Q7. Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?

 

I have learnt many valuable skills since my preliminary task. While creating my preliminary task, I had very little knowledge in what a magazine should have what not to have. For example, I have learnt the conventions of a music magazine, by doing this; I knew what to have and how to use certain things in a music magazine. Looking back at my college magazine, I did have basic conventions such as fonts, cover lines and a barcode, but the use and style of these was not affective at all, the fonts and the colours was used was random and was not professional also the background the college magazine was very irregular and not attractive.

One of the main reasons that there is a big difference from my music magazine and my college magazine is because of the knowledge I had in Photoshop. While creating my college magazine, I only had general knowledge, on how to use a Photoshop e.g. adding an image or text, but now I know how to use numerous amounts of different tools, such as adding a stroke or making an image the appropriate size without stretching the image. All these valuable skills have come into benefit because if you compare my music magazine to my college magazine, people will think it was created from 2 different people.

Also, in my preliminary task, I only created a front cover and a contents page, whereas in my main product, I have a double page spread with the contents page and the front cover. In doing so, I now know how to create a piece on an A3 paper on Photoshop. This is another skill that I have gained.

One of the main problems I had while creating my preliminary task, was that I had no target audience, the audience was a mass audience, which includes everyone, this made it difficult, as you would be required to research on every aspect and every type of audiences, by doing so, it was difficult to make my magazine, unique and focus on one type of genre or style. Whereas in my main project, I had a niece audience, this is having a specific audience, by doing this, it makes researching a lot easier, as you only have to focus on one type of audience. This also made it easier to attach it to my music magazine as I can now only focus on my target audience and add the type of style that they enjoy. In doing so, this has made my music magazine look more attractive.

Also since, my preliminary task, I have learnt how to use a cannon E05 400D professionally, in my preliminary task; you can see that the quality of my images were not good compared to my music magazine. You can see the differences in the music magazine, as it has more accurate shots, also by learning how to use a professional camera; it gives a general knowledge on how to take the photo, e.g. taking a photo in front of a suitable background.