Evaluation Draft Question 7

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


I believe the main progression from my preliminary is my ability to use software and different technologies and my understanding of how a magazine is created and the features and conventions that make magazines appealing to and audience. 
Firstly I have hugely developed my technical skills by using software such as photoshop. During my preliminary my knowledge of it was basic and very limited to the very simple elements of editing such as being able to roughly cut out and add effects to photos. It has gradually progressed throughout the production of my product and after my final draft I believe I have a much more in depth understanding of the tools and effects you can create using this programme. I feel that in comparison to my prelim, the editing and precision of the magazine is of a much higher standard, showing my improvement throughout the course. For example, my ability to contrast and brighten things to produce higher quality photos has improved as well as my ability to cover blemishes. I also am much more efficient; getting simple tasks such as editing objects and layers completed quickly. 

My understanding and knowledge of magazines has drastically improved. The knowledge was mainly gained during the research (particularly during analysis of magazines) as i was learning how magazines appeal to an audience and the techniques, conventions and features they use, such as the rule of three and the use of the golden spiral for photographs. I learnt how everything down to the positioning of certain things on the page was designed to be aesthetically pleasing and appeal to the target audience. However my understanding grew more during the planning and production of my final draft as it required me to use the knowledge effectively and to create my own following the conventions and techniques. A key example of this I feel is the comparisons of my contents pages. The preliminary magazine was very brief and lacked much use as a contents page. There was very little information of what the magazine contained and the pictures lack any versatility and clearly do not fit together. Contrastingly, my final contents page features an in depth contents, detailing exactly what we can expect from the magazine. It also sections the contents up so it makes it easier for the reader to use. The photographs are better edited and work better on the page and show a lot more versatility suggesting there to be more than one feature in the magazine. From just looking at the contents alone you can see my development, particularly my understanding of a conventional magazine as I feel this is the part I have learnt most about.