PREVIOUS STUDENTS WORK

Looking at previous students work allowed me to gather an idea of what I should focus on and how I should present my own work when I come to produce it.

Firstly, a magazine called 'CORRUPT' looked effective and eye-catching in my opinion as the dominant image covered the masthead slightly, it had cover lines with sub-headings and it also named music artists of the genre the student had chosen. I especially liked how the font was displayed as sparkles, as I thought it was eye-catching and professional. I liked the images as there was a range of black and white and a range of colour, however the student did not specifiy clearly what kind of magazine they had made - for example, they used titles such as 'FASHION' and 'NEWS' which makes me think it was not focused completely around music. In contrast to this, I especially liked how the student had manipulated tweets from the social networking site Twitter to make it look as though people had bought and enjoyed her magazine.

Another magazine I looked at I didn't find very appealing as it was very confusing and unclear. For example, the masthead was not the biggest text on the front cover, so it was confusing to try to work out what the magazine was called. In comparison to 'CORRUPT', where the student had used a smaller text for everything else on the page, like coverlines - I think this works better as it is clearer. The student who created this second magazine also didn't specify clearly what the magazine was based around, the terminology used, such as 'genre' indicated a music magazine, but unlike 'CORRUPT' where the model was holding a guitar on the front cover, there was no specifying what it was based around. As well as this, essential information (particularly the barcode) was extremely oversized and took up more space than necessary.

A magazine that I particularly liked called 'IMAGE' was very similar to 'CORRUPT', except was the opposite in genre. I liked this magazine as it was similar to Q magazine in the way it was layed out - it was clear, had a dominant image, essential information, coverlines, and demonstrated what kind of music magazine it was. The only part I would have improved on was the contents page, as it was very spaced out and bare - unlike the front cover which in my opinion looked professional.

From what I have learned by looking at previous students work, the magazine 'CORRUPT' inspired me most. It looked very professional, had a basic but effective colour scheme - especially with the selective colouring - and the text was clear and well presented. I will take most of my inspiration from simple but effective magazines like this one, as oppose to magazines with too much colouring, almost unreadable fonts, blurry images and a complicated layout.