Evaluation Of Preliminary Task

Evaluation of Preliminary Task   

                     Front Cover                                            Content Page

Research;

I started the research task by looking through some old school magazines front covers. We looked through these magazines so that we could get ideas for our own magazines we are going to make. From looking at these magazines we realised that in the school magazines they use one main image which takes up the whole page. They use one image because it tells the readers that this is the main feature article in the magazine. The image stands out to the reader and will make them want to read the school magazine. They also use a mast head/ title. They named there title ‘Excel’. The title is bold, bright and uses big font. They made the font clear to read so that people with bad eye sight can read this magazine. The magazine has strapline These are little insiders on what is going to be in the magazine. So readers will know briefly what will be in the magazine. After we analysed some of the school magazines front covers we had to analysis the content page. The content page is very different from the front cover. The main differences is that The content page is very different from the front cover. The main differences between the front cover and the content page is that there is not one big feature article image.  On the front cover there is a dominant image where as in the content page there are lots of little images which are relevant to the magazine. For example; they have used a image of the Head Teacher, and events which have happened other the lat couple of months. In the content page they use columns to separate certain parts of the content page. The columns have been used to tell the readers what article are on which page. Another difference is that on the content page there is much more writing than the front cover. This is because people don't want lots of writing on a front cover whereas on a content page people want to more writing. The writing tells the readers about the school, what's inside and what's coming up.

Planning;

The planning process started by drawing three different front cover pages and three different content pages. The idea's had to be different but effective. We learned how to draw symbol's which will correspond to what will be on the magazine. For example; a box with an x through it means image. However these designs couldn't be complicated because we had to design the magazine on PhotoShop and i haven't used that software before. So i chose a straight forward design. After drawing three front cover designs and three content pages we had to draw our template on PhotoShop. At first PhotoShop was hard to get used too but after a couple of tries i got the hang of the program. In PhotoShop there are a variety of different tools. An example is the rubber tool. This will let you rub out mistakes or rub out parts of the photo you don't want. We couldn't at this stage upload pictures because we haven't took any yet. But we were aloud to place text that we wanted. But i wanted to wait till i took my photo's before placing my texts. Taking the picture's was one of the most important parts of the preliminary task. The reason is because the pictures had to be taken perfectly. So i had to think carefully on what photo's i wanted in my magazine. I brainstormed some ideas and the ideas i had was;

• Olympics coming through Armthorpe
• Movie night at Armthorpe Academy
• WWRY takes over the drama department
• Sixth form explodes
• Students go on skiing trip
• P.E department get new ground 

 Finding great pictures was challenging because it was impossible finding some of the ideas i had. For example 'Students go on skiing trip. It would of been impossible finding somebody skiing in a school. On my front cover i wanted a movie theme. So i decided my main article photo was going to be about Armthorpe does movie night. The picture was going to be somebody with a video camera. Another picture i wanted to use is the WWRY (We Will Rock You) logo. The reason why i wanted to use this is because our school's production is WWRY and would of been appropriate to include this . I had to think about what pictures i wanted on my content page as well has my front cover. I wanted pictures that represented the articles used in my magazine. So i decided i wanted to take pictures of the austro turf and an Olympic sign. The reason why i wanted sport pictures is because sports is our specialised subject at Armthorpe and the Olympics has just been on.
Taking the photo's was easier than i thought although i had troubles at first. Firstly i took a picture of the Olympic sign. This picture was successful because it is clear, straight to the point and there is nothing in the background. However when taking a picture of the austro turf it was more difficult. This is because the austro turf was locked up. Nobody could get in so i had to take the photo through the metal gates. This made some of the pictures blurry and not straight. Also the sun was out meaning it was hard getting a clear photo. Another problem was that there was some students having a P.E lesson on he grass next to the austro turf. So i thought when editing i can crop them out.  Finally after a lot of time i finally got my picture.  The picture was clear, not blurry and colourful. The final picture i wanted was my front cover picture. My mast head. This picture was straight forward to take. However i had to ask one of my peers to take it for me. I decided to place the video camera onto my eye because I'm pretending to be filming showing the readers that there's a movie night happening. The quality of the picture is clear and is appropriate to the audience.

Editing;

In my opinion editing was the most hardest/difficult part of the whole process. The main reason is because I've never used Photoshop before. One of the main tools i used was the gradient tool. This is when one side of the page is blue but fades to a more brighter colour. This was effective on both my front cover and content page, this was going to be my background to my images. To get the image the size it is i had to rub out the background that was around the picture and drag it onto my front cover. To get the WWRY image i had to get there off the Internet. The other images i took had to be cropped them to get them the right size because the size was too big for my content page. I wanted the text writing to match the background so i made the writing white. This is clear to read, it is bold and bright. The language used on my magazine is not complicated. This is because both teenagers and adults will be reading and i had to provide for both audiences. The blue rectangle i used the rectangle tool. I wanted to do this because it gives a sense of the magazine being unique and different.

How I Feel About Preliminary Task;
How i felt on the Preliminary task is that i learned some new skills that i can use in my music magazine. I overcame problems to achieve the final product like taking the perfect photo's, and editing the photo's.
If i did the preliminary task again i would change my main article topic. Maybe do less on the sport's because not everyone likes sports and I've got to do topics for both boys and girls. Another thing i would change would be the layout of my content page because i would of liked to include columns.