The student learned several important lessons from completing their preliminary task and main magazine project. They realized the importance of thorough planning and preparation at the beginning. Their preliminary front cover and contents page had too many distracting elements while their main versions were simpler and clearer. Their photography, Photoshop, and InDesign skills improved from learning through practice on the preliminary task. Overall, they gained significant knowledge about magazine design and production between the preliminary and main tasks.

1. Evaluation- Question 7
Looking back at your preliminary task,
what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?

2. Here are pictures of my front cover and contents
page for my main task.
Here are the pictures of my preliminary task,
and as you can tell there is a lot of difference
between my main task and preliminary task.

3. My preliminary task
to my main task.
As you can see there is a lot of difference between my preliminary task and my actual one. The front cover of
my preliminary task has far too many things going on. The picture is far too busy because of the background,
there is too many distraction, so the eye isn’t focusing on the model. There is also far to many different
colours going on, especially with the two colours for the title. There is actually another picture on the front
cover, but it is hardly standing out because of the background and it doesn’t have anything around it to even
try and make it stand out a bit. I think that the main problem with my preliminary front cover was because
the background was far too busy.

4. My preliminary task to
my main task content
pages.
I think that on my contents page for my preliminary task I have too many pictures, and the same as
my front cover there is too many things to look at. Another thing is that not all of the numbers are on
the left hand side, and that the size of the writing isn’t the same. I think that the advertisement for
Drayton Manor is too big and actually stands out more than the main story in the magazine. On my
main task contents page I have got a place where there are details of contacting the magazine, where
on my preliminary task I have nothing like that, and most forms and conventions of a magazine have
a place where you can contact the magazine.

5. Planning and Preparation
Compared with my preliminary task, and how much preparation and planning I did, which wasn’t a huge
amount, I have realised since then and whilst doing my main task that it is very important to do it as it
helped me all the way trough doing my magazine. I found myself always going back to my planning and
research in my main task as it helped me a lot. I think that it is very important to do a first draft before you
actually start making your magazine on the computer, so that then you can show your target audience. I
found it very useful to do this as when I was told that I had to change something it could easily be done.
Organisation of time
From doing my preliminary task I knew that I would have to organise my time for the main task otherwise I
wouldn’t get it all done on time. The way that I have organised my time for my main task is by using
TimeToast. TimeToast is an online timeline where you can set your own little deadlines that you have to
meet.

6. Technical Photography Skills
As I do photography outside of media I sort of knew all of the skills that you had to do
anyway, but there were a few that I had never tried before. In the pictures that I took of Jess
there was no lighting that was needed as it was in the day so I had enough light for them. But
when I was taking the pictures of Jade it was in the evening so I had to get the best lighting
that I could. From my preliminary task front cover picture to my main task picture I
remembered that it is best to have a plain background so that you can cut them out easily
and use a different background to suit the magazine. The photography that I did in my
preliminary task is quite a bit worse compared to the in my main task. As you can see below
the difference between the tow photos.

7. Photoshop and InDesign
The skill that I learnt in Photoshop since I have done my preliminary task is the image
manipulation, this is because I had done quite a bit of work in Photoshop before anyway
from doing photography. In InDesign the skill that I have learnt here is how to wrap text
around an image, but also I had never used InDesign before doing my preliminary task so I
got used to it a bit when it came to doing my main task.
What is the biggest thing that you have learnt from undertaking this project?
The biggest thing that I have learnt from this project is to always to keep up to date with your
work and organise your time, which is why I did a TimeToast. The other big thing is that at the
start when you have to do your research and planning always try and do it to the best that
you can, although it can be boring it will help you with the rest of the stuff. I think that I have
definitely improved since the preliminary task as I have figured out a lot more things that I
can do in Photoshop and in InDesign. Overall I think that my knowledge from has increased a
lot between my preliminary task and my main task, I know a lot more things about the forms
and conventions of a magazine.