Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

My planning and preparation was an extremely important element in the production of my magazine because I researched what my magazine would need to be successful and laid out what I needed to accomplish carefully. Drafting was also important as it allowed me to set out how I was going to organize my production before hand. Organizing my time was also imporatant as it meant that I would not get overwhelmed with work and end up rushing certain parts, I managed to keep to my schedule and not hand in work overdue.

I was not previously experienced in photography however I feel I did an acceptable job as my shots were all clear, good quality and displayed the images the way I had first intended them to. I chose to shoot my photographs from upwards so as to give the subject a feeling of power and toughness which is a common characteristic of a lot of hip-hop/grime artists. The costume was just casual, urban style clothing with a hoody and cap etc, which is relatable to my target audience. I also had my model look quite casual with a slight bit of aggression which reflects the aggressive nature of grime music as well as the aggressive content of the article, which is also a common convention of hip-hop magazines. I made sure to shoot my pictures on a plain white background so that it looked professional.

The influence for my magazine came from a lot of other magazines such as hip-hop magazines like The Source and XXL, I also took influence from rock music magazines such as Kerrang! as it has a non-mainstream, "underground" style that I wanted to show in my magazine as Grime is a lesser-known non-mainstream genre and this sort of style would be appealing to my target audience who have a strong focus on things considered as "cool". I tried to make my layout exciting with the fonts and the way I organised the different parts of the page.

I had not had a lot of experience with photoshop and Quark Express before I created my magazine. I had created a student magazine front cover with a partner which was my only prior experience with photoshop. I found that this helped me adapt to the program and I became more proficient with it as I worked on my magazine.

My audience research gave me a great understanding of what things would appeal to my target audience for example when I asked a member of my target audience what he would like to see in a grime magazine he said that he would want it to be real and up to date with new music that is not just mainstream. I made sure to let this influence my final product. He also commented that he would like to see other subjects such as film and video games included in the magazine so I also included this. Before I modified any of my magazine I made sure to consider how the target audience would react to this change before I made it.

The biggest thing I have learnt from undertaking this project is that organization is key to creating a successful publication and that target audience must always be carefully studied and evaluated and must always be thought about carefully when producing a product.