Evaluation Question Number 7

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

I approached both products with very different attitudes. My preliminary task I was extremely unsure and indecisive of my decision because I wasn't entirely motivated on my subject which was a school magazine. I wasn't very confident with the programmes used and my imagination of ideas and my creativity wasn't very practiced and lacking experience that is why I found the preliminary task very challenging. I didn't use the correct equipment (i.e camera) and didn't edit the images to its full advantage. I underestimated my timing and everything became very rushed towards the end simply because I was unsure of ideas, layouts, colours; simple aspects that are considered in a magazine. Therefore, I feel my preliminary task isn't as good as it can be due to me rushing my time.

However, I learnt from my mistakes and went into my Music Magazine production more positively, I was extremely interested in the subject we were creating (music) and I believed that I could potentially produce a success full magazine . Due to creativity already beginning to be explored I had so many ideas of how I wanted my product to look like. I was determined for it to not look like a school project but in fact a professional magazine. I used my time effectively by ordering props and using existing ones that I felt would be suitable and beneficial to my photo shoots, I chose my settings  with great care allowing time for my models to be able to get there as this is a factor that needs to be kept in mind due to people pulling out last minute and so forth; I used fields as my main setting and a little woodland area near my house, whereas in my preliminary task I didn't consider my background at all, I used what was most convenient which was at my dining room table.

I personally feel that I have come along way from my preliminary task to my final product in terms of development, construction and the overall understanding of certain qualities/features/factors of general media. Through looking at my previous work and research I feel I have made a definite progression; as I learnt all my mistakes through my preliminary task which prevented me from making the same mistakes in my final piece. I experimented with certain programmes like InDesign, Photoshop and Blogger on my preliminary task therefore, gave me a foundation and a basic understanding when I went to begin producing my final product.

 

This is the transition from my preliminary front cover school magazine task to my final Front Cover of my Indie magazine. as you can visually see there is a remarkable difference, and I feel this is purely because of what I learnt from my first task of the school magazine, evidently it was extremely beneficial.

As you can see the overall image is very different however, I did use the idea from my preliminary task as inspiration in terms of where to position my model, as they are very similar. However, of course I made the overall 'look' of the model more appealing to my audience through the effects used, the clothing, all to make my front cover more appropriate and better quality than my preliminary task. I resulted in using a different camera to take my photos with - this Olympus SLR which already featured the grainy black and white effect. This was a definite step in the progression of my magazine as previous to this I used a digital small pocket camera to take my preliminary task picture, which as you can see is not as good in the overall quality of the image.

I took a different approach and decided to use this black and white effect opposed to colour as I felt that in my final product it turned out alot more striking than lots of different colours mixed in together as shown above in my preliminary task, it makes the model appear washed out.

I particularly considered the layout of both magazines In my preliminary task I centrally aligned the text which made it appear unprofessional and it also had a lot of writing underneath which is also unlike a real magazine it should only really consist of headings and minor detail, I learnt from this and made sure I corrected it in my final product.

The title is something I wanted to make look professional as in my preliminary task as featured to the left the title looks unbelievably unprofessional and the choice of colour doesn't work with the overall front cover. It blends into the background which SHOULD NOT BE THE CASE as the title is one of the aspects of a magazine that draws the readers attention. The font of this magazine adds to the unprofessional look. Therefore, using this mistake I made sure that my title was big and bold and stood out from the background aswell as using a simplistic font with no serifs however, very striking and unique. Nevertheless, I came across some development issues when creating my final front cover as I wanted a black title however, the 'dual' of the title blended in with the models hair therefore, had to edit and adjust this problem by outlining this part of the title in white so that this issue didn't occur, and it successfully worked.

Again this is the transition from my preliminary school magazineIndie Magazine Contents Page, again the progression is clearly evident and portrays a greater understanding on how a professional magazine should appear like if following the generic forms and conventions, something I didn't clearly concentrate much on preliminary task.

With my contents page for my preliminary task I only used one image that wasn't edited in any sort of way, but simply cropped. This is something I did not want to have on my final music magazine product. I made sure that I had more than one picture and that they were edited to a professional extent. Aswell as this my preliminary appears extremely empty with not much going on or interesting to look at. Although I didn't want my final product to seem over complicated and overcrowded I used my mistake and therefore, taking into consideration that a contents page needs to look complete and not empty, however, I believe this was down to my rushed timing towards the end of the preliminary task.

In my preliminary task I made the huge mistake of using an image that was not of my own, perhaps to just fill my contents page up due to the lack of time I had or perhaps the lack of knowledge. Nevertheless, if this was the final piece it would have bought my marks down. However, using this major mistake I used this to my advantage and made sure that every image inserted on my contents page was of my own. I decided to make my contents page look completed with an equal amount of text and images I decided to insert a smaller image of my front cover promoting and advertising the subscription section at the bottom of the page. All simply done by scaling down my original product and placing it onto InDesign. Highlighting that a created image can be just as good as an existing image and does not drop marks.

 Lastly, is my use and presentation of the subheadings on my contents pages. My preliminary headings were completely wrong in all aspects. The colours chosen did not contrast well off each other therefore, do  not stand out, the chosen font isn't bold enough, the blue drop shadow takes the attention away from the headings and the increased weight of the stroke line around the text looks overbearing and unreadable. Elements I certainly did not want to experience again, therefore, I took the view of trying to not complicate font and headings as they need to be bold and stand out attracting and informing the audience. Therefore, I took a very simplistic view and simply including extremely contrasting colours, used all capitals and a very simple, readable font.

And lastly, presented here is my final version of my Double Page Spread; something that was not required to produce in the preliminary task, however, was in the Music Magazine.

Overall I believe there has been a positive progression from my preliminary task to my final product; entirely through gaining a wider understanding and knowledge on how to successfully construct a professional looking product whilst managing my time throughout.