The final task I had to compleate is a presentation, to my classmates. I had to create a powerpoint presentation evaluating my magazine and my performance. I think this was really successful and I evaluated myself fairly, and recieved good feedback from my collegues.

Evaluation

After compleating my Music Magazine, I evaluated my performance. I beleieve I worked very well thtoughout this coursework. If I was to do it all again, I think I would have planned my time better and set more deadlines to ensure I had plenty of time in which to compleate my magazines- music and preliminary. However, I think my other planning, questionaires and interviews, brainstorms, and looking at past magazines really helped me and gave me a great insight into the media industry and what to include in my music magazine.

Creating my Double Page Spread

After I had compleated my front page, I had to create a double page spread. I already knew what to include, but I had to learn how to use new software. I am very happy with the way I worked throughout my double page spread, and I am very happy with the final product.

Creating my Music Magazine

After creating my Prelim task, my next task was to ensure I appropriately planned my music magazine. From my school magazine, I had learned how to use the right software, and now all I had to do was organise the contents of my front page and double page spread. I created a brainstorm of all of my ideas, and took many photographs to use. I then created an interview with a DJ, James Shippam who is featured on my front cover. I asked him various questions reguarding the magazines he reads and what he expects from his magazines. This really helped me gain an idea of what my front cover should include, and how I can attract people like James to my magazine. I also created a questionaire, in which I asked a varied audience what they would expect from a magazine. The result from my magazine gave me a very good idea on how to create my magazine. I created brainstorms and charts of all my ideas and then finally put all of my information and began to create my magazine. I am very pleased with the final product.

Starting My Prelim

In order to create the best music magazine possible, I needed to practise using Photoshop and designing magazines so I created a Prelim task- to design a school magazine. I carried out some reasearch into school magazines, by looking at other magazines and creating brainstorms, collages of images and listing all my ideas. From here, I created my magazine from an images I took around the school. It gave me a great insight into using the software, and now I am ready to create my music magazine.

Evaluations of Websites

To gain a good understanding of magazine house styles, I carried out an evaluation on the sites. I chose to evaluate two magazine websites in which follow the theme of my magazine- clubbing, djing and dance. My first magazine is 'Mixmag', which a very popular music and dance magazine. This is the type of magazine I want to create and evaluating the site gave me lots of ideas towards my house style. The next website I evaluated was 'RWD' which I thought was also a very good site- even though thier magazine layout did not impress me. I got many ideas for my magazine from these sites.

The Next Steps, Evaluating 'Q' Magazine

The first step to creating our magazine, was to investigate the different key terms of a magazine that an editor may use. We learnt all about house styles, mastheads, straplines, the use of photography and pictures, headlines, cover stories and many more, and also the importance of all of these aspects. After we investigated the different terms, we all brought a music magazine to evaluate. I chose 'Q' magazine, which is a very popular music magazine. I evaluated the front page, and also a double page spread from inside the magazine. The purpose of this task was to look at the house style, and see what looked good and what did'nt look so great. This task really helped me to get a good idea of what my magazine should look like.