Media Evaluation - Progression from Preliminary Task

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

My preliminary task was to create the front cover for a school magazine. The conventions and style although extremely different from music magazines, was helpful when it came to creating my final product. Looking back at my preliminary task, I think my magazine creating skills have improved dramatically. Although for both, I was able to use conventions of the genre of the magazine, you can see that with the music magazine, I was able to make much better use of these conventions and understand them better. Having to figure out the conventions of a completely new genre prepared me and allowed me to effectively work out the conventions for indie music magazines.  Through planning and creating my preliminary task I was also able to produce much better and more professional photos that attracted my audience more. I think the main skill that I have greatly developed since my preliminary task is the ability to construct a professional and attractive magazine that will reach the target audience. From layout, to picture taking, to colour and font scheme, my preliminary task has helped me in all areas for creating my final product. Through creating it, I have learnt how to effectively use every element of the magazine to suit it to my specific target audience so that it appeals to them and no one else. This ensures that they read it and enjoy it. Below is my front cover of the preliminary task as compared to my final product cover.

I think I have improved greatly from my preliminary task which is visible from the product I was able to produce in my final magazine cover. Although they are two completely different genres aimed at different audiences, my final product does a much better job of following conventions and appealing to the target audience. And because of this, I think it is overall a better magazine which would gather many more readers. Just from looking at the two next to each other, I think I have made a great improvement from where I started. From looking at the layouts in my two products, there is a massive improvement on manipulation of layout to better appeal to the audience. In my preliminary task, I wasn't able to best use the route of eye and principle of thirds to my advantage as much as in the main product. In my music magazine, the layout followed conventions much better and was much more effective in its appeal. My photo taking skills and editing have definitely improved as well as you can see. In my recent product I was able to compose the shot better and use mise-en-scene to the best of my abilities. My photos were more stereotypical and followed conventions better so best appealed to the audience. The fonts I chose to use in my real magazine were found through researching similar magazines to see their fonts, therefore analysing conventions. I also tested various fonts to see which looked better and which stood out best. However with my preliminary task I didn't do so much research and planning. So I therefore improved my skills in planning, with my music magazine. 

My ability to construct an effective and professional look for my front cover and whole product has dramatically improved. I am now able to take every element of the product into account when trying to appeal to the audience. This skill along with many others has helped me develop my final product from the preliminary one, with many improvements to the skills along the way.