Obviously, the magazines are targeted towards very different types of audiences and I believe that both do cater to the conventions and needs well to appeal to these audiences. However, there is a difference in detail and skill that has gone into the Tones magazine that had not been developed at the time of the creation of my college magazine. When creating my college magazine it was very much about developing my skills and it did. This can be seen through the types of fonts used, the house theme and they lay out. I think that the photo for both was chosen well and depict the correct type of contents, however my photo editing skills have seen dramatic improvement through practise and use of photoshop. I think that I have made my music magazine a lot more sophisticated, with a clearer use of a house style through only a selection of various fonts used and a colour scheme that suits the genre being presented. Small changes connote my development, such as the placement and use of banner at the top of 'Tones' rather than the messy banner placed at the bottom of 'Student'. The cover lines and the way they are presented on the page also show that I have gained knowledge in the music and general magazine industry, of conventions of front covers.I think that I have payed more attention to detail in my later attempt, and my development can clearly be seen through the development of even just my music magazine, and the progression made when designing that front cover.
I think that what shows my progression the most is the comparison of my contents pages. The preliminary task of creating the music magazine allowed me to experiment with design techniques and InDesign. Looking back, I feel I made a lot of improvement compared to the first design. I don't like the coloured background, and feel that a white background creates a more sophisticated look. There is also a lot of blank space on my college contents page, which I would now change after looking at the conventions of contents pages more closely. I feel like now I have the extended knowledge to make a much better college magazine contents page that is up to the standard of my music one and make the various improvements within the photography and positioning of texts. My music magazine contents page does not have an editors note, however I have focused more on providing information on how to access the magazine via social media and online, which will increase publicity for the site. There is also still an introductory paragraph into the double page spread and main feature of the magazine, which would be in the place of an editors note, however there would still be an editors note within the magazine.
In conclusion, I think that I have learnt various skills in terms of software, including how to use InDesign and Photoshop, and even the basic skills on a Mac that I did not have before. I have learnt how a magazine is structured, not just in the music genre but the magazine industry in general, and also about how the sector of media works in terms of business and industry, which helped me make informed decisions on what to include, and how to present my magazine to my target demographic.
