Evaluation Question 7

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

Looking back at my preliminary task, I have noticed obvious progress and improvements in my work through making my music magazine. The photographs I have taken have improved by the use of colours and fonts, the layout of the page and photo manipulation. During the process of making my magazine, I realised the importance of research and planning.

Front Cover

 When comparing the preliminary task and my music magazine together, I can easily see where I went wrong on the preliminary task. I feel that I did not do enough research or take enough time to produce the preliminary task properly. In addition, I feel that the lack of knowledge I had with the programmes is another reason why my preliminary task does not look as professional as it could be.

Whilst comparing the photographs I had taken for both my tasks, I realised that there was a greater demand for my music magazine as I had taken 68 photographs for the cover of my music magazine and only took 24 pictures for my preliminary task as I didn’t realise I needed to take so many in order to have a wide choice of image. Also due to the lack of time I had to make my preliminary task, I was not able to take more pictures.

In terms of the colour scheme and font of the two covers, I feel that I have improved a great deal as the colour scheme and font I used for my preliminary task is not appropriate for the magazine and does not look as professional as my music magazine cover. I feel that the reason for this is due to the lack of research I did for my preliminary task and so I did not have an idea of what the colour scheme and font should look like. Whereas for my music magazine, I had plenty of cover research to make sure my cover looked as professional as possible. Looking at the font, I feel I have improved in that area also. This is again due to the lack of research for my preliminary task. The font on my preliminary task looks inappropriate for magazine and so it makes it look unprofessional and unrealistic. For my music magazine, I had plenty of research for the colour scheme and font and so I was able to produce a realistic cover page for the music magazine.

Regarding the layout of the page, I feel that I have improved in this area also. This is because I feel I did not have enough time to spend on the layout for my preliminary task and so it looks unprofessional. I feel the layout of my preliminary task unprofessional due to the lack of knowledge I had about producing a magazine on the programmes I had to use. The layout of the preliminary task is dull and empty due to there not being anything eye grabbing on the page. However, on my music magazine cover page, I was able to refer back to the research which enabled me to pick features from it to use on my cover page. This included having a large yellow star, which immediately grabs the attention of the buyer, as it is a bright colour compared to the rest of the colours. Other features include the ‘V-Festival’ sign and the ‘Must Have Downloads’ as they are aspects that my target audience is interested in.

Lastly, looking at the photo manipulation for my preliminary task, I was beginning to get used to using Photoshop and therefore, I had a lack of knowledge of how I should manipulate my product to make it look professional. I feel I improved in this area for my music magazine as I realised I had to manipulate the photo using brightness, levels and more to improve the photograph overall. For my preliminary task, the only manipulating I did included blurring the background and cloning part of the table.

Due to all of these factors I feel I have made progress and improved a great deal from the cover of my preliminary task to the cover of my music magazine.

Contents Page

Comparing the contents pages of my preliminary task and my music magazine, I notice straight away that I have improved and made progress. As with the cover pages,  I feel that I did not do enough research or have enough time to produce my preliminary task properly as well as feeling I had a lack of knowledge with the programmes I used to produce the first product.

Looking at the photographs I took for both my tasks, I used more technique and took more photographs for my music magazine than my preliminary task. This is shown in that the photographs on my preliminary task are all mid-shots and for the photographs on my music magazine I used a mid-shot and a long-shot which shows I can use a variety of techniques to demonstrate my skill and to give a professional looking contents page.

The layout of the page, I feel, is the area I have improved on the most. This is because the layout of my preliminary task is plain and boring and I did not have enough research to relate back to. Whereas for my music magazine contents page, I was able to refer back to my research, which enabled me to make my contents page look professional. These features include using the big numbers, the way I set out the pages and numbers, the title and the grey box I used for the music area.

Lastly, looking at the photo manipulation for my preliminary task, I realise that I did not manipulate the photograph at all. This was due to the lack of time I had. Whereas for my music magazine contents page, one of the photographs I used I manipulated more by changing the brightness, the levels and making the picture black and white.

Due to all of the factors above, I feel I have progressed and improved a great deal from the preliminary task to my music magazine. This is because I had more time and research to make my music magazine whereas I did not for my preliminary task. Learning from the mistakes I made on the preliminary task, I was able to make my music magazine look professional and realistic.