Evaluation 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

The task I was required to do for the preliminary was to create a college magazine including the conventions of a college magazine and incorporating  new skills. For this task I designed and sketched ideas and made a front cover and contents page in preparation for the real task. I had to use own photography also.

Looking back at the preliminary task I feel It helped me get my head around how to use a camera and the terminology for print media products. The picture we were to use was specific therefore I learnt how to build up a range of pictures and be selective with the choice i made to suit the brief and theme appropriately. There were a lot of alternative photos to choose from in the preliminary and even more in the real task and the preliminary helped establish what's appropriate and not.
For the main task, we had to sketch and design our magazine, do research on the audience, deconstruct magazines of a similar genre and then create a front cover, contents and double page spread. The preliminary helped me as I learnt the basics of adobe photoshop and how to manipulate a picture. I had never used photoshop before so the preliminary taught me what i needed to know for the real task, because i made mistakes and learnt from them. i learnt how to scale, blur, fade, edit faces, liquidity and i learnt a lot of key editing language. The preliminary introduced me to photography, shots and editing whilst also taught me how to make improvements whilst going a long especially when you're following a design. Not everything can go well or looks right so improvements often need to be made during the process. For example the image for the front page was going to be the two artists shaking hands however, this did not represent the story enough and failed to empower women which is the target audience.