EVALUATION - QUESTION VII LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

1. FRONTCOVERS

2. COMPARISON – FRONT COVEROn the previous slide I presented my two front covers. I think already from a quick overview we
can see the improvements. The first thing that caught my attention was the photograph. Within my
preliminary front cover the image seems to be quite dark. The quality of the image is also very
poor. This makes the entire page look gloomy and unprofessional. This is partly because the
image was taken using a smartphone camera. This gave me less control over the lighting.
Comparing to my final front cover the image seems to be much more focused due to a greater close
up. Besides, the lighting is much better which we can see within the facial features. However,
in terms of the mise-en-scene I think both front covers are quite successful as they reflect
their target audience style but also the magazine genre. Another element which I improved a lot
in is the masthead of the magazine. In the first front cover the logo is not organized or even
constructed. This is because I simply manipulated the logo name using a font style. Whereas, in
my final product I focused on planning each stage including colour scheme, font and
connotations. This is why the final masthead looks much more professional and it reflects the
genre and house style of the magazine. Moreover, there is a massive difference within the use of
fonts between two covers. In the first one of the text is not clear and it’s hard to read,
meaning the front cover wouldn’t be eye catching from a shelve between other magazines. I
improved this within the final product as I specifically used contrasting colours to make the
font stand out more. Besides, to underline importance of the headlines I used red. I also
enlarged the font significantly which made the overall composition look more interesting whereas
in the first front cover the font is quite small and the composition is dominated by a busy
background. Besides, from that I used very similar codes and conventions. This can be
particularly seen through similar layout and elements such as barcode, puff or persuasive
language within the cover lines which is supporting the genres of both magazines.

3. CONTENTSPAGES

4. COMPARISON – CONTENTS PAGEOther media products which I am going to compare are the contents pages. Starting from
similarities I can see that the layout of the contents pages looks quite alike. This can be
particularly seen through the positioning of the features on the left side of the page as well as
the title on the top and images on the right. In terms of the positioning of the features, they
both follow the same technique as they are going from the top to the bottom along the image /
image collage. Within the fonts designs and their size I think I managed to create a consistent
look particularly in my final media product as in the other one I used two many different fonts.
This should have made the features stand out more as I was focusing on the typography effect but
in fact it came out to be too much. This made it look busy and hard to read as the font was too
small. I think I improved this within the final contents page as I used one font within the
feature list which is clear and easy to read. Using bold effect I highlighted important
information. This created a sense of consistency unlike in the preliminary cover. Another
improvement which was quite vital for me was to develop was the image composition. The photo
collage in the first contents page doesn’t look professional, although I think the photographs
itself are good as they reflect the subject of the features. I believe that the thick outline
makes them look more ‘cheap’ and amateur. In terms of my second contents page I also tried to
create a photo collage as this is one of the common conventions found within the magazines,
however this didn’t work for the second time either. I was quite disappointed as I really liked
the images which strongly reflected the subject of the features. (I showed the collage version on
my blog within the process of construction). I decided to dig even deeper into my research. This
benefited me as I found a way to include a singular photograph due to the support of magazines
such as Q or NME. I think this was very successful as it underlined the simplicity of the house
style, bringing focus to the high quality of the image. With this change I also decided to add a
pull out quote in order to empathize this particular feature. I used it more as a page filler.