Final Magazine Reflection

Creating this magazine has been quite the journey. I've learned many new things and begun to look at magazines in a whole new light.

Experience:

I had a very positive experience while creating my journey. I was eager to get started in the beginning, and my excitement only grew as I got closer and closer to creating my magazine. I will say that the research process felt time-consuming and overwhelming at some points, but looking back I realize that the vast amount of research and planning I did set me up for success when I made my magazine. I found most of the project to go smoothly as I tried to stick with what I knew by using programs and software that I was familiar with such as Canva and Google Slides. I was reluctant to step out of my comfort zone in the beginning, especially when it came to using Photoshop. I thought "What can this program do that Canva or Google Slides cannot?" and "Are the hundreds of different options and buttons going to help me?". I soon realized how wrong I was. Photoshop proved to be an amazing resource and once I learned how to use it, I couldn't stop playing around with the various controls to see what they could do. While I didn't choose to use Photoshop to make my final magazine for efficiency reasons, I took a lot of inspiration from the program and see myself using the knowledge I gained in the future.

Genre:

The second I heard that I would be creating my magazine, I immediately decided on making it a fashion one. I was dead set on that genre, I even went ahead and made a mood board for my future fashion photoshoot. When I took my first genre photoshoot in the fashion genre, I found it to be much harder than I first anticipated. It was incredibly time-consuming and took a lot of energy. My photo shoot experience with the second genre photoshoot in the food genre was the exact opposite. It was so fun being able to bake and decorate a cake, and the entire process went much smoother. With this new information, I decided to change my magazine genre from fashion to food. I'm very glad I made this decision because cooking is one of my hobbies, so being able to document and write about the process of making it as well as the final product seemed like a perfect way to do what I love.

Learning:

My knowledge of different forms of media and connotations changed drastically from the beginning of the year until now. I started the year without thinking twice about what the color palette of a photoshoot symbolizes. Now, I can't help but analyze different forms of media. I became aware of the dozens of shots and camera angles and found it all to be fascinating. I had never thought about things like this before, so every little thing I learned was very interesting to me. I learned how to use Photoshop, a program I thought was too complicated for me to even try and learn how to use it. I'm grateful for every piece of information I learned, as it helped to make my magazine the best it could be.

Struggles and Successes:

Overall, this project went very well. If I found something to be challenging, I did some research online or watched tutorials and got the hang of it relatively quickly. The main thing that I found myself struggling with was the layout of my cover page. It took a while for me to create my first two drafts because I didn't even know where to start. I had seen dozens of other food magazine cover page examples and wanted to incorporate every cool thing/design choice I saw. I realized that that wasn't feasible whatsoever, so I set aside some time to pick and choose which features I wanted to include. After that, the cover page came together quickly.

In the end, I truly believe that my magazine was a complete success. I was able to take a photo shoot of a dish that turned out to not only look delicious but taste good too! My cover page, table of contents, and double-page spread are all cohesive with one another and look like they belong in a real magazine. I'm so proud of my work and can't believe how far I've grown in terms of my skills. I've also become a lot more open-minded about using new programs.