Evaluation - Task Seven

Looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt on the progression from it to full product?

I think my understanding of magazines as a media product has progressed greatly between my preliminary task and my final task. One way in which it has is I now understand photography a lot better than when creating the first task. The photos for the school magazine are clearly unplanned, with not much thought put into various elements of them such as lighting, costume, background or pose. In my final construction, I think there is a clear distinction in the photography levels, even by just looking at the two front covers together. While the 'Sixth Form Magazine' image does have good lighting, it was not planned, and was just luck from the outside light. The model is standing in front of a shelter, which is also clearly unplanned, because while the image almost works, ultimately the idea of having it there doesn't look right with the rest of the cover. This is in contrast to 'The Pick', which has an obviously planned image, making use of costumes, lighting, the model's pose, the right background, and although ultimately it was digitally added in, the prop of the 'polaroid' photograph was initially planned as well. I feel that my progression in the understanding of photography has made the main image for 'The Pick' an extremely effective one in my opinion, and shows obvious superiority to the image used for 'Sixth Form Magazine'. I have also progressed even in simpler things such as fonts. The only effective font used for 'Sixth Form Magazine' is one designed to look retro and digital, but it holds no relevance to the magazine itself. The rest of the fonts used on the cover are generic, and do not catch the eye as much as the fonts for 'The Pick' do. While a similar house style has been used, I have put a lot more though into different ways to use it for 'The Pick', and I put a lot of thought into certain fonts, such as the one used for the masthead, which holds a simple yet stylish look and helps to attract my wider target audience. I have also improved my layout skills between the two constructions. During the first project, not much thought was put into layout, and I really just put the text and images wherever I could, but during the creation of 'The Pick' I planned the layout better, once again creating a much more professional final creation, and looking more like an actual music magazine. This is best seen on the contents page, where while 'Sixth Form 

Magazine' had a very basic layout that doesn't actually help the reader navigate the magazine very well, 'The Pick' has a clear structure, and leaves enough space for all of the content of the magazine to be featured. It follows the rules of thirds, having information and a picture in the left third, highlights of the magazine in the second third, normal features in the final third and the main image and it's accompanying headline in the right two thirds. This not only looks professional and resembles existing magazines, but it helps the audience navigate the magazine more efficiently than they could have with the first page. In conclusion, I'm extremely happy with the progress I have made between the two tasks. I have improved a great amount on the work I have done between the two projects, and I think that you can clearly see how my understanding of the different elements of music magazines has progressed from my preliminary task into my final construction.