain in detail.

I would improve the overall look of my magazine as I feel it has an empty look and could do with more on the pages. I liked the idea of keeping it clean and simple and experimented with how to achieve this, but with a bit of extra time I would have liked to spend time adding more to the layout to create a more professional look. I would also add in a better background because, whilst I think white gives it a uncluttered appearance, I think my cover would have benefited from a busier background.