Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at my preliminary task I would say that I have learnt a substantial amount, in many different areas. Whether that be how I approached this task or the actual design/look of my final product. I feel that my final coursework product was enhanced by my ability to play around with the software I used during the production of my magazine, software such as Photoshop, InDesign and dafont.com. Although I felt that my preliminary task was finished to a relatively high standard by the time I had completed my Full product I could see the improvement on my own skill level, for example I was able to add a diagonal strip onto my Front cover which I had neglected to do on my preliminary task as I didn't know how to do so.

I learnt other key lessons such as the importance of time management and how to spend time more effectively on coursework. When i started the AS brief I had an extremely laid back approach and took to long on my research and planning leaving myself a restricted amount of time for my actual product, which was worth the bulk of the marks. Although I was able to finish my product to a high standard I have learnt the importance of approaching my work with a sense of pride and determination, i can achieve this by setting myself goals to complete in a short amount of time.

The front cover demonstrates the most noticeable improvement as i was able to use Photoshop to edit the brightness and general quality of the photo. The image I used on my Final Product proved to be much more challenging to edit as I decided to use a pre-existing background, unlike my preliminary which I used a white background for. I had to use a different set of skills in my coursework as I had to tackle the Contents and double page spread for the first time, my first draft of my contents was similar to my 'Talbot Times' Front cover, being extremely simplistic. I then had to redraft this as I felt it had the possibility to drag my mark down. 

In my preliminary task I had to extract the image from a much larger image, a problem I had to face during the production of my final product. My placement, design and creation of cover-lines improved as I was able to make sure they were all aligned properly as well as making sure that they looked sleek and were appropriate in regard to the genre of the magazine and the target audience. although the task itself was different the preliminary task helped me to understand the small changes I would need to make in order to target my audience correctly for example my genre meant that i could target the younger listener, for example teenagers or the older, more hardcore fans, early to late 20's.   

Evaluation Question 6

Through creating this product I have learnt about the wide range of tools that I can use on adobe software such as InDesign and Photoshop for example the ability to import different fonts off of the internet, from websites such as dafont.com, this aided me a great deal as I was able to import the font that I used for my mast head and my cover-lines. The ability to change/enhance a pictures quality, brightness and contrast helped me to achieve specific looks that helped with the connotation of my genre. Finally crop tools and eraser tools on these software’s have allowed me to add a unique effect to my images as well as the ability to merge 2 pictures together effectively.

Online tools such as popplet and blogger have allowed me to present my work to a higher standard whilst also helping me organise my work and answers to evaluation questions into sections and then subsections. Dafont.com has helped me to create a unique product as it has taught me about the ability to share and create different fonts online. Dafont was key for me as it allowed me to be far more picking when it came to selecting my fonts as I felt that the pre-installed fonts that come with such software as InDesign and Photoshop were to generic and weren't good enough for an As coursework piece. 

Photoshop and InDesign have taught me about the importance of alignment within a music magazine as my original draft had cover lines all over the page and looked messy and scruffy whereas when I redrafted and aligned them all it looked clearer and sleek, the ruler tool helped to achieve this look as a green line would appear on my page if the text/image/table was aligned with another on the page.

Whilst using Photoshop I learnt the importance of contrast and brightness when trying to manipulate an image. The Images I manipulated were the image of TYB, my featured artist, on a bench and the image of Queen-E on my contents page. The Queen-E image was relatively simple to do as I took the original image of her on a white background. all i had to do was find the background I wanted to use, crop my model out of her shot and place her onto this image. the difficulty lie in making this new image realistic, as i didn't want the fact i had just cropped and pasted her onto a background to be very obvious. the reason i decided to alter the original image was because I felt it needed to have more generic conventions, specifically the dirty and impoverish feel that many artists of the grime genre strive for.

The image of TYB was slightly more challenging to alter as i wanted to keep the floor, bench and model of the original shot but replace the background, as i felt that it didnt connote the grime genre strongly enough. I therefore had to find an appropriate image of a graffiti covered street that would match the parts of the image i wanted to save. The real challenge was adjusting the brightness of the different levels and making sure there was no apparent seam between the two images. I again used the Quick lasso tool and the sliders that control brightness, contrast, exposure and colour levels to create what i believe to be an all round appealing and believable shot.

Websites such as online mood board creators allowed me to add a different form of image to my blog which taught me about presentation even within my planning exercises as it helped to make my idea clearer not only to others but also to myself. Soundcloud again helped me to present my tasks in a different way which helped to show a wide range ICT skill.

The Camera I used was a Cannon EOS 700D. This process helped me hone my camera skills in as they were up until this point relatively basic. I learnt the importance of shot composition and the effect this can have on the way an audience interprets an media text. The composition of my shots was vitally important as my artist needed to have the rugged bad boy looks of a grime artist but also needed to look somewhat approachable and respectful of who he is and where he has come from. I feel that the shots I have taken help to portray this message.