Evaluation
Throughout the preliminary task project, I have managed to create a well composed front cover and an effective contents page for a Sixth Form students.Before even starting on publications production we had looked at different types of school magazines and the audience they direct to. I remembered one particular magazine- Mcdonogh because it was extremely effective in balancing both relaxing, fun mood with formal, mature look. I aimed to produce a magazine as natural and realistic as Mcdonogh which would appeal to students and motivate and encourage them to be active and ambitious.The preliminary task has helped me to learn about the main focus of magazines and the features that make a magazine publications effective and appealing to the target audience.
Use, Develop and Challenge
During the production of the front cover I used, developed and challenged the forms and conventions of a typical school magazine. Many of the features of my magazine would relate to a typical school magazine including the A4 format, the articles and the bold,obvious heading font I have used. All these elements made my magazine look more familiar to students which is very important because when people have a specific school magazine scheme it is quite difficult to attract their attention if the magazine look nothing like the existing magazine.For example, if the magazine is not in a portrait but a landscape format it would not attract peoples' attention as much as if it's in an ordinary school magazine format.
Most of the existing school magazines have school pupils on their front covers because this attracts peoples attention and is likely to increase sales/demand for the magazine.I felt it was important to use this convention, however I altered and transformed the images in such a way that it looked natural and realistic and went well with the background.I've inserted the close-ups on the right side of the cover.The result was a well balanced front cover image because the close-up balanced the trees on the opposite side of the image. I felt it was incredibly important to show that I know how vital balance is for any publication, picture or photograph because if the objects in the image are not equally balanced the viewer's attention would be drawn to all the elements of the cover that look not in the right place. Imagine you are looking at a neatly written exam paper with one single cross out. The correction would be the element that attracts your attention the most.
I had an argument with my teacher about my idea to in-cooperate natural images of leaves into my cover and place the strip lines and any other text onto the leaves. My teacher was not quite happy with that idea because this is something that can not be seen in typical magazines. However with all my respect to my teacher, I carried on with my idea because I want my work not to be like other existing magazines.I want the magazine to look as fresh, original ad unique as the audience are ready to take in and accept. I am absolutely confident with my idea and I'm ready and able to justify and explain the successfulness of my challenge.However I can never be 100% sure that the audience will be happy with the risk I have taken because risks are risks and you can not be sure in the effect they have on people.
Institutions
There is no institution that would distribute my magazine because it is a school magazine related to one school only. However it would be a very good idea to occasionally distribute the magazine to other Secondary schools so that they can see the benefits of attending Fortismere Sixth form. This will attract more people to the sixth form and encourage them to come to Fortismere. Moreover distributing the magazine to other school would improve Fortismere reputation and connections.
Audience
My magazine would be mostly directed to teenagers attending the sixth form.However other people are always welcomed to read and enjoy the magazine even though the articles and pictures in it would be focused on student attending the Sixth form.
There is no specific ethnic group or nationality the magazine is aimed at because I want my magazine to be for everybody. The magazine is also a source of presenting the school to the community. I want people who are not attending Fortismere to look at the magazine and wish they go there. That is why I have not concentrated on specific ethnicity, style or hobbies.
I used many different devices to attract my target audience such as appropriate language, students related pictures, bright eye-catching colours, educational and entertaining articles. The electronic survey I have created clearly indicates that people wanted the magazine to be presented in mature but fun way. This means that the magazine had to be created in such a way that it was both educational and entertaining. I have included many elements that match this criteria including the strip lines, the overall look of the cover and the articles outlined in the contents page. There is no specific social group represented within the magazine because the magazine is for all the different students attending the Sixth Form. The only common interest between the audience of the magazine is that they all want to prosper in life and achieve their goals. The magazine is therefore created to motivate and help students succeed.
Technical skills gained
When we started off the course I had no idea how does Photoshop work because I had not used it before. This is why I have found the preliminary task extremely important in helping me develop beneficial technical skills that will be very useful for me in my education and potential career. WE were having lesson in class on how to use Photoshop to adjust, edit and manipulate images. I have learned many new things such as using layers, using the basic tools of Photoshop and how to convert the format of a file (e.g. word file to Jpeg image).
