Evaluation Question Seven

The Question

Looking Back at my preliminary task, what do I feel I have learnt in the process?

I think that I have learnt so much in the time between completing my preliminary front cover and my final front cover. One of these reasons is because I became more comfortable using photoshop and the different tools on the programme. Looking back at my preliminary front cover which was supposed to be for a school, there are many different things that I would change for example adding more cover lines on the front cover is a must, as most magazines have 3-5 on the front. Another thing that I would change is the colour scheme I used. However I will now be talking about different things I learnt in between these two products and from these two products.

Research and Planning

After completing my preliminary task I realised that if I had planned it out slightly before going straight in to designing the front cover I would of completed a more successful piece. From this I decided to make sure each piece of my music magazine had a plan and research behind it to back up choices I made and to ensure that I knew what I was doing when I started my production. This made my life a lot easier during production as I wasn't constantly worried about "what's going to fill that space", or "I don't have enough room for everything" as I had everything planned out in there positions before I even had all the different pieces for each page. However along with this came some problems because if I changed my mind on a certain piece I had to make sure my new idea fit in to the plan I had done previously. Doing this planning and research taught me how important it is to go in to a project or piece prepared and already having knowledge of what is needed.

Drafting

When I was creating my final front cover I had two original plans, this was both a positive and negative to me. At the beginning I found it very hard to use both plans as they differed however at one point when I believed that I had finished my cover, I realised that it did not look like a Pop magazine front cover at all and instead had the look of an Indie magazine.This was where my second plan came in handy as I was able to move things around add different colours and backgrounds( as well as completely changing the picture I was supposed to use on my front cover). The first front cover is uploaded to my blog under the title of first front cover draft- as I think it is important to learn from mistakes and show how I improved upon this cover to ensure the genre my music magazine was targeting came across. From doing this draft I think one of the best things I learnt was making a mistake isn't a bad thing but something to learn from and build upon.

Attention to Detail and Editing

My skills it making sure each detail on the front cover is correct improve massively from the two products above. I think one reason of this is because I became more comfortable using photoshop and also became more confident in my abilities to create a good product. Another thing that I learnt whilst doing this is that there is always something to improve upon even if it is the smallest detail. I also learnt new skills on how to edit a photo which is another reason I think my second product cam out better than my preliminary task as I was just reacquainting my self with photoshop then. 

Looking as a whole and refining 

Working on these two products, challenged me to take a step back from my work and try to look at it objectively and find the weaknesses that needed to be fixed(more so on my final music magazine than my preliminary task). This is an important skill that I will need later on in life as well as it will allow me to achieve the best results possible in future products.

Constructive criticism 

Creating these two products has allowed me to gain constructive criticism from my peers and teachers. Making sure that this has occurred is important because it ensures my work is the best it can be. The whole process that I have undergone during this course if based on improving through mistakes made or by using research made.  

Evaluation Question Six

The Question

What have I learnt about technologies from the process of constructing these products?

Evaluation Question Five

The Question

How did I attract and address my target audience?

Evaluation Question Four

The Question
Who would the audience be for my media product (my magazine)?
I decided to reflect upon the three different categories that I took in to consideration when deciding my target audience earlier in the course, and I looked to see whether what I created would appeal to that target audience.

Evaluation Question Three

The Question

What kind of media institution might distribute your product?

Evaluation Question Two

The Question

How do my media products represent social groups?

Evaluation Question One

The Question

In what way does my media product challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My Front Cover

When designing and creating my front cover I made sure to include many conventions that are already present in and on media music magazines for example I included

• A barcode at the bottom of the front cover
  
• A masthead (title) of the magazine at the top of the front cover
  
• A website address
  
   
• Cover lines and articles on the side of the page
  
• A main image of the featured artist
  
• Issue number of the magazine
• The date of the issue
  
• I used words such as 'exclusive' or 'new' and these words are used to attract audiences as it makes them feel that they are reading something special
  

However whilst I kept to many existing codes and conventions of a magazine front cover something that differs from these on my front cover is that all of my cover stories are on one side leaving the other blank. This is different from other magazines as most spread them out over the cover. Something that I found particularly difficult in the production of my front cover was trying to create something different that stands out whilst sticking to codes and conventions of magazine front covers.I think that my front cover has managed to form to look like a front cover of a magazine that could be sold in the shops as conventions of magazines and the styles I used follow what is already out there but also includes different features- for example having the main image look away from the camera which could suggest shyness, embarrassment and nervousness a quality that could draw more members of my target audience in as they may identify with these feelings.

My Contents Page

Whilst designing my contents page I kept to a traditional layout of the articles down one side of the page, a title at the top, page numbers at the bottom as well as an image of the main feature to emphasise the importance and to attract more audiences to the article. I included a different font on this page to add detail to the article lines, and this font was then used throughout on my double page spread.I also ensured that the magazine articles were of interest to my target audience as they are the ones who will be reading the magazine.

I chose to keep the colours on the contents page the same as the colours used on front cover to ensure that they could be identified as part of the same product something that I did not manage to do in my preliminary task. The brush styled writing was something I choose as it links to the title/ masthead on the front cover and then again creates a bond between the pages.

The featured articles were place all to one side one after another and this stuck with conventions used in many music magazines 

I decided to do a separate box for the main featured article to ensure that every reader would be able to know straight away where to find the article that was featured on the front.

I included these on the contents page to ensure that the magazine is relatable to the readers every day lives as technology is such a big part of many peoples life I thought it was important to include it on the contents page 

I placed the date of the issue and the magazine website at the bottom of the page along with the page number as this was a key convention that featured in many other pop (and in general music) magazines. 

Double Page Spread

I placed some screenshots of my double page spread above, these images show some of the conventions that I followed whilst creating this article. The first image of the headline uses the same font as the masthead on the front cover and contents page this links all of the separate products together to create one final product. The colour used however varies from the blues used on the first two pages as it is now linking with the image on the double page spread and the way that the article will come across- calm, collected and new. The next image is of the date, website and page number on one side of the double page spread. These pieces were included as it is a key convention and feature of a magazine and the colour I used (blue) links the article again back to the other products. Next is the box placed at the end of the article to indicate that it continues on the next page, this was something that I noticed appeared in other music magazines when the articles continued to other pages and was something I was key to replicate if the opportunity arose. Lastly is an image of my article, something that I did which I had not seen in other magazine was to use the instrument to overlap the text box and wrap the text around the image. I think that this brought something different to the article.