Evaluation: Question 7

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

 When reflecting upon my preliminary task, I was very new to the programme Photoshop. I used very simple and rather poor skills and due to this I felt as though my preliminary task was at a very poor standard. The images that I used for both my front page and contents were far too similar and lacked creativity. I feel as though I have made a significant progression and it has allowed for me to create a media product to a very high standard that looks very professional. I have also learned a considerable amount more in terms of audiences and institutions. When creating my preliminary task, I had very little knowledge about the audience and what they like and the research regarding audience in my final product (through the questionnaire) allowed me to have a clear idea as to what  my audience and customers want and expect from my product, which helped me to mould my magazine around this information.

 Since my preliminary task I felt as though I have learnt how to use more advanced features within programmes such as InDesign and Photoshop as these were vital in the construction of my media product. Features such as the magic eraser on Photoshop I found to be extremely useful as it made it easy for me to erase backgrounds in an easy and effect way. Manipulation to my photographs I found vital so I had to use and experiment with effects such as brightness, hue/saturation and contrast which enabled me to edit my photos.

 In order to make my final product as profession as I could, I also began to read several magazines myself. I am already a weekly reader of Kerrang! magazine but I also invested in several copies of Mojo and NME to use as inspiration and pick up on the conventions that are typically used in rock magazine. From reading these magazines I found that the colour scheme very often had the colours black, red and yellow in and I also found that the coverlines used on the front cover were a crucial part as they grabbed audience’s attention easily. I put together this research and added the feature to my work so that I made my product as professional looking as possible.