Evaluation

1. Evaluation
Ewan Wild

2. Research
I think my research had both strengths and weaknesses. Firstly, a strength would
be that it clearly highlights positive and common aspects of various different
magazines. This helped my product as it shows the basics of what I’m meant to
do, for example, every magazine I did research on clearly showed the cover being
dominated by photography, and so I made sure I did the same with my magazine,
making mine more realistic. Another strength would be the type of magazine. The
magazines I did research on were all about music, just like mine was. This helped
my product as it was actually related to the research. If I did magazines which
were a completely different genre to mine it could have turned out completely
different as I may have got some bad information from an unrelated magazine.
However there were also weaknesses. My research was not in a lot of detail, I was
limited as to what I could right by nothing other than my ability to think about the
details on each cover. However I think I could have done it in more detail. To
improve this I would next time spend longer on my research, and take my time a
bit more to look in detail at each magazine cover. This would improve my product
as it would make it more like a real magazine, perhaps even giving me a higher
grade.

3. Planning
I think planning went very well and it has more strengths than weaknesses. It
started with my initial reaction to print and what I’m meant to do, so I talked
about my experience with Photoshop and the difficulty I will face while making
my cover and double page spread. After this I started proper planning, which
began with making a mind map. To me, my mind maps were a strength as they
show a lot of information from only a few words. I made two, one with multiple
ideas and another with just one final idea, but in more detail. The final one
especially helped my product as it gave me a solid idea as to what I was going to
do. Previously I knew what music I wanted to do, but this helped me a lot with the
details such as what genre of music I would do as well as the colour schemes.
Another strength of my planning was the mood board. This helped my product a
lot with the colour scheme as it gives an idea of the main colours of different
artists who make music of a certain genre. A weakness of my planning however
was my production experiments, which was making a starter cover and double
page spread to give us an idea of what we were going to do. It gave me an idea on
what I liked but I lost all of it and so had to remake it quickly. To improve it I would
have used a memory stick sooner which would have saved the original design I
made, and so I could have come up with more ideas for my final double page
spread.

4. Time Management
My time was managed well. Throughout this project I never fell behind
schedule and everything was done in the time frame it that was given. If I had
more time however, I would do everything in more detail. Even though
everything was done on time, I believe there is always room for improvement
and so with more time, I would have more time to improve my project. I
would spend the most time improving my cover mostly as there are some
areas of it that I think could be improved. I would also improve the research
and attempt to complete it in more detail, however I am still happy with how
everything came out, I just think I would always make it better if I could.

5. Technical Qualities: Cover
Both cover part of the title
which shows importance
Uses band name to draw
an audience
Subheadings with
same font and colour
as title acting as
bonuses for whoever
buys the magazine
Photography dominates
most of the cover
Similarities:
Differences:
• My cover features a guitar rather than an artist which could be both positive and negative depending on the
audience. However both have been cropped onto a different background which works with the colour scheme.
• My colour scheme is very dull and dark, which was intended as it blends together, however maybe it blends too
much as it doesn’t stand out. The other has instead chosen a mix of light and dark, which stands out.

6. Technical Qualities: DPS
Large, obvious titles to introduce
the page
Quotes in larger text size than rest
of the article.
Photos of artists dominating the page.
Differences:
• My DPS Only contains the one image
which covers a lot of the page. The other
however contains multiple smaller
images which take up a lot of the page.
• The colour schemes are very different.
Mine is just yellow and black whereas
this other one has black, white and red
as well as various other colours from the
multiple photos.

7. Aesthetic Qualities
Both my cover and my double page spread were creative in different ways and
although are part of the same magazine, show big differences. My favourite part of
the cover is probably the guitar, not only is it my own photography, the black guitar
works very well with the dark grey background, creating a dark and good looking
combination. However I would improve the title. Although I like it, I didn’t
incorporate it with the photography as much as I wanted to. To improve it next time, I
would probably make it so the title is more covered, as I enjoy doing that and it
makes it look better. For my DPS, my favourite was the little added banners, such as
the quote, the cover at the top left, and the fact at the bottom. I like how they follow
the theme but also look different to just boring words and pictures. It incorporates
these normal magazine ideas and makes them look different and better. However if I
would improve one thing in my double page spread, it would be the actual article.
When it gets to the lighter areas of the photography in the background, the writing
becomes more difficult to read, which can harm the look as it clashes. In general, my
pieces have both strengths and weaknesses to it. A strength would be my design
ideas in making an interesting double page spread, for example, the quote or ink
splatter. However my main weakness would be the cutting out of a photograph, for
example in my cover photo I didn’t cut the guitar out of it’s background very well.

8. Audience Appeal
The main way I made my magazine appeal to my audience is by using a specific genre of
music artists. By adding these names into the cover, people are enticed by it and may
want to buy it more. Although this may appeal to some people. My cover has more than
that. I also used a guitar on the cover which can interest completely different kinds of
people, people who are more interested in the instruments themselves rather than the
people who use them. Both of these things can appeal to a lot of people between the
two of them. When inside in the double page spread, I think the quote can draw a lot of
people in as it is something inspiring, and so people would want to read the whole thing
to see what else it says.