- The student learned the importance of research and planning through their preliminary and final magazine projects. Extensive research allowed their final product to better represent a professional magazine. - Planning their magazine allowed the student to manage their time effectively and maintain a consistent quality throughout. Practice photography sessions also helped them improve their photo skills. - Comparing the preliminary and final magazines showed how the student's understanding of professional magazine design and Photoshop skills developed. The final magazine had a more professional look due to applying these lessons.

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

2. Preliminary Magazine

3. Final Products

5. Research & PlanningThe skills I had developed before creating my final product helped massively in creating a professional looking magazine. Learning about how much research and planning was needed to create a successful magazine taught me how much I needed to research. All the small details such as props and costume could make such a difference between a amateur magazine and a professional one. Researching my textual analysis of other magazines from a similar genre gave me a very clear understanding of professional magazines; font size, colors, features, photography and layout. As I did not do any research before my prelim task the product has suffered. When comparing my two front covers it is substantially clear which one was my prelim and which was my final. The research put in before my final product has allowed my product to include all forms and conventions of a real media product. Planning the construction of my magazine meant when I was creating it I knew the deadlines I had to stick to so I could manage my time effectively. This meant I spent equal amount of time on each part of my product, maintaining a similar standard throughout. Planning of my magazine meant I could create the products faster because I knew what was going into the product from my flat plans and research. Practice photo shoots taught me the features of the camera and how to take professional looking photos. So before my actual photo shoot I was aware of the lighting set up I needed and how to use the camera flash with the correct aperture. I did a recee of locations before choosing for my double page spread on location photo, when taking this I had to take into account the sun light.

6. ConstructionComparing my prelim magazine and my final product it is clear my understanding of professional magazines and how to use Photoshop had developed. Having a better understanding of Photoshop allowed me to be able to create things exactly how I wanted them. Looking at both my magazines it is clear how having a good understanding of the software benefited my products. I learnt that the use of fonts and font size changes the appearance of a magazine massively. What I did wrong in my prelim was to use too large font size. After my textual analysis of professional magazines I decided to make the font a lot smaller and just include more content. During construction of my cover I was always looking to fill any white gaps, this made sure the magazine was packed with information, ensuring the professional look. The prelim front cover does not represent any sort of mise-en-scene where as my final product constructs a representation of an indie magazine through the model, props, colors, costume and content.