Evaluation: (Question 7) Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

This is the final evaluation question to consider. Throughout this process I have learnt many things and I have briefly described these in the mind map below.

If I was to look back at my preliminary task, I would be able to see and improvement in my work. Here is my covers next to each other:

In my final product, I have learnt about the conventions magazine covers, so therefore there is things I have deliberately changed.  I have used the same font on all my cover lines. In my preliminary task I used all different fonts. In my finished product all the text apart form the mast head is in the same font. I took a lot of time choosing this font. I liked that it was bold and I deliberately put it in capital letters so catch the attention of my audience.  In my preliminary task, my font is in capital letters but the cover lines are too small. When I made my preliminary task I did not know the importance of making your cover appeal to your audience. I don't think an audience would like my preliminary task cover because it is not  very easy to look at.  My preliminary task cover is very busy. The background I chose is relevant for a school magazine however it made it very hard to put cover lines on because sometimes you could not read them depending on what part of the background it was on. I chose a plainer background. On my final product I have used a limited colour pallet, this is better than my  preliminary task because I have used too many colours. On my preliminary task one of the cover lines is tilted. This makes it so much harder for my audience to read this .  I would say I have improved my main cover line. With my main cover line on my preliminary task you cannot actually tell it is the main cover line. It just looks like a normal cover line .  I have used a combination of two colours in my main cover line on my finished product. In my finished product the main cover line is a lot bigger. You can actually tell it is the main cover line. I would say I improved my editing skills during this process. My model in my preliminary task has been edited and it makes it look quite blurry. I have improved my editing skills because I have made the model a lot more clearer. I have also used harder editing techniques. For example I have used a focal effect to create a focus on my model. When I made my preliminary task I didn't know what editing techniques I could use.   I have used more cover lines on my final product. That is because I now know that the cover lines are an important way to make your audience understand what is in the magazine.  There is some conventions that I used in my preliminary task but didn't in my final product. This was a date and a  price.  Though they are typical conventions of magazines I did not want to use them.  I learnt that dates use go along the side of a magazine. I felt using a price would a be a negative way to advertise my magazine. If I advertised the price on the cover it may prevent people from buying the magazine. On my preliminary task I didn't use a selling line. After research and planning I learnt that this would be an effective convention to use.  I think my final product is definitely an improvement from my preliminary task. Another way to understand what I have learnt from my preliminary task in the progression  to my final product is to looks at my contents pages.

I would say this is where the biggest improvement from my preliminary task can be shown. With my preliminary task contents page it is easy to tell the contents page has just been produced using Microsoft word. I used comic sans which is a very common font. My layout is very simple and the heading of the contents page does not really look like a heading.  My contents page is completely different to this. Firstly I have laid my contents page out in a more interesting way. I have text in different place all over the place. When I made my preliminary task I wasn't too sure what a contents page for a magazine was supposed to look like.  As I progressed throughout this process I learnt is was common for magazine contents pages to put their brand's logo on the contents page as well as the cover.  Therefore I did this on my final product. It provided a better heading than my preliminary task.  I have a better and more effective use of image on my final product .  On the contents page for my preliminary task I have used two images that I repeated. These images are nothing to do with the content of the magazine. They are also found images.  With my final product my image on my contents page is such an improvement. It is of an artist that it featured in the magazine. It is also an image that I took myself.  I edited this image by putting a lighting bolt in the background. I think in general my final product's contents page is more sophisticated.

 The most important thing that through the progression of this coursework is how much work goes into constructing a text to a deadline.  I have learnt it really does take a lot of work to produce a media text to a dead line.