For my preliminary tasks, I did little to no research, planning, or preparation. For my final products, I conducted extensive research on conventions, styles, and audiences for music magazines. This included researching existing magazines, images, fonts, lighting techniques, and more. As a result, my final products featured more professional shots using varied lighting, more locations, custom fonts, and multiple models. The additional research, planning and preparation led to final products that were better constructed and more appealing to target audiences.

1. Evaluation question
7
What have you learned in the progression from your
preliminary task to your final product?

2. Preliminary Products

3. Final Products

4. Final Products

5. Research and Planning
For my preliminary task I didn’t do any research but
for my final products I did lots of research on
different magazines and shots that carried on
throughout my construction. This gave more of an
understanding the conventions of music
magazines of my genre and what the audience
were likely to be attracted to.

6. Research and Planning
Planning for my college magazine was nil as I
never looked into any existing college magazines
and their conventions. I just had to draft a product
using flat plans to go by.
My final product was planned out with several flat
plans to dictate my layout and images. This gave
me clear ideas of where things would go and what
colours and a range of shots I would use.
Admittedly I didn’t fully stick to these as there were
some design flaws, but they were easy to follow
and gave me an understanding of how to
construct my products.

7. Construction: Shot
composition
The shots I’ve used in my preliminary
task were minimal whereas my final
product produced a range of shots
that I have used on the cover.
For my final product I had done lots
of image research before choosing
the pose of my main image and the
accompanying images on the sell
lines.
My prelim task had no research of
image research, I rather followed
the general conventions of other
media magazines when I had
researched the conventions of
layout.

8. Shot composition
In my preliminary task, I only took
one image myself, the rest were
taken from the internet to help fill
up space on the page. These
consisted of photos relating to the
page references rather than of
people.
In my final product I took all of my
own images and edited them all to
make them suit the genre and
appeal to the audience whereas in
the preliminary task I had done
none of this research. This reflected
a better understanding of my
audience rather than guessing in
the college magazine.

9. Shot Composition
The shots in my college magazine weren’t
manipulated using effects in Photoshop although
shots taken for my final product were edited to fit
the genre of my magazine. This was to appeal
more to the audience I had researched for my
construction, but I hadn’t done this for my
preliminary products.

10. Lighting
I never used any professional lighting in my preliminary
products, the images I had taken were located in a
classroom where I couldn’t use three point lighting.
This made my backgrounds typical of a classroom,
making it look much less professional than in my
actual product.
My actual product’s images were taken using three
point lighting, allowing me to manipulate the mood
whereas in the prelim task, I couldn’t really
manipulate images with different lighting styles as it
was very limited. In opposition I wasn’t limited when I
took my images in the studio with use of three point
lighting, it meant I could make it as dark, naturalistic
or light as I needed.

11. Lighting
I had ranges of lighting styles in my own magazine,
ranging from outdoor natural lighting to studio
three point lighting. This varied it’s look and
appealed to a wider audience, allowing them to
identify with the models better rather than just
having indoor lighting in my preliminary task.

12. Locations
The locations I used in my final products were
much more varied than in my preliminary task,
this allowed me to gain identification with my
audience in the locations I chose which were;
the studio, Richmond school field/pathway and
Stanhope park. These were much more varied to
the limitation I had of the classroom for the
college cover and contents, the readers of that
would be able to identify, though it looked
slightly too plain and more boring than some of
my outdoor locations.

13. Fonts
My preliminary task purely used system fonts and I
hadn’t spent any time on font research. When
constructing it, I tried to find system fonts that would
fit the role, however they weren’t outstanding.
This was much different in the creating of my own
magazine as I had looked through many custom
made fonts from Dafont.com which helped in
bringing out the genre of my magazine clearly. An
example of this is with my masthead which I spent a
long time trying to find the right font to connote the
genre, much unlike with the college magazine as I
had no research and existing magazines to
compare it to.

14. Models
I had only one model for my preliminary task which
made it much less varied to my final products in
which I used seven. This gave the impression
more was happening in the world of pop-punk
than there was in the college. This made it seem
like there was much more content and gave me
much more to talk about, rather than leaving lots
of white space like in my preliminary task.

15. Page Composition
My page composition on my cover had similarities
to my preliminary task as I used the same
conventions like the left side third and a sky line.
My final products have been improved in
comparison as the cover includes many more
conventions as to fill the space around the main
image, making it seem fuller and more
interesting. There was a lot of space left on my
preliminary cover, so I have improved in making
lots of things jumping out at the reader.

16. Page Composition
My preliminary contents page had a plain layout,
halving the page using one side for images and
the other for the table of contents. My final
products have more of a varied look, splitting the
table of contents across the page with use of
images. This made it seem less bulkier than my
preliminary product.