Evaluation Activity 7

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

When I did the preliminary task, the software programs were totally new to me so I really made the school magazine by using trial and error to use the software tools. For the school magazine preliminary task, I decided to use my sister as a model for the photos. I decided that the main focus for the school magazine would be a dance showcase as it is something that my sister enjoys and I thought that it would make my magazine a bit more unique. I decided to make the photo on the front cover on the magazine relate to the topic of the dance showcase; this was useful because my sister does dancing so I was able to take photos of her dancing for the front cover. I thought that it would be effective to take a photo of her in front of a mirror so that her reflection is shown in the photo. I made sure that the contents page followed the house style of the magazine and the same colours and fonts were used throughout.

Comparing my preliminary work with the final coursework task, there is a big difference. I did much more research into the conventions of a music magazine so I knew what I needed to create for the task. For the preliminary task I did not research as much about the conventions of a school magazine so I did not know as much about what I needed to create.

By the time I came to take the photos for my music magazine, I was aware of the kind of poses and photos that I needed from my research. I chose to have a plain and black background as I knew that this would contrast well with the colour of the model's hair and skin colour etc.

By the time I came to make the music magazine, I had learnt how to use Photoshop and InDesign much more confidently and I was more aware of how to use the different tools etc.

You can see major differences between the preliminary task and the main task that show how my ability to use the software has improved.

You can see that there are major differences in the quality of my photos and the photo editing. In the preliminary task I did not really know how to use the photo editing tools so I mainly left them as they were. The only thing that I did do in the preliminary task was create a vignette around the photo on the contents page. I also did this on the contents page of my music magazine, however it looks more advanced and the photo is a lot better. I learnt how to use the magnetic lasso tools and the background erasers etc; by using these I was successfully able to cut out the photos and use other tools such as text wrap etc.

When taking photos for the preliminary task I did not really have a set location that I had chosen, I just took them at my house wherever I thought the photos would look good. However, when I took photos for the main task, I set up an area that was empty and I decided that I would want the photos to have a black background as I thought it would contrast well with my model's hair, to do this I put a black sheet on the wall and used this as a background. I also took some photos against a white brick wall as I thought this would look effective but when I looked back at the photos I decided that this did not really work very well so I did not use these photos. I decided not to use any props for my photos as I wanted them to be quite simple and plain; this is because I thought that the model has quite striking looks and I did not want any props to detract attention from this.

I knew that I wanted to have a close-up photo for the front page with the headlines around the photo, as from my research I noticed that this seems to be a typical convention of a music magazine. For the contents page I decided that I would want a long/full body shot of the model. I chose this photo as I thought it looked like she is presenting the contents page and what is included in the magazine.

For the double page spread I decided that I would have a long shot of the model that would take up almost half of the double page; this is so that the reader can immediately see who the article is about and the image would be the main focus of the page. I also included a smaller image on the opposite side of the double page spread. I used text wrap around both of the images as this looks professional and another convention of music magazine double page spread articles. I used a similar background colour/gradient as the contents page so that it follows the house style of the magazine and the font colours etc are constistent throughout the magazine.