The document provides an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the author's research, planning, time management, and technical and aesthetic qualities of their magazine project. Some strengths included gaining useful information from research on magazine layouts and themes. However, weaknesses included not researching double page spreads enough and not using all elements of the pre-production plan. The author felt they managed their time well but went over the deadline. Technical qualities were compared to similar magazines, showing similarities like large bold titles but also differences in layouts. Aesthetic qualities like lighting, fonts and images were discussed. Elements that would appeal to the target audience included relatable content and stylish fonts.

1. Evaluation
Joy Buck

2. Research
The strengths of my research was that I gained information to learn and use in
my magazine, such as different layouts for front covers, Bold text decisions
and big images to focus on for the front cover of my magazine, or at least the
experiments for the front cover and double page spreads. Also, I have
research magazines over broad themes and compared them to see which
ones I like best. This helped me to decide or have an idea of what theme to
complete for my final magazine.
As I explained, my research helped me to decide what to put on my magazine.
This included the research I had completed on the two fashion magazines, the
‘Cosmopolitan’ and ‘Vogue’. They both had big, bold titles that intersected
with the main image of the model. I took this information from my research
and put it into the front cover of my magazine. Similarly, I also used the same
magazines to inspire my main double page spread with article. I used their
technique of the big, bold letter at the start of each article, grabbing the
audience’s attention.

3. Research
However, there were some weaknesses of my research. This was the fact that
I did not research enough for the double page spreads as the front cover. This
made it harder for me to decide how to layout my double page spreads when
I had gotten around to it. When I came around to create my double page
spreads, I had to research some more about how to layout or look at how
others layout their magazines. I took this information from the website,
issuu.com on their digital magazine store. Speaking of this magazine website,
another weakness of my research is that I did not get all my magazine
‘photographs’ from this website as recommended, instead I went to google
images as some of the magazines I was looking for on ‘issuu’ were not on
there. As a result, I found some similar looking front covers and double page
articles that may not have been in the same magazine. This could have made
it harder for me to find a colour scheme in the future for my magazine as I
might have made the wrong choices as I could have thought they (the
magazine editor) made bold choices in their magazine, but it could have been
the wrong choice (as I may have discovered) .

4. Planning
In my initial plans, I sort of had an idea of what I wanted to create. The
strengths of my planning was that I had chosen three potential ideas in a
magazine, such as the themes of dogs, architecture and fashion. These were a
broad range of ideas, so I expanded on them by putting them into mind maps.
I gained from this the strength of planning. I had learned to expand, and plan
more than I had before. Expanding to this, I created a final idea, a separate
mind map, about Tomboy fashion. I think that I gained even more to better
expand my work and not just write down one idea but lots more. This
planning helped me to create my product in a better way as I knew what I was
going to write about as I had explained this on my mind map. Another
strength to my planning, is that I had included a mood board and analysis.
Creating the mood board helped me to decide what sort of photographs to
take for my magazine. I better explained this in my analysis.

5. Planning
The final strength of planning this was that I had a proposal to create, which
gave me a better understanding of what I was going to create. This included
what audience it was for, what skills that I could use and the actual concept of
my magazine. This was great for me in the future as I could refer to the
proposal if I needed any help and got stuck with writing my article or the
placement of what was on the front cover.
However, there were some weaknesses of my planning, such as the pre-
production power point as I did not refer to this much. I think that this was as
a result of rushing to start my magazine. As a result, I only used one design
feature, a font. I did not even check that the other fonts were on Adobe
InDesign or Photoshop. So, I had to use similar fonts. As for the pre-
production mock-up of the magazine. I did not use it. In the end I made it up
as I went along in my production.

