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

product?

Front cover

Preliminary task

Dummy Final piece

Front cover.When I first did a front cover as part of my preliminary task I had no idea where to start. This was due to my lack of knowledge and lack of research. One thing I learnt from doing my preliminary task was how important it was to plan the photography. As you can see, my masthead on the preliminary task covers a wide area of my characters forehead. This isn't good as it shows that my character has a lack of importance. The character should be the main focus of my front cover so I should of made sure I left enough room to fit the whole image in. this is something I learnt from when doing the final piece. Instead of the masthead covering part of the character, I had a bit of the character covering the masthead, this showed the importance of the character on the front cover.

Another thing I learnt from the preliminary task was how important the use of font was. On my preliminary task I used a small, basic font that didn’t stand out. By doing this, it would not catch the audiences attention, it also looked unprofessional. That is why on my final piece I spent ages deciding which font best suited the magazine. I decided to go for a large, bold font as it stood out and would catch the audiences eye. I also found that the use of capital letters could enhance the meaning of the text, making it look meaningful and important.

Double page spread

Dummy

Final piece

Double page spreadAlthough making a double page spread wasn’t part of my preliminary task I did draft a dummy during my research. After producing my dummy I was dissatisfied with how plain and boring it looked. That’s why I decided to do an interview so that I could be creative. I also wanted to add other colours into my text to grab readers attention and to help the article flow properly. Deciding to take a picture of my character in the recording studio added life to my double page spread and really added personality to the character.Another thing I learnt from doing my dummy was that the layout of my text wasn’t right. I didn’t leave a border between each column of text. If this had of happened in a real magazine, then the reader would get confused as the writing would all merge as one and it would be difficult to distinguish one paragraph from another.Therefore on my final piece I learnt from this mistake and made sure I left plenty of room between each column of writing so that it would be easier for the reader.

Contents page

Preliminary task Dummy Final piece

Contents page Although the contents page for the preliminary task did not have to be as detailed as the front cover task I have certainly learnt a lot in the progression from it. My contents page for my preliminary task had a couple of pictures on and a few lines of texts. However after doing research on existing contents pages I learnt this was not how they are set out and it would of looked silly if I had done this for my final piece. When I went on to do my dummy, I took this into account. I added more pictures and instead of doing blocks of texts wrote single sentences. The contents page is there to direct the reader to pages in the magazine and therefore it does not want to be overloaded with information that they can find within the magazine.I then took these ideas and developed them in my final piece. By adding things like plugs on my contents page it would catch the readers attention and provide them with just enough information for them then to carry on and read the magazine without giving too much away. Using pull quotes instead of writing a paragraph about each individual story would help to draw the reader in and get them wanting more.