Evaluation 7

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

Throughout the process of creating my final product i feel i have greatly improved my skills with programs such as Photoshop. Before the process began I was yet to use Photoshop and had no experience in it's use. This made it difficult to create a product at the beginning of the process. However as the process went on i learnt a number of different skills inside of Photoshop such as changing the lighting and contrast on photos in post production and the use of the editing tools to edit my images and get rid of any unwanted parts. I learnt how to use light and color manipulation in my photos through Photoshop which allowed me to make my images appear warmer and more pleasing to look at, I have also learnt more about magazine's and their design and creation. I found this aspect of the process very interesting as it allowed me to research different magazines and the graphic designers behind them. I also learnt about the business processes behind magazine production and marketing, something i already had a small understanding of. The process also gave me the opportunity to practice my photography skills and this helped me make a massive improvement in the way i frame and shoot my photos as well as my own cameras operation. I had the opportunity to use models in my images and this gave me the opportunity to style them and pose them for the image. This taut me how to style a model through their clothing and facial expressions as well change the mise-en-scene in order to appeal to a target demographic. Looking back at my preliminary magazine, which had a target audience of school children, the magazine was bland and boring in comparison to my final product. The colors i used did not attract attention to the magazine while the images i used had to relevance to the target audience, which meant they showed no interest. This helped me to learn how to appeal to a target demographic through the use of color, images and what is actually included in the articles in the magazine. The style and graphic design changed massively from my preliminary magazine. This is because i had the chance to do extensive research into magazines and magazine design, allowing me to learn and use the conventions used throughout popular music magazines such as clash and wire. I also learnt from my preliminary product that the studio created a manufactured and artifact style in my images through the use of grey backgrounds and artificial lighting. This looked off putting and would stop my target audience from ever picking up my magazine. For my final product i decided to use a natural environment outdoors to make my images more appealing. I also made use of bright, natural lighting to and color and warmth to my images. I learnt how to style my models in a way which my target audience finds interesting and fashionable. This was an improvement over my preliminary magazine as it did not appeal to it's target audience through the fashion and clothing that my models wore. In my final product i made sure my models wore clothing such as flannel shirts and charity shop coats which are fashionable in the indie and emo subcultures. This draws the interest of my target demographic as they would take an interest in the fashion featured in the magazine. I also learnt that including relvent information and features on the cover will draw in audience attention. This helped me improve over my preliminary and allowed me to include featured artists and bands on my final cover of my magazine. This helps to draw the attention of people interested in indie music and music produced by artists part of the emo subculture. I learnt about conventional and successful magazine layouts and designs since my preliminary magazine. I then used this research to incorporate these ideas and conventions into my final magazine. This improved the overall layout and design of the magazine, giving it a professional look that appeals to my target audience as they do not want to read a magazine that's poorly designed and fails to catch their attention. I made sure my text arrangement and overall layout of my magazine follows forms and conventions of other popular magazines in order to make it appear more professionally produced. The main selling point of my magazine is the genre and artists included and featured throughout my magazine. This appeals to my target audience of fans of the indie/emo/pop punk genres of music and attracts them to this magazine. Through my research since my preliminary magazine i have found there are few magazines like this available and none that are large and print consistently. This means my magazine has the opportunity to fill a gap in the music magazine market and become successful.