Evaluation 7 - your preliminary task, compared to now, how much do you think you have come on in terms of understanding and creativity of your product?

Evaluation 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task, compared to now, how much do you think you have come on in terms of understanding and creativity of your product?

I have learned a massive amount in my time this year. At the beginning of media, I had doubts whether this was the right subject for me. At the time I found it difficult to understand how media works and how to creative effective and genuine looking pieces. Looking at my preliminary task makes me laugh because it shows clearly how out of tune I was in terms of design and what actually makes someone want to buy or even look at a magazine. In comparison my newest work is incredibly developed. As I have gone along I have picked up small, yet important features that really makes a magazine a magazine.

Comparison:

Front Cover

 Hopefully I don't need to point out which cover is my preliminary. On the left you can clearly see that there is no knowledge of magazine design and seems as if it has been randomly displayed with little knowledge of how to do it. Also there is no clear colour or theme. There are four of five different colours on the prelim which looks tacky and very random. The picture manipulation is also poor because if you look closely you can see outlines where the image has been cropped. This looks unprofessional and also the lighting on the models clearly tells you that the image has been modified. On the right however I believe I have overcome these issues. Firstly there is a clear theme. The theme includes a certain font with its variations and also the unusual blue shades throughout the magazine. This shows professionalism as it also helps establish the brand as well as the design. The model has been pictured in natural light and in the correct setting to avoid air brushing a lot of the image. The right cover includes small, but effective features such as photo credits, issue no., and barcode. it even includes a pug which is very common with magazines. I feel after I familiarised myself which general codes and conventions of magazines then I found it fairly comfortable when I came to choosing what and what not to include on the cover.

Contents

The contents page on my preliminary is borderline embarrassing when you compare it up to my new magazine. There was clearly no understanding at all when it came to the contents, but when I started researching my information changed. I learned that the contents is incredibly important and is effectively a cover but with more information. I found the contents page tricky, even now because I kept changing In my head how I wanted it to look. I would say I'm fairly creative which can be a difficult trait because you are always coming up with new ways to lay something out. for example as I was putting the final touches on the contents I had a completely different idea which I believe I would of pursued if it wasn't for the deadline. Once again the use of detail and themes separate this piece of work versus whatever the thing on the left is.


DPS (Double page spread)

the double page spread was interesting because I didn't really realise how much information and work was required in order to make this effective. On the left once again the DPS is scarce on information and lacks any real creative design. The right one I feel is my best work within this project. The biggest obstacle to overcome when designing this page personally was creating the article itself. Once you've actually created the story then you just have to tweak the layout, theme and effects such as, page numbers, anchors and titles.

Overall I really enjoyed this project and appreciate all the help from all my teachers who gave me the correct advise I needed to create this work. I feel that my creative skills have come along way and that media was the right subject after all. I enjoyed the editing and picture manipulation the most because it is you putting your own personally twist on what your designing rather than just displaying what the camera sees. I feel my knowledge of technology has come a long way as at the beginning of this I wasn't 100% familiar with Serif but since then I feel 100% confident when I use Serif and other programs such as Animoto, Prezi or Emaze. I'm also happy that this project has ended because it gives me time to practise using all of these programs before I come back to do another project.

Thanks Luke