7)

7) Look back at your preliminary task (the school magazine task) what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from that to the full product?

Compared to my preliminary task my final magazine layout is much better and I thought it through a lot more, starting with the cover. My cover was plain and had a dull colour scheme in comparison to my final magazine with full, bright colours and a border surrounding the page. I prefer my final cover for many reasons, firstly the cover image is more striking and the colours are brighter and the characters chosen look like a band; secondly, the title is a lot bolder and the text surrounding the image stands out. I also had to do my preliminary surrounding a school magazine so I didn’t know how to structure the cover image in quite the same way as for a music magazine.

I was not certain on how to make my preliminary fit the theme of ‘school magazine’ whereas this was a lot easier with my final magazine being featured around music. The camerawork on my double page spread for my final piece varies with close ups, mid shots and long shots which is similar to my preliminary cover and contents; however the front cover image for my preliminary is a mid-close up, whereas my final cover image is mid-long shot.  The colour palette used on my preliminary is extremely plain and consists of yellow, white and black, my final magazine shows a colour palette mainly focusing on coral-orange and black, but also including tones of blue. This magazine is set to be released in spring which influenced my colour choices whereas I produced my preliminary at the start of winter, this affected my decisions. My editing skills have improved from preliminary to final piece also as I have learnt about new tools on Photoshop Elements 4.0, I could already cut around an image with the magnetic tool but I improved my skill of making the image finer and the edges neater when cutting out.