Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task what have you learnt from the progression from it to the main task?

Looking back at my preliminary task there is obvious progression and improvement from my first product to my music magazine In my construction of the magazine including my use and knowledge of the range of fonts, how to edit and manipulate pictures as well as taking them and the use of colours.

My Preliminary task:

Looking at my preliminary pieces I feel they are not as professional as my music magazine as I had not done much research and did not spend enough time on it, with the lack of research I did not know what elements to add and what made the magazine look professional. The clear lack of information on the front cover reflects this. I also did not pair the colours of my front cover with the colours on my contents page making the two pages look like they are from completely different magazines. I was also unfamiliar with the programmes that I was using, Photoshop,Indesign and the Cannon DSLR which restricted how far I could take my product as I did not try to challenge myself which led to the boring contents page as I feel I played it safe and did not try to take risks which could have made it better. Not only was it due to just coming to terms with the programmes but I did not time keep well with my preliminary task and therefore slightly rushed it. This was also due to not having and following a plan, which was available for my music magazine.

My Music Magazine:

As you can see my music magazine is much more professional looking, I took a lot more time to research and analyse already established magazines in my genre that I was focusing on to really understand my market and my task that in hand, with a much better understanding of this I then also found myself with much more time so I could concentrate on getting the look that I really wanted and I feel that my magazine shows a clear social group. I also feel that my developed understand of Photoshop and InDesign also led to better constructed pieces as I knew how to use tools such as the clone tool to remove any blemishes or unwanted shadows. I also learnt how to lighten my models skin for the contents page which allowed her to stand out from the background.You can also see the difference in my choice of fonts, I managed to develop my understanding in new fonts which allowed my magazine to have a stronger look and I developed my understanding of these through research. I feel for my music magazine I took a lot more pride, time and care in creating this and with that extra attention paid to it I managed to achieve much better pieces. Not only through research of magazines but through research of my social group that I wanted to target my product towards helped me understand what I was aiming for and what photo's I would like to take and use, by researching this and not just making fast decisions like I did on the school magazine I managed to find a lot more information for my pages as I knew what my audience would be attracted to. This extra knowledge allowed me to fill up my pages with features that are appropriate and I was not left with almost blank pages like in my preliminary, not only are the pieces less plain but my product is colour co-ordinated with the scheme of red white and black, this allows the pages to fit together and look like one collective magazine.

Overall, both tasks had completely different approaches as one is a school magazine, and the other a music magazine so the direction was completely different with everything from setting to costume to what to feature on the magazine. The demands for the music magazine were a lot higher for example for my music magazine I shot over 300 pictures and took over 4 shoots, however with my preliminary task I took one photo shoot with around 60 pictures. With a higher level of understanding of the programmes that I had struggled with in my preliminary task I managed to plan for my music magazine which allowed me to use time effectively and use the programmes a lot more successfully and therefore made an overall better product. My music magazine allowed me to make creative problem solving decisions, for example when creating my title for my magazine I referred to research and created surveys within people from my target audience to see what they would feel is most appropriate in order to get the perfect magazine name.

There are obviously a lot of differences between my preliminary task and my final product and comparing the two has allowed me to realise how much progression I have made and how I have learnt to use new programmes that were completely alien to me before.