Evaluation Q7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From creating my preliminary task of the college magazine to my final product of my music magazine, I feel that I have learnt a great deal about the research process and creating progress and I think that my technical ability has grown a lot.

Research into other products on my preliminary task was scarce, I thought that a minimum amount would be acceptable and all that I needed to make a good product, I was very wrong. I have learnt that the research process is the most important part as this is what will make your product realistic and helps you realise what it is you need to do to attract your specific target audience and make a profit. Along with making me realise and understand how to ‘target’ my target market using aspects like Demographics, Reader Profiles and statistics. I have also learnt to research into the conventions of magazines which is what makes the magazine realistic and eye catching which changes a product from being amateur to professional. Things that would seem simple to the untrained eye like the placing of the masthead or image are crucial to the effect it has on the audience and therefore would affect profit. The masthead in my music magazine is placed correctly in the top left hand corner where as in my college magazine it is central, which is not conventional and does not look realistic. On closer inspection I can see that my college magazine does not include the price, an issue number or a website address, these things are what make the magazine a lot more realistic and professional. The text in my college magazine does not follow conventions, the font does not stand out and the colour makes it difficult to read. There are no bar lines or blocks of colour behind the text to separate the text for easier reading. I have included these things in my final product and I think it looks a lot better for it.

This process has also made me think a lot about images and their importance, the use of iconography, the attitudes they display and how they attract the audience. I had to consider the use of mise en scene in relation to costume, setting and props. In my preliminary task, the image does relate to its purpose however it certainly does not attract an audience, firstly, the simple idea of the model's eye line. In most magazines, including my final product, the model is looking at the camera to give the impression that s/he is looking at the audience, this straight away pulls in the audience whereas in the preliminary magazine, it does not have the same instant affect. The clothing and setting also are more prominent in my final product, as my magazine's target audience is a smaller subgroup in society than simply college students, the clothing an setting are more specialised and relate more to the specific people I am addressing. The iconography is also important, in my final product my model is pictured with a cigarette which is stereotyped with my target audience, the young, indie/rock section of society and is poised at the forefront of the image, however my college magazine has little iconography, a computer, which can be associated with a wide range of society, not just specifically students. It is also not as visible as the cigarette in my other image so does not stand out.

I think I have probably learnt the most about the use of Photoshop during this project. As you can see, my preliminary task has very little editing, the only editing used was for the text and even that was minimal and because of this, the product looks incredibly amateur. My final product on the other hand, looks reasonably professional in my opinion, I think this is mainly down to the image, as shown in the Photoshop question of my evaluation, you can see that many changes were made to the original image like changes in contrast, levels and the colour which was changed to black and white. I also learnt how to remove blemishes which is conventional, as no magazine models will have spots unless they are intentional. I learnt how to make my text more realistic by changing the blending options and using glows and emboss to make text 3D.

Overall I have learnt a lot since starting my preliminary task, from research, production and technical elements, there has been a lot of work but I have enjoyed all of it!