Eval 7
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Through creating preliminary and main magazine products, the author has learned many important lessons about magazine design conventions. For the preliminary task, created in just a few hours, the author lacked understanding of things like appropriate fonts, layouts, cover designs, and content pages. However, with more research, planning, and experience put into the main product, the author was able to create a more professional magazine that implemented important conventions like appealing fonts, color schemes, full-page cover photos, and content-rich internal pages. Comparing the preliminary and main products shows how the author's skills in editing, design, research and planning have significantly improved over time.
Eval 7
- 1. Looking at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to your full product? Immediately the first thing I must have to say is that creating a professional magazine is not something that can be done within a day. Hours of research must take place along with a larger amount of hours editing and creating the magazine to make it perfect. Compare all my magazines and you can see how I’ve clearly improved upon with time and more experience. My preliminary task was created within quite frankly must have just been a maximum of two hours. My main product which was created previously took far longer however I was able to manage time more effectively this time and managed to create a product not only appeals more but shows how my understanding of conventions of magazines has improved. When creating a magazine, a numerous amount of conventions must be implemented to your product otherwise the target audience simply will not be interested in reading it. Creating a very simplistic but professional magazine is always likely to be successful along with the correct content readers would like to read. The use of more appealing fonts, colour schemes and a better layout gives a better image of the magazine. My preliminary task consisted of creating a magazine that wasn’t at all appealing, it was very dull and lacked quality. My main product which was created before showed how I was able to pick up on these issues however this was understanding was not fully shown as compared to the final product I have created now. Of course not only has my editing skills improved, my noticing skills and research & planning skills have been improved which can be used in many different projects for the future. I am able to successfully pick up and learn different conventions of not just only magazines but other different types of media that can be used for A2.
- 2. Masthead My preliminary task had a very basic masthead that was positioned at the top of the page. The font was odd and the colour used made it difficult to view properly because of my low level of understanding magazines designs and conventions, I opted for the gradient background which doesn’t seem very appealing. Then for my main task I had designed a very basic masthead and positioned it in a very conventional way. Through research of other magazines, I felt the masthead needed to stand out and inform the readers of the magazine. It also needed to be very noticeable and easy to recognise as it would be sitting next to other magazines on a shelf. My preliminary masthead was simple and add no effects to it, essentially it was simply one font and a gradient background created on Indesign. Through the use of Photoshop, I was able to create a better masthead that had less space in between text and allowed me to select the thickness of the outline. It also has a red background which blended in with the rest of my magazine colour scheme. Another thing that can be easily noticed is how my preliminary masthead is all lowercase whereas through research of other magazines, it was quite obvious capital letters is a better choice. A tag line was also added to my masthead to give it a little catchphrase, this can help to build reputation and make it more known. This wasn’t used in my preliminary task since I had no idea this was commonly used by magazines.
- 3. Front cover For my preliminary task, I decided to go for a black, white and blue colour scheme as compared to the conventional black, white and red for my main task. The preliminary task also shows how I lacked knowledge and understanding of magazine conventions, the front cover had very little on the page and the main photo was of two people looking away. Of course after some research I knew that my main task had to consist of a lot of more content on the front cover as well as a interesting main photograph to attract my audience. Another issue could be raised with my preliminary task as I had very little understanding of what fonts to be used as I opted for some strange fonts that didn’t blend well with my photograph especially the cover line. You can clearly see how I have managed to learn far more about magazines front covers through the progression of this project especially those little details that make a whole difference.
- 4. Contents page Following on with my black, white and blue colour scheme, this was also used on my preliminary task which can only seem coincidental. Again the same strange font was used in an attempt to attract readers but its clearly visible that the page lacked content! This was an issue that needed to be dealt with especially through research and planning of my main task. Real media content pages have plenty of content so readers knew what was featured in the magazine. Having a lot of more content on the page allows a more professional layout which featured a header, footer and page number. None of which was used in my preliminary task. The font used can be compared easily, my preliminary task had a more funky type of font whereas my main task had a more appealing font that made my magazine look more professional. I also decided to include an editors note as I wanted to challenge at least one convention of the magazines in an attempt to create something different along with an advert which is commonly seen in real magazines.