My preliminary front cover and contents page lacked quality compared to my final piece. For the preliminary, I used a basic digital camera and had limited Photoshop skills, resulting in poor image quality and placement of design elements. However, for my final piece, I used an SLR camera with better settings and had improved my Photoshop proficiency. This allowed me to enhance the image quality, neatly arrange conventions, refine edges, and create a consistent color scheme. Overall, progressing from my preliminary to final piece helped me learn how to construct successful media products through skills like Photoshop editing and incorporating design conventions.

1. LOOKING BACK AT YOUR PRELIMINARY
TASK, WHAT DO YOU FEEL YOU HAVE
LEARNT IN THE PROGRESSION FROM IT
TO THE FULL PRODUCT?

2. Front
Cover-
Preliminary
vs Final
Piece

3. Front Cover-Preliminary vs Final Piece
There has been a gigantic change from my preliminary to my final piece front cover.The first
thing is the picture quality, in my preliminary we used a standard digital camera with the basic
picture mode, not knowing any other function. But as you can see on my final piece the picture
quality is greatly improved as we used an SLR camera with auto mode on so it focussed
automatically and used flash to overall get a much better image.The placing of the image has
also improved, on my final piece the positioning is more central so it becomes more dominant
on the page and that is what I wanted to achieve.The positioning of the other conventions like
the cover lines are also better, on my preliminary they are all over the place whereas on my
final piece they are neatly placed in the left third so readers can easily identify what the
magazine contains.The masthead also has been massively improved. On my preliminary it
doesn’t seem to fit the box I placed it in properly and looks very boring and doesn’t stand out a
lot.The one on my final piece however has been smartly placed behind the centre of visual
interest but still looks bold and draws attention to the magazine well.The colour scheme of my
preliminary is also not very good as the blues overpower the page making it hard to look at
whereas my final piece has a good colour scheme with the bold red but is not overpowering on
the page and only the most important parts are in red. I think this huge change is due to my
proficiency on Photoshop which greatly improved as I was making my final piece.When
constructing my preliminary I had limited knowledge of Photoshop and similar products
resulting in the poor quality of the magazine.

4. Contents
Page-
Preliminary
vs Final
Piece

5. Contents Page- Preliminary vs Final
Piece
There has also been many changes from the preliminary contents page to my final piece
contents page.The editing of the image has improved a vast amount from the preliminary to
the final piece.The refinement along the edges of the image in the preliminary is jagged and
not very well edited, if you zoom in close pieces of the background can be found around the
image whereas on my final piece the edges has been feathered, smoothed out and a drop
shadow has been added giving the image a 3D effect and more prominent.The general quality
of the image on my final piece is also better as the same SLR used for the front cover was used.
The preliminary contents page is very plain and lacks detail in the background.The font choice
also was not very good makes it very boring to read. On the other hand my final piece is much
better with the use of the darker shape in the background, and the font choice is better and
remain consistent with the final front cover.The hints of red also help the page conform with
the house style, and make the page overall more interesting.This change is also due to the lack
of knowledge of similar products and lack of Photoshop skills at the time of making my
preliminary which shows how important learning about Photshop was to constructing my final
piece.

6. Summary
Overall from my preliminary to my final piece, I learnt what makes a successful media
product through researching similar products, analysing our target market, and how to
connect with our audience.This has enabled me to incorporate all these factors into my
final pieces, and made what I believe to be successful final pieces. Learning from the
success of similar products has also given me the ability to find what I have to do to tailor
conventions on my magazine to be relevant to our genre and following. I also learnt the
importance of technologies such as Photoshop when constructing my final pieces and
have gained a lot of editing skills. Finally I believed we created a product suitable for the
real world market.