Question 7 - Looking back at your preliminary task (the school

magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression

from it to the main task?

The research and planning for my products has improved massively from the print prelim product. Whilst producing my prelim product there wasn’t much planning or research as it was just a prelim product. The only steps I went through whilst creating the product was looking at other magazines, the flat plans of the magazine then the final product. Whilst researching for the prelim task, I looked at magazines that were in my genre as it would help me to make my product more professional.

Research and Planning

Looking at the two covers and contents pages, you can clearly see that the right hand side magazine had more planning and research involved when producing the prelim of it. The sell lines are laid out more accurately and smarter and the masthead is bigger at the top so people know what it is. The contents page has a better layout that the one on the left. There are images used on the HAU5 magazine contents page and there are no gaps so the area is fully filled up so that there is a lot of content to display.

Research and Planning - LocationUnlike my prelim product, I researched and planned the location for my photo shoots. The chosen location is a photography studio as it was an appropriate place to get a black or white background for my shots. This meant that I could edit out the white background using Photoshop because it was easy to recognize by the software since it is just white. Doing this helped my organization skills as it made me more organized.

Research and Planning - FontsAnother part of the research and planning that I didn’t do on the prelim but on the main product was research on fonts. Because fonts can represent certain genres of magazine, I had to research the fonts that would be appropriate for my magazine cover. I narrowed my favorite choices down to three and eventually chosen the Plane Crash font. It had a rugged but stylish look to it and works well with a dance music and house magazine.

hau5hau5HAU5 - Century Gothic

- Camcorder

- Plane Crash*

*Font downloaded from dafont.com

Research and Planning – Camera SkillsUnlike my prelim, I researched how to get good camera photos. By doing this I found out that there is a system you can use to determine what type of shot you are wanting to do. I could use a grid system which you can use to get the eye-line correct. If the eye-line is on the top line then the shot is too high, if the eye-line is in the middle the shot is too low, if however the eye-line is halfway with the top and middle line then the shot is correct. I used this information when shooting my front cover photograph.

Research and PlanningThere was a lot of extensive research carried out in my research and planning for my product. They all played a part in helping me construct a high quality magazine cover. The various areas of research were costumes, statistics and facts about certain magazines readers, article research/planning and image analysis/composition. The article research and planning was especially critical as it is a main element of my double page spread. Also, the image composition and analysis was helpful as I needed to know how to take great photographs for the double page spread and front cover.

Construction

Looking at both my products you can see massive difference in quality and layout. The product on the left has no star qualities and is very basic. The one on the right hand side shows more areas of research and planning has been involved when producing it. Research and planning is a critical component to anything when it comes to magazines.