6. Time Management
In this project, I think I did manage my time well, to my standards. To others, I
don’t think I did. In the third week of this project, we started producing our
final products. I was fine doing this as I was on task if timing was concerned.
As the production weeks were ending (two weeks), the evaluation week was
starting. By this week (evaluation week), I was not done producing my final
product. I needed at least two college days to complete this. I did end up
finishing with the two extra days. But then I needed to complete my
Production reflection PowerPoint. This took me 2hours of my final production
day to create, plus what I worked on at home. After this I finally got around to
producing my Evaluation, but I am now realising that I am completing this at
home. So, In my opinion, I did go massively over time because I wanted to
produce a good product with extra work in this extended time.
If I had extra time, yes, I would defiantly go over and improve my work. Such
as, going over and making sure I have no spelling errors which I do and adding
extra pages.

7. Technical Qualities
I will be comparing my magazine to a similar product that is also a tomboy magazine.
It is a magazine on issue called tomboy.
https://issuu.com/tomboymagazine/docs/tomboy_magazine
I will also be comparing my magazine to another similar product that is a tomboy
catalogue/magazine. (it is in a different language) Also on the Issuu website.
https://issuu.com/anabelentovar/docs/catalogo_tovar_tomboy
Firstly, a similarity to my product and the online catalogue magazine, tomboy, is the
front cover. The front cover on this magazine is similar to my product as it has the big,
image of the model as the main focus of their front cover. I have the model of my
products on the front cover of my magazine too. I think that this draws the audience
into each magazine so that they will read it. This is a great technique as if you were
selling this, you might get buyers interested straight away. However, there is a
difference between my products front cover and their front cover (catalogue
magazine). My product has more information on the front than the ‘catalogue
magazine’. This is because this magazine is more for selling clothes than articles. My
product has combined the article and advertising clothes in it, which I think would be
a big selling point for the audiences liking.

8. Technical Qualities
Another, similarity between my product’s front cover and their product’s front cover is
that we both have a big bold title at the top of the page. They (the catalogue
magazine) even have an image cut in with the title, which is similar to mine. I think
that most fashion magazines do this technique because it is aesthetically pleasing to
look at and as a result the audience buy it, which gives us money. However, there is
another difference between my products front cover than theirs. They have a different
image style to mine. In their products front cover, they use a woman to model, stood
up and she is surrounded by products. In my products front cover, it is very different, I
am zoomed in on, the photograph is more me than anything else. The ratio of me to
the background is 75:25 compared to the ratio of the other product has a ratio of
50:50.

9. Technical Qualities
Their product My product

10. Technical Qualities
This time I am comparing double page spreads (with articles). I will be comparing my
product’s double page spread to the tomboy magazine’s double page spread.
Firstly, a similarity between my product’s double page spread and their product’s
double page spread is that both each magazine’s article starts with a big letter. This
could indicate to the audience that it is a new article that has just started. As well as
this, It could look aesthetically pleasing to the different audiences. However, there are
some differences between our products. The layouts are completely different. The
tomboy magazine’s products are landscape in comparison to mine, that are portrait.
This makes their magazine unique to all the others as you would not normally have a
landscape magazine.
Another similarity in our products are that we both layout our articles in columns but
as a difference mine are closer together than the tomboy magazine’s columns. I think
that laying out your magazine’s article in columns is a great idea because it is easier for
the audience to read. I have also split mine across pages for this reason. This is similar
to their magazine as they have done this as well.
Finally, another difference is that I have written, for my article, a sort of biography
about clothes and how they are important to me. The Tomboy magazine have written
about other people. I think that this gives audiences incite to different people.

11. Technical Qualities
My product(s)

12. Technical Qualities
My product(s)

13. Technical Qualities
The tomboy magazine’s product(s)

14. Technical Qualities
The tomboy magazine’s product(s)

15. Technical Qualities
Finally, I will be comparing the tomboy ‘catalogue’ magazine’s double page catalogue
to my (extra) product’s magazine’s catalogue.
One similarity between the two products is the image in the middle of the catalogue
magazine is in the centre of the double page spreads. This is similar to my product
which has the surrounding products that correspond to the image in the middle of the
page. Which brings us to a difference, the difference being that there is only one
product around their magazine, which is a beanie. Whereas, my magazine has lots of
different products around my image in the middle.
Another similarity is that I have written the products names in bold, what the product
is and the price. The other magazine has done this too. In my opinion, this is a good
thing to write as you can not just have images with no knowledge of what they are,
plus this adds a personal touch to the product. Having a description is vital. Finally
another difference is that there are more images of the same product in the other
magazine than mine. If I had more space, I could have done this too, but I also did not
have enough time.

