Evaluation Activity 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 feel I have learnt a lot when I comes to how much preparation and work is needed in creating a magazine. The preliminary work look very amateur and very basic not what you would ever find on a magazine shelf. My skills using photoshop was quite limited and I found it hard to use at the start, also I think the amount of planning and thought that went into the design was more or less nothing. We also used school digital camera which didn't have the best picture quality and the images were taken in one lesson.

Another thing I have learnt is how much detail is need to create a certain representation of a social group and how to attract them. Also that even minor things such as the style of clothing would greatly effect who would be interested in reading. 

The overall look of the pages look much better than my preliminary ones. There is no empty space and the layout has improved substantially.  Also choosing an appropriate font has also made a huge difference in the look of the magazine and following conventions set by existing magazines has helped this. I found that once I had got the simple tools worked out on photoshop I saw it a lot easier to create what I wanted to create. 

Improvements to the front cover is the main image that I used, I knew exactly what sort of shot I would want for the front cover compared to the preliminary pictures. The cover lines are more exciting and resemble a conventional magazine. 

The contents page I think has seen the most improvement from the beginning from literally only a few lines of words to something substantial like my finish one. This just shows how much I feel my design skills and media knowledge has increased since I started this media studies course. Also from my research into existing magazine I have become more aware of how music magazines all follow some main conventions as to how they structure their pages. 

Finally the double page spread when I did my first draft I had a rough idea what I wanted it to look like. I have made improvements along the way but I feel the underlining idea is still within the DPS. Such improvements like enhancing and modifying the main photo really made a difference from the first draft

To conclude the amount I have improved on has been quite substantial and overall I'm really pleased with how my final magazine turned out.