Evaluation: Q7

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

I have learnt many new skills since doing my preliminary task of a college magazine, which helped during the process of completing my full product. I have learnt how to use the conventions of a real magazine, how to use Photoshop and also how to use a camera to take good quality images. When looking back to my preliminary task, it shows that I never really knew what conventions were and how to use them. But after researching conventions and magazines, I learnt how to use them to produce a professional magazine, better than what I produced in my preliminary task. I used the convention of a masthead and cover lines, like in a real magazine, but I never used it appropriately, so my magazine didn’t really look like much of a magazine.

Learning how to use Photoshop while constructing from my preliminary task to my full product, helped me to develop my music magazine. Photoshop helped me to develop a better quality magazine, because it made it look more professional. I was able to use the skills of Photoshop that I learnt to create my magazine, as before when doing my preliminary task, I had no skills of Photoshop, to produce a good college magazine.  On both my preliminary task and full product I made a front cover and contents page, but on my full product I created another page, which was a double page spread. So I was able to use my skills in Photoshop to work on a bigger canvas and produce a quality double page spread like in a normal magazine.

I managed my equipment by using whatever I had in my house, which would have been useful when taking my photos. I organized my human resources, which were the models involved in my magazine. I organized a day, where I spent all day concentrating on taking my photos for my magazine. I asked my models to dress in the appropriate way I needed them to dress. I also asked my models to practice poses, which they could use when I was taking photos of them.  Planning this was very useful because I was able to take the best photos the first time without having making mistakes and re-taking them again. This also helped minimize time, so I didn’t spend all day taking photos.

The creative decision that I made, mainly came from my target audience and examples of music magazine of the genre of music I chose. But most of my creative decision came from music magazine examples that I really liked. On the other hand, I did include some of my own decisions; making it different from the examples I based it off of. From my audience feedback, my target audience seemed very pleased with my full product, and gave me some good feedback. I didn’t really get any negative feedback, which I was surprised because, I thought my magazine was good but not perfect, so I was generally surprised about that. From all my pages, the front cover, contents page and double page spread.

I managed the location by using a location that is available to me, which was my living room. I chose not to use any props in my photos, because wanted to keep my photographs simple, so it would be easy for me to crop out to put on my magazine page canvas. Looking back to when I had to draft a design from hand of my front cover, contents page and double page spread, it really helped me out. Because it gave me a rough idea of how I was going to structure and layout my pages. So when it came down to me actually constructing my magazine, I knew what to do. My final outcome relates back to my layouts because I used some ideas such as the position of the masthead and image of the model. My contents page doesn’t relate back to my original layout, because they didn’t have any form of convention from a real music magazine. My double page spread also doesn’t relate back to my original layout, because my design also didn’t have any forms of convention from a real music magazine.

During the development of my preliminary task to my full product I have learnt how I can attract my target audience to my full product, which was something I wasn’t able to do in my preliminary task. Also how I can mainly focus my magazine on a particular age and social group.  Because my magazine had a particular audience, so I was able to focus my magazine more on that area of audience. As in my preliminary task, I had a wider audience, so I had to research into that specific audience and put a lot of thought into what I was going to put on my front cover and contents page.