16. Technical Qualities
My product

17. Technical Qualities
The ‘catalogue’
magazine

18. Aesthetic Qualities
In my opinion, my whole product good to me. Especially, the creative parts, such as
colour schemes, images and fonts.
In my front cover, I adored the image, text and barcode. The main focus on my front
cover was the image of me sat on a chair. In this photograph, I tried to add lighting to
make the image aesthetic. I think that It worked because the low lighting very well
reflected the mood of me, of quite dark and moody. This was creative of me because I
took a bedside lamp from my bedroom and put it in the dark hallway, and it worked
for me. I think that this image would attract readers as they could wear similar
clothing to me with the feel of moody coming into the picture, therefore they find this
image aesthetically pleasing. Another aesthetically pleasing element to my front cover
is the text. In particular, the fonts that I had used for the big, bold title. This was
creative because of me because I had used photoshop to layer my head on top of my
text, so it was like a sandwich. This font looks most pleasing to the eye of the reader
because of the style of bold and stylish and therefore reflect the rest of the magazine
as stylish. The colour of this font adds to this. Next, we have the barcode, which I
thought was very creative. I had created this my self and did not copy and paste this
off the internet, which I could have done.

19. Aesthetic Qualities
Instead, I had used photoshop to make it, I placed lots of different widths of rectangles
together in a line and came up with ten random numbers between zero and nine. I
placed them under the rectangles. This was creative as I did not copy others. This
added to the look of the magazine as this made the product look real to the reader.
What I liked about my main article; double page spread was that it was very creative
as I had completed aesthetically pleasing features in the product, such as the text,
images and design features. The text was aesthetically pleasing as I had put a big, bold
letter at the start off my article. This made my writing attract readers and made them
excited to read as they might find other articles boring but mine has colour so, it also
looks pleasing to the reader’s eye. Images are aesthetically pleasing to the reader as
they looked like they belonged in this magazine. I made the images match the rest of
the page as this looked nice to the reader. It was creative because of the specially
picked colours from the image were put into the page. This brings us to the design
features the last topic being one of them. Nevertheless, the quote used colours from
the image, so it made the reader look at the page and made them excited to read.

20. Audience Appeal
The three pieces of my content that appealed to my target audience were the images,
relatable pieces of advice (in the article) and the fonts. These pieces of my content
made my target audience excited to read my magazine and keep it to look at.
One piece of content that appealed to my target audience were the images. The
images were vital to completing my magazine as the audience would want to look at
my outfits and me in them. These images were what I needed for my article to
correspond to. I wanted the whole magazine to link up in a way. This was it. My
audience would approve of this because they would find It relatable. My next piece of
content that would have appealed to my audience would have been my piece of
relatable text in my article.
My target audience would have loved to read my article as it makes them laugh, cry
and basically feel all emotions. This could make me; the writer connect with my
audience on a personal level. I had written things like, “I could not walk in heals” this
would have made the audience relate so much because in tomboy fashion, we do not
wear heals we wear smart shoes, such as brogues. Finally, the final piece of content
that would have appealed to my audience, would have been the fonts.

21. Audience Appeal
As I had explained before in the aesthetically pleasing parts of my content, the font
would make the audience appeal to my magazine because of it’s stylish font. This logo,
on the front cover, has a perfect font style. It reflects the stylish element of the
magazine though the stylish font. Which would have made the audience want to read
my magazine. Not only this but the colour of the text is taken from the image behind,
so it makes the magazine look nice to my target audience.
In conclusion, my target audience would very much like my product as it looks like
someone who dresses stereotypically ‘masculine, would like the look of it. This is
because of all these reasons. Why would someone like me not want to investigate this
magazine?