We were all required to post our work in progress, ideas and publications electronically using blogger. At the beginning of the project I was not familiar with the way blogger works. However my Blogger knowledge has progressed a lot throughout the preliminary task because I feel more comfortable and confident using Blogger now. I have learnt many new "tricks" to make my digital blog look more interesting and to present my work in a more effective way. I thought it was a great idea to change the template and layout of my blog. I did this by changing the template HTML of my blog and correcting the layout settings on my dashboard. The result was a school related background which is appropriate for the theme of my task.Another extra I did in order to make my presentation better is to correct the colours and fonts of the text so that it goes well with the background template I have downloaded.
I will definitely use the technological knowledge and skills I have gained to produce an effective and excellent piece of music magazine publication later on in my project. I will also make sure that my digital blog looks original and appropriate for the concept of the project.
Improvements
There are many things that could have been done to improve the front cover and contents page I have produced. First of all, the quality of my work should be improved because the final front cover does not look very professionally done. I will be more careful with he production of my music magazine front cover and will ensure that I use initially arranged and composed photos. Another thing that could improve my production is the actual camera set-ups when capturing the photos. I am doing AS Photography which will help me choose the right settings to capture a well exposed and colour balanced image.Moreover, the front cover could have been improved if I have included pictures of people from different ethical groups and genders to suggest that this school is discrimination free and welcomes everyone to the 6th form. I suppose my Contents page could have been improved if its more focused on the actual writing than on the picture. Furthermore, I believe that my contents page could have been improved if I in-cooperate feature pictures within the page. For example, if I include a picture of Mr. Kenny next to the line that introduces the article to the audience.
Overall, I am pleased with my preliminary task work because I have managed to produce an attractive publications that match my initial aims.Before starting I was not confident with using editing software such as Photoshop or even Paint. I feel that the Front cover and Contents page would be successful in attracting the target audience and presenting the Sixth form in an educational and entertaining way. Despite the number of improvement that could have been done to make my work look better I am happy with the preliminary task because it was an excellent practice for my real coursework.
Use, Develop and Challenge
During the production of the front cover I used, developed and challenged the forms and conventions of a typical school magazine. Many of the features of my magazine would relate to a typical school magazine including the A4 format, the articles and the bold,obvious heading font I have used. All these elements made my magazine look more familiar to students which is very important because when people have a specific school magazine scheme it is quite difficult to attract their attention if the magazine look nothing like the existing magazine.For example, if the magazine is not in a portrait but a landscape format it would not attract peoples' attention as much as if it's in an ordinary school magazine format.
Most of the existing school magazines have school pupils on their front covers because this attracts peoples attention and is likely to increase sales/demand for the magazine.I felt it was important to use this convention, however I altered and transformed the images in such a way that it looked natural and realistic and went well with the background.I've inserted the close-ups on the right side of the cover.The result was a well balanced front cover image because the close-up balanced the trees on the opposite side of the image. I felt it was incredibly important to show that I know how vital balance is for any publication, picture or photograph because if the objects in the image are not equally balanced the viewer's attention would be drawn to all the elements of the cover that look not in the right place. Imagine you are looking at a neatly written exam paper with one single cross out. The correction would be the element that attracts your attention the most.
I had an argument with my teacher about my idea to in-cooperate natural images of leaves into my cover and place the strip lines and any other text onto the leaves. My teacher was not quite happy with that idea because this is something that can not be seen in typical magazines. However with all my respect to my teacher, I carried on with my idea because I want my work not to be like other existing magazines.I want the magazine to look as fresh, original ad unique as the audience are ready to take in and accept. I am absolutely confident with my idea and I'm ready and able to justify and explain the successfulness of my challenge.However I can never be 100% sure that the audience will be happy with the risk I have taken because risks are risks and you can not be sure in the effect they have on people.
Institutions
There is no institution that would distribute my magazine because it is a school magazine related to one school only. However it would be a very good idea to occasionally distribute the magazine to other Secondary schools so that they can see the benefits of attending Fortismere Sixth form. This will attract more people to the sixth form and encourage them to come to Fortismere. Moreover distributing the magazine to other school would improve Fortismere reputation and connections.
