1. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing
this product?
When constructing my product I was using technologies that I had never used
before which meant I had to learn what to do on them so I could make my
product. Using a DSLR camera was new to me, so when I was taking my
images I had to make sure the camera lens was in focus. I was happy with
this because the models look like they are having fun, which is what I wanted
to show in my image. When editing my front-page photo, I had to Photoshop
around one of the people’s heads so I was able to hide part of the masthead,
which is convention of a magazine. When did this I had to learn how to use
the MAGNETIC LASSO TOOL so I was able to edit around the persons head
to make sure it would look the same over the masthead. Also when writing the
text for my magazine, I used different effects on the layers to make the front
stand out more on my page and also to give it a shadow of a different colour.
By using Drop Shadow, Colour Overlay and Stroke it enabled my text to be
clearer for people to see and make it look nice.
· Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in
the progression from it to the full product?
When we originally had to create and draft magazine, I didn’t really have much
knowledge about what conventions to put within the magazine or the layout and what
content goes in a magazine to make people want to read it. After doing my research
into many magazines I then started to learn what conventions need to be in a
magazine and what works well, this helped me a lot with my own magazine because I
was able to understand what needs to be in my magazine. Also when creating the
magazine itself, I was not confident using Photoshop but once I started using it I was
able to create my magazine to the best I could. When doing the research, I was not
sure how to ask people what they liked about magazines or how to put this into my
magazine but after looking at many magazines and analyzing existing ones I was
able to get a better idea of how they should be and how they would appeal to my
target audience. When I started my planning for my magazine, I had to take the
images myself which was new for me as I had never used a Canon DSLR before so I
had to figure out how to use it and make sure the images I took were in focus so they
would look nice in my magazine. Also figuring out what to write on my double page
spread was difficult because I had to make up an interview with a band, which I have
never done before. Before making my final double page spread, I had made another
one but I wasn’t happy with it because I felt it wasn’t the best I could have done so I
decided to redo it and make it look like more of a music magazine double page
spread. The research I did into magazines helped me do this because I was able to
apply my knowledge and make an even better double page spread that I was happy
with.