Evaluation Question 7) Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, Of Designing The Front Page Of A School Magazine, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Final Product?

I have learnt alot in the whole task, including prelim. In the prelim task I learnt basic Photoshop and photography skills, these were expanded on when designing and making the full product. I learnt how to develop skills and most importantly, how to analysis work that I have created, choose the best and worst elements and improve upon them. To lead me from my prelim task into my main music task, I started with a planning for production.

The start of the progression from prelim to main task I evaluated my prelim front cover and contents, I looked at the positive aspects as well as the negatives and despite the content being of different issues, conveying from school to music, I will still able to use elements, this is something I learnt. I learnt how to develop initial ideas further into more designed compositions. This leads me to my next point.

An aspect where I also learnt how to develop initial ideas was through flat planning. Flat planning is a technique which was new to me. I found this technique really helpful, it gave me a clear designed base to work from, which I was then able to study, evaluate and go on to make slight changes. It was also a different format of working where I was able to express my ideas freely.

Also conventions such as mastheads have made significant improvemence when being compared to the preliminary task, this is because I had learnt how to evaluate in my prelim task and therefore was aware of what aspects worked and what did not. I found that the use of two fonts in my school magazine allowed a wider audience to be targeted, however I could have targeted the audience in a more specific way. I decided to develop this feature and use specific fonts to target genders. I used the same feature of using two fonts in my masthead to appeal to a wider audience, but in a different way to allow my music press magazine to target both genders, rejecting gender inequality. My masthead in my music press magazine is highly visually pleasing, whereas my school magazine is limited.

I also learnt how to conduct a successful photoshoot. In my prelim task my photoshoot wasn’t as successful as it could have been. I was limiting myself, I never went out of my way to take images for the school magazine. The images I did have lacked insight into the publication itself, there was a limit on students visual and a key point when addressing an audience is to use eye contact, which I never. These were negative aspects of my prelim task so for my music publication, I made sure my photographs were perfect. I took time with my photo shoot ensuring high quality images. I focused on costume, body language and facial expressions. I ensured my model made strong eye contact in order to address my audience successfully. I conducted a photoshoot and was then able to choose my selected images. I developed my images further, editing them in many different ways. This challenged my prelim task. Click these links to see, planning, chosen images and the making of my dancing image.

Click here to find out more about the technologies I learnt along the way.