Audience
My magazine would be mostly directed to teenagers attending the sixth form.However other people are always welcomed to read and enjoy the magazine even though the articles and pictures in it would be focused on student attending the Sixth form.
There is no specific ethnic group or nationality the magazine is aimed at because I want my magazine to be for everybody. The magazine is also a source of presenting the school to the community. I want people who are not attending Fortismere to look at the magazine and wish they go there. That is why I have not concentrated on specific ethnicity, style or hobbies.
I used many different devices to attract my target audience such as appropriate language, students related pictures, bright eye-catching colours, educational and entertaining articles. The electronic survey I have created clearly indicates that people wanted the magazine to be presented in mature but fun way. This means that the magazine had to be created in such a way that it was both educational and entertaining. I have included many elements that match this criteria including the strip lines, the overall look of the cover and the articles outlined in the contents page. There is no specific social group represented within the magazine because the magazine is for all the different students attending the Sixth Form. The only common interest between the audience of the magazine is that they all want to prosper in life and achieve their goals. The magazine is therefore created to motivate and help students succeed.
Technical skills gained
When we started off the course I had no idea how does Photoshop work because I had not used it before. This is why I have found the preliminary task extremely important in helping me develop beneficial technical skills that will be very useful for me in my education and potential career. WE were having lesson in class on how to use Photoshop to adjust, edit and manipulate images. I have learned many new things such as using layers, using the basic tools of Photoshop and how to convert the format of a file (e.g. word file to Jpeg image).
We were all required to post our work in progress, ideas and publications electronically using blogger. At the beginning of the project I was not familiar with the way blogger works. However my Blogger knowledge has progressed a lot throughout the preliminary task because I feel more comfortable and confident using Blogger now. I have learnt many new "tricks" to make my digital blog look more interesting and to present my work in a more effective way. I thought it was a great idea to change the template and layout of my blog. I did this by changing the template HTML of my blog and correcting the layout settings on my dashboard. The result was a school related background which is appropriate for the theme of my task.Another extra I did in order to make my presentation better is to correct the colours and fonts of the text so that it goes well with the background template I have downloaded.
I will definitely use the technological knowledge and skills I have gained to produce an effective and excellent piece of music magazine publication later on in my project. I will also make sure that my digital blog looks original and appropriate for the concept of the project.
Improvements
There are many things that could have been done to improve the front cover and contents page I have produced. First of all, the quality of my work should be improved because the final front cover does not look very professionally done. I will be more careful with he production of my music magazine front cover and will ensure that I use initially arranged and composed photos. Another thing that could improve my production is the actual camera set-ups when capturing the photos. I am doing AS Photography which will help me choose the right settings to capture a well exposed and colour balanced image.Moreover, the front cover could have been improved if I have included pictures of people from different ethical groups and genders to suggest that this school is discrimination free and welcomes everyone to the 6th form. I suppose my Contents page could have been improved if its more focused on the actual writing than on the picture. Furthermore, I believe that my contents page could have been improved if I in-cooperate feature pictures within the page. For example, if I include a picture of Mr. Kenny next to the line that introduces the article to the audience.
Overall, I am pleased with my preliminary task work because I have managed to produce an attractive publications that match my initial aims.Before starting I was not confident with using editing software such as Photoshop or even Paint. I feel that the Front cover and Contents page would be successful in attracting the target audience and presenting the Sixth form in an educational and entertaining way. Despite the number of improvement that could have been done to make my work look better I am happy with the preliminary task because it was an excellent practice for my real coursework.
Mr Kenny
Good explanation of your decision to challenge the conventional cover design (even though I don’t think it really works in the end). I like your comments about ‘balance’ – I think this is very important. However, I also think a strong central image is vital. Your explanation of the risk taking process is a good justification for your choices.
Excellent, detailed technical knowledge (particularly of HTML). Can you be more specific about the tools you used in Photoshop to achieve your effects?
You need to use features and more clear space on your contents page.
Overall:
45/60 marks
You show proficiency in many areas of production and you are aware of what you need to do to achieve excellence in creating your final product