School Magazine: Preliminary Work Evaluation

My magazine follows several common conventions of school magazines in both it’s front cover and contents page. The layout of the front cover was inspired by several styles of school magazine, particularly Roundhay Roundup. The positioning of the title on my front cover is similar to that of the title in Roundhay Roundup and the box in the bottom left corner of the page, with information about the contents of the magazine is also lifted from that magazine. The header is also lifted from Roundhay Roundup.

The contents page is also inspired by that of the Fusion, music magazine. With a header at the top of the page and smaller sub-headings and page numbers beside the text. However, I decided to challenge some of the features of the contents page, opting for a background photograph and a different layout.

During the course of this preliminary task I picked up and built on existing skills in programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Indesign. I learned how to cut out photographs quicker and more efficiently with the magnetic lasso tool and how to use the healing brushes to erase blemishes in photographs. I also used colour filters to give the image a more striking appearance. In Indesign I learned how to lay out my magazine using frames and placing the JPEG/PNG images inside of them. 

I also expanded on my SLR camera skills, using different apertures and shutter speeds to obtain the clearest, crispest image possible. I learned how faster shutter speeds can give a  clearer image and how a slower shutter speed can make an object more blurry, using the shutter speed priority setting on the camera. I also learned how different apertures can add or decrease the depth of a photograph, using the aperture priority setting on the camera.