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

From creating a contents and front page for my school magazine I have learnt the importance of quality of images to give the correct representation within the magazine.  If the images on a page are taken from clashing angles they will make the page look too busy and ruin the focus of the page, also clarity and style will be lost because through the images we can see how much effort has been taken. I have also learnt the value of audience research, without having carried out my questionnaire for my music magazine I wouldn’t have been able to make sure I included appropriate content that was tailored to interest my target audience. In comparison to the Preliminary task’s questionnaire my questions didn’t have to be so structured where I had to break down the answer into different sections for parents, sixth formers and year 7-11 students. When I was creating my school magazine I did not take enough time out to gather my images and get a wide range of original images and so I had to use image which had not been taken with as much time put in to them. From this I learnt to spend a lot of time deliberating over which images to use and placing large emphasis on the quality inside the image; regarding dress sense, make-up, stylising and poses. For my music magazine, having learnt from this, I took a whole day out to have a photoshoot where I took over 200 images of my models in different outfits and different make up. Also, with my school magazine it was difficult to come up with lots of content to go inside the magazine without having created a flat plan, mapping out where all my pages would go. When it came to creating my music magazine I had a detailed flat plan that helped me create my contents page. After creating two drafts of my front page for the school magazine, I learnt that it is important to continue redrafting your work and to document the changes your work goes through. I have also learnt that it is important to use a house style that you will use for your magazine so that it is easy to put your work onto the page and make it appropriately stylised for the audience. Creating the school magazine in the preliminary task prepared me for being time – conscious when it comes to preparation, taking too long on drafting my page instead of putting time into actually making the page was a waste of time also, I learnt that it is best o take images early on in the process and to put a lot of effort into taking the images. By knowing which images you are going to use this makes the process of putting together a page much easier as you can design the page around whatever images are on there first.