5. How did you attract/address your audience? (DPS)

Evaluation Activity 5 on Prezi

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have used many different technologies during the process of making my magazine. A lot of which, I used for the first time and others I had used before however, I learnt new things with virtually all of the pieces of equipment that I used. As often happens, technology isn't always reliable and some of the things I used caused me many problems, but I managed to work around them and get my magazine completed succesfully and by the deadline.

This is the camera I used to take the pictures for my magazine. It is a Fugifilm A100 and I was pleased with the quality of photos it took.  I learnt how to take pictures in the most professional way I could with a fairly amateur camera. And I also learnt what kind of shots worked well on my magazine.

I used PhotoShop CS5 when I created my magazine. This is the version of PhotoShop I have on my laptop at home and I became more confident using it during the process, however, I did find it quite difficult to use at first. I learnt how to cut out the photos in a fairly professional way by using either the magic wand or magnetic lasso tools. I also learnt how to arrange the different conventions on the page through the use of layers. By having each different aspect of the magazine on a different layer, I could easily arrange everything to the layout that I wanted.

This version of PhotoShop is the one I used for my magazine when I edited it a school and for the preliminary task. I found it a lot easier to use than the CS5 version, however there were some bits of it that I could do more effectively on the CS5 version. I learnt all of my basic photoshop skills by using this programme as it was the first time I had ever used it (on the preliminary task) even though my shool magazine wasn't very professional looking, I still learnt how to use the main tools.

I used Microsoft Word during my research and planning to help me present things more effctively.

I used Flickr to present some of the photo's I took. Firstly, I created an account and then learnt how to upload my photo's from my computer onto flickr. I then created an album and embeded it onto my blog.

 

I used the Internet for the majority of my research. Websites such as Google and Youtube were useful when I was deciding what genre of music to base my magazine on and what target market to have. I learnt which sort of websites were good for inspiration that I hadn't heard about before (eg. Cover Junkie).

I learnt how to use Slideshare and Scribd to present word and powerpoint documents. They allowed me to put my work onto my blog fairly easily.

I used Microsoft PowerPoint a great deal during my research and planning. I think it helps to present things neatly and effectively either as a slideshow, or by saving a slide as a Jpeg file.

This is the memory stick I used to save my work on so I could add to it at school and then continue at home. However, this was the piece of technology that caused me the most trouble. The day before the practical deadline, my memory stick broke and I couldn't retrieve the files. Then, due to my own judgement error, I hadn't backed up the files well and lost a lot of my work. I therefore had to do the DPS and contents page again the night before it was due. Luckily though, I managed to do it fairly quickly based on my memory of what the pages looked like.

This is my laptop and the piece of technology I used to do most of my work on.

I learnt how to use Blogger to present all of my work and I posted all of the work I did and inspiration I found when creating my magazine.

 

7. Looking back at your preliminary task (the school magazine task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

From looking at my preliminary task and my final magazine, I am quite proud of the progression I made. The preliminary pages are very basic and don’t look like a real magazine at all. Especially on the contents page, I think it's clear that I have made a lot of progress in terms of my creativity and Photoshop skills.

I now have a better understanding of all sorts of things related to Photoshop and how to make things look better. I also now know what sorts of colours look good together and how the three colour rule is very effective on magazine covers. On my preliminary cover, I did have all the conventional elements I needed, but they were of a low and basic level and far from the final product I wanted to achieve.

I have chosen a different camera shot on the final and preliminary covers, I thought the one i chose for my final cover looked more appropriate for the style of magazine and was more effective in terms of lighting and grabbing the reader’s attention. 

The progress from my preliminary task to my final magazine has also pointed out to me the importance of research and inspiration. When I created my preliminary, I hadn't done any sort of research so I didn't really have any ideas or inspiration to base it on. However, before I created my final magazine, I did a lot of research into all sorts of things incorporated in the magazine, including; colours, fonts, music genre and current magazine layouts. I feel that this is one of the major aspects that helped me to improve my creativity skills.

Overall, I am very pleased with the progress I have made since the preliminary school magazine. 

Final Version

DPS Choices

This is the DPS I produced for my final version. However, I thought that it looked a bit plain on the side with the interview. Therefore I decided to add a picture of a rose, that I had taken, in the background. I altered the opacity of it so the text was still readable. Also, I think a rose ties in well with my article as the 'popstar' is called Naomi Valentine, and a rose has a strong link with her surname. Below is the new final version:

Contents Inspiration

Before starting my final contents page I wanted to choose an existing one to base it upon. My draft contents page wasn't good at all so I am aiming to improve this as much as I can before I hand in my final version. The inspiration I have chosen is a contents page from Q magazine. I like the layout of it and think it would suit my magazine. The colour scheme or rock genre isn't applicable to my magazine so therefore I am going to just use the layout as inspiration and then my own ideas for colours and pictures. I am also trying to remain consistent and carry through the same or a similar colour scheme on all three parts of the magazine.

Final Cover Mock Up's and Inspiration

Here I have done two different mock up's for my final cover. I decided to them very different as I wanted to get an opinion of which was best and which would suit my audience the most. After talking to my teacher, I have decided to mainly stick to the second but I am going to change it quite a lot, however it will be a starting point for me. I am going to start my final cover based on inspiration I am going to use from the NME cover below.

This cover of NME with Rihanna as the star is one I have liked from the start when I began looking at inspiration. I really like the colour scheme used and the way in which the masthead and main cover line are the same colour. I am going to use this as my main source of inspiration for my cover and adapt parts of it to suit my magazine.