The student learned several important lessons when progressing from their preliminary magazine task to the final product: 1) They conducted more extensive research, looking at multiple magazines within and outside their genre for inspiration, compared to only using one school magazine for the preliminary task. 2) They improved their time management, such as arranging photo shoots more efficiently and becoming more proficient with Photoshop tools. 3) The final product had more detailed layout, fonts, and photography selection compared to the basic preliminary version, demonstrating refined design techniques from feedback and research.

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. Prelim Final product

3. Research and planning
The research I did in regard to my final music magazine task was
substantially greater than the research for my prelim task. For
my final task, I looked at several different magazines of my genre
and beyond the restrictions of my genre for further reference,
whereas beforehand I only had reference from one other school
magazine. With the prelim, I only took into consideration the
layout of the cover’s elements and disregarded important
features like photography, audience feedback and target market.
However, my prelim task was an opportunity for me to receive
feedback from my target audience not only on a piece of work I
created, yet on my personal taste, like colour schemes, fonts and
general format, which heavily influences the outcome of media
products.

4. Time management
When conducting photography for my prelim task, models were
not arranged and it was difficult to find a suitable location
efficiently. Also, as I was new to Photoshop, I had to get used to
the tools and general software, which took up a lot of the editing
time.
When organizing models for the final task, I made sure it was
while I wasn’t at school so I was able to be more flexible if
anything needed to be changed. I also used a plain background
that was easy to edit, so I had the option of many different
background choices. By this point I was a lot more comfortable
and confident using Photoshop so I was able to use at least the
essential tools easily.

5. Construction
My final products in comparison to my preliminary products, are
much more detailed in terms of layout and pictures. The fonts in
the prelim are more basic, sans serif fonts while the music
magazine fonts are more decorative and display fonts – much
more appealing when purchasing a magazine. I took inspiration
from VICE magazine when selecting fonts, therefore the research
I did beforehand most definitely benefitted my magazine when
comparing to the prelim. I learnt about transparency within puffs
and the masthead upon receiving feedback from my prelim task,
as the school magazine’s puff is much less ‘sticker- like’ than my
music magazine. The colour scheme of the final product is much
more strategic and purposeful than the random one chosen for
the school task, so I feel that overall I have refined my
techniques when designing and creating.

6. I did not create a contents page for my preliminary
task, however the skills using the tools that I picked
up in creating the cover page were transferrable
when creating the contents. The creative process of
constructing a professionally inspired prelim cover
page was good practise for positioning and colour
scheme for the contents.
I also did not create a double page spread for my
prelim task, yet the same is true for the practise of
photoshop when creating the double page spread.
The tools I used on photoshop were not exclusive to
one magazine format and so this was not
something that held me back.
One specific change that is apparent in my prelim vs
final cover is the background. The prelim task’s cover
page main image had only brightness, contrast and
saturation changes applied to it, yet the final music
magazine was edited into a new background. This is
definitely a more professional task to carry out and
was more challenging than changing the colour grades
of a picture.