QUESTION 7: LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION

FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

HOW TO USE CONVENTIONS

LAYOUT OF A FRONT COVER

TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE

COMPOSITION OF A PHOTO

PHOTOGRAPHY TERMINOLOGY

PLANNING AND RESEARCH

PHOTOSHOP

PUBLISHER

College magazine Music magazine

For my preliminary task, I had to do a college magazine front cover to prepare myself for the creation of my final product. I have made this figure, showing what I learned from the preliminary task.

Ideology

Close up

Medium close upMedium shot

Long shotComposition

Medium long shot

Terminology

Mast head

Skyline

Pull quote

Feature storyFooter

Main feature story

Plug

Magic eraser tool

Photoshop

and other

technology

Quick selection tool

Layers

PublisherDafont.com

Horizontal type tool

Paintbucket tool

Photography terminology

Planning and

researchMood board

Existing products

LIIAR analysis Spider diagram

Conventions analysis

When looking at these two front covers, I think I have improved a lot. When doing my college magazine, I had little understanding of conventions and how to use them, whereas on my music magazine, conventions are used much better, and I think I have much better understanding of how to use them now.

The feature stories go across the main image, and it is also hard to tell which one of them, is the main feature story.

On this one, the main image has been framed by the feature stories, so they go around the sides of the image. It is easy to tell which one is the main feature story, as it is much bigger and takes up much more focus than the feature stories do.

In both of these front covers, I think I have shown a good understanding of how to use colours and how to make a nice colour scheme. However, the colour scheme on my college magazine are all a bit pale, and not attention seeking at all, whereas the colour scheme on my music magazine gets much more focus from an audience.

The plug on my college magazine is not used effectively; the text goes slightly out over the edge, and it does not catch much attention.

The plug on this front cover looks much better, I think, since all the text is inside the plug, the placing of the plug is more conventional, and also, the plug gets more attention.

Whilst there is a lot of wasted space on the college magazine, especially in the upper right corner, no space has been wasted on my music magazine.

IF I WAS DOING MY COLLEGE MAGAZINE AGAIN, I WOULD…

Spend more time on doing research, and look at existing products; and not just college magazines, but magazines in general, which would have given me a better understanding of how to use conventions in general, as well as it would have inspired me.

Take a better image that would allow me to frame the feature stories around the main image, as well as put the model more in focus.

Use a skyline and a footer, which would make the framing of my magazine look much better.

I would avoid leaving empty, unused spaces, as this makes the front cover look very unprofessional.

The colour scheme could have been with more strong colours, and not two shades of the same colour, which gives a really boring look to the front cover.

I wouldn’t let the feature stories go across the main image as much as they do on that front cover.

IT WAS USEFUL TO DO THE COLLEGE MAGAZINE BECAUSE…

It introduced me to Photoshop and how to use the basic tools. The tools I learned to use was: move tool, quick selection tool, eyedropper tool, magic eraser tool, paint bucket tool, horizontal type tool, rectangle tool and custom shape tool. It also taught me how to work in layers and what settings to use as the main settings when opening a new Photoshop document.

It showed me how much hard work I need to put into producing a front cover. It gave me an initial understanding of how to use conventions, and I could from then

on develop my understanding further. My research gave me an understanding of what to include in a college magazine and

also what not to include; it gave me an understanding of what type of pictures I should be using as my main image; what type of props what appropriate to use in a college magazine, and it also gave me a brief understanding on how to frame my main image, so that the feature stories could fit around it.

It introduced me to useful webpages when producing a magazine, e.g. dafont.com which I have used for my mast head, page numbers, page titles and the pull quote on my double page spread.