7. Looking Back At Your Preliminary Task, What Do You Feel You Have Learnt In The Progression From It To The Full Product?

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

For my main product I really looked into my audience research and just general music magazine research to make sure that I was producing the right product that my target audience would want. Looking back at my preliminary task it is not targeted as well to the audience’s demands as it could potentially be. So I think that I have really improved my approach to audience research as I think it made a massive impact in my work and how I went about my product and what it should look like and be about.

 

I now understand that by using real magazine conventions it makes it seem more real and professional looking, for example, for my double page spread, I edited my image to make the models head appear over the top of the title of the page, this is seen in many real music magazines and therefore I think that it made my music magazine look more professional. Whereas looking back at my preliminary task it’s all very simple and not how I think it should look.

From my preliminary task you can see that I wasn’t as good in Photoshop and InDesign as I have now become, this is because over the course of my project I have been learning new things about new programmes/software. InDesign was a whole new programme for me and the difficulties I had with it were affecting my ability to complete my work but I soon learnt how to use it properly which impacted my work as it then progressed and looked a lot better and more professional. I knew how to use Photoshop already but by concentrating on certain elements it has improved my skill, for example, with using the magazine of convention of putting the masthead/title under the models head I had to manipulate the image in Photoshop and remove the white background and make it transparent.

 Using InDesign

Manipulating the image in Photoshop.

When deciding on my shoot to feature in my main task I wanted it to look much better than my images used in my preliminary task therefore I thought thoroughly about the location and theme I would use. I set up my shots to show what I wanted to show and I knew in my head how I visually wanted them to look like as I had done a lot of research into other magazines and looked at the shots they used for their front covers, contents pages and double page spreads. By thinking it all through and making sure I drew up mocks of the shots it helped me to create the music magazine I have thought of.

I have developed my critical evaluation skills as I would check over my work and evaluate each part as i went along and then get some feedback about my work. I also looked at other students work and would see what was a strength in their work which could influence my work and then also point out weaknesses which I would steer to avoid in my own work.

6. What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product?

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I used the college’s dell computers for the majority of my work, which means I learnt how to use these computers software specifically throughout my project.

But I did also use my memory stick which then helped me to transfer my work from the college computers to my laptop at home.

I have an apple  Mac book so therefore I bought windows software to help me to continue with my work from college that id started in word or PowerPoint etc.



For my preliminary task I used my Samsung ST550 dual screen camera to take my photos which were then edited and put into my front cover and contents page.

For my main task I used my digital Canon SLR to ensure that my photos were top quality. By using this camera I was also able to control how the picture looked which helped with the editing that I later done before adding the images to my main task.

I used my Blackberry Bold 9700 to take photos of any drawings which I needed to show in my blog, I used my Blackberry as I don’t have access to a scanner.

I then used my mini SD memory card adaptor stick to transfer the images from my Blackberry mini SD memory card to the computer to enable me to add the images to my blog.

For my mastheads and most of the wording in my main task I used the website dafont.com to find a suitable font to suit my genre and layout of my music magazine.

Editing/manipulating my photos for both my preliminary and main task I used Adobe Photoshop CS4, I learnt many different ways of editing including dodging and burning the colours the make them brighter or darker and using brightness and contrast to make the picture more vibrant in colour. I also used the crop tool for my images in Photoshop to make my images the size I wanted.

I used Microsoft Office Outlook to keep up to date and organised with my work and keep in contact with my teachers informing me on things I needed to do within my work and sometimes i used it to email my work to home so i could use my home email and do my work at home.

I used a programme called Adobe InDesign to create my main task, this was a new programme to me and I found it difficult to use as I was unsure on how it worked, but I soon got used to it and started to understand what I needed to do and how to do it within the programme.  

When I need to print screen anything I used Paint and then saved it and added that image to my blog.

I used Microsoft Word for the majority of my work which I then copy and pasted into blogger.

I also used Microsoft PowerPoint for some of my work, especially flat plans and some audience research. I then copy and pasted this in to my blog or made a print screen in Paint.

I made a Blogger account which I used to present all my work. I learnt how to upload images and insert words into a blog and I think that it is a good way of showing my work as it makes everything clear and easy to read.