Introduction To My Portfolio.

AS Media Portfolio Introduction

Amina Adan

Candidate Number: 6056

Centre Number: 12320

For my AS Media Portfolio, I was asked to create a music magazine of the genre of my choice, including a front cover, contents page and double page spread. Before doing this task, I analysed several different music magazines, as well as creating a college magazine as my preliminary task. I also had the chance to use Adobe Photoshop CS4 to create these. Before completing these tasks, I carried out different surveys as well as analysing my results and concluding with what to include.

By creating a college magazine, it gave me the chance to familiarise myself with Photoshop, as well as the different conventions that I would be including in my music magazine such as barcode’s, price tags as well as mastheads and selling prices. By completing this, I realised what I would include and how I would include it. Also, whilst taking the photograph’s for the college magazine, the different shot types I took made me realise what type of shots I’d like to take for my music magazine. Also keeping in mind the scenery background and the lighting and angle.

Once I completed my preliminary task, I evaluated my final product, comparing it to my draft and how it looked in the end. I also decided on things that I could have added. By completing this task, it made me have a much clearly view of the steps I’d be taking to complete and create my Music Magazine. 

Introduction to my Preliminary Task

First I completed my research study on what students would like to see in the College Magazine so I carried out a survey. Once I completed my research, I began to draft my front cover, contents page and double page spread. I had to make sure that my front cover had a medium close up image.Although my draft of the front cover contained an image of two people instead of one, I had changed it for my final cover. Lastly, once I finished my draft's and research; I began to take pictures for my front cover and contents page. Once I had completed that, I began to edit my magazine on Photoshop. Once I had completed my first draft of my front cover, I had realized I didn't include a ''selling line'', therefore I re-drafted it, to make my magazine better. Once I added my selling line and others, I realized the my final front cover was complete. Once I finished my front cover, I started my contents page. I kept in mind all the articles that students voted for, therefore I added it to my contents page.

Front Cover

I liked my front cover, as I felt that the layout, structure and typography matched the genre and my audience.

Contents Page

I like my contents page for many different reasons. Firstly, I feel that I met my own personal standards, as well as the audiences. Nevertheless, I feel that the colour scheme that I chose doesn't attract anyone nor does it stand out. Although this is only a College magazine and I don't need to worry about competition, I should keep it in mind that once I start to create my Music magazine, I should worry about the influences that can attract my audience and beat my competition, one of the main ones being the colour scheme.

Secondly, I think that some of the text I included on my contents page could have been included on my front cover instead. This is because I put all the interesting text's on the contents page and this may not attract audience. Once again, I should consider this for my Music magazine.

Lastly, I think that I included one too many images. Instead, I should have put one image on the contents page and a few on the front cover. Nevertheless, the image's and the colour scheme all related to each other, therefore I'm keeping a continuous house style, which represents the maturity of the age group that its aimed at.

Preliminary Task Reflection

As part of the coursework, I looked back at what I did and considered what I would do differently in my main task. I wrote an evaluation for this and this can be found here.

Magazine Terminology

To help me learn magazine terminology, I created the following visual glossary of Vibe .

Analyses

I analysed three front covers, contents pages and double page spreads of music magazines.
They can be found here:

NME
Vibe
Q