EVALUATION 7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Since producing my college magazine, I have developed a number of skills in a number of different areas. These areas include my photoshop skills, research, planning and overall layout of each magazine. I feel that with the production of my music magazine, I did a lot more research into existing magazines which helped me look in more detail at the conventions and construction of a front cover. On my music magazine front cover I have made sure to include more conventions, these are: left third, main header, pull quote, skyline, plug, barcode and pricing and advertisement of a free gift within the magazine. Unlike my music magazine, the outcome of my preliminary task was very basic and doesn't have conventions such as a plug, skyline and main header placed in the center which attract the audience. I feel that I have learnt that the research and planning process is very important when producing a music magazine in order to create a product that is interesting and appeals to the audience. Researching my target audience was something I didn't do for my preliminary task, therefore I didn't have as much insight into what would be attractive. I have also learnt to experiment with different tools on photoshop to manipulate and alter images and text (by adding effects such as outer glow). This has made the front cover of my music magazine a lot more interesting and bolder, also aided by the fact I experimented with different fonts I could use for the masthead, main header and sell lines. Another I have learnt is the importance of mise-en-scene and how it addresses the audience, once again, research being the main key to learning this. As I have given more detail and attention to the model's costume, in the my music magazine, I was able to choose a key colour for my colour scheme, showing another key convention. While I did have a colour scheme for my college magazine, I did not exaggerate it enough and make the colours bold. This shows that my preliminary task was a good starting point for producing a magazine because trying to create a professional looking music magazine would have been more difficult without the development of my new skills, mentioned at the beginning.