Looking back

at your

preliminary

task, what do

you feel you

have learnt in

the progression

from it to the

full product?

In my preliminary task, I did not produce any research into the print media industry and I had no knowledge into the software and hardware I was using. I didn’t know much about the camera’s I was using, or the programme I was using, which in this case was Adobe Photoshop. Therefore, there was a lot of room for improvement. One main reason I learnt in the process of making the full product is the research I have done. The research helped greatly, outlining the codes and conventions I would need to use to achieve a realistic feel of my magazine. Being able to outline typical aspects of a front cover and analysing such so that I could involve similar aspects in mine helped me greatly too as even though my magazine was unique, it also looked like existing magazines.

Improvement

ImprovementA main area I improved in was design. As I had a lot more time to do my final products I could play around with it more and experiment what I thought looked better. From my preliminary task, the contents page has no real design to it, having pictures placed on the left and a large image as the background. As I wanted ‘Lockdown’ to be formal, I decided to eliminate the chance of having a busy background on the contents page, and instead have a plain white background. This showed formality and looked better too, in my opinion. Also with design, I chose to use a different type of shot for the front cover. In the preliminary task, I used an image of a building, with a smaller image of a model in the left corner. I carried through having a smaller image into my products, although I used a model in the main image. One reason I chose to do this was because I learnt about proportions of a magazine and the rule of thirds. This outlined that the subject of the front cover should take up two thirds of the whole page, and in my preliminary task, the subject ruled the front cover, covering the entire page.

Plans helped my work too. By creating multiple plans of my final products it helped me to guide where I was going to position certain aspects and proportions of these. This was not pre-planned in the preliminary task. Of course there was room for improvement after I made them plans, but they helped me begin my products without any difficulty and allowed me to establish key features of my magazine. Being able to visually see an outline of what I wanted my magazine to look like was helpful, instead of just having an idea in the back of my head. The amount of plans I could do were limitless, allowing me to keep thinking of ideas and then review which layout or page looks the best.

Improvement