Above I have placed images of my Preliminary task and my Final task front covers.
Through out the production of my two magazine covers, I have learnt many new different things about the softwares used for the production of magazines. I also believe that this shows through my two different covers and the difference between the two. I feel as though I have come a long way from when I first started the course to now when I am finally finishing the course.
I have learnt many new things during the production of the pages. My photoshop skills improved dramatically from the start of the production. I had to look on you tube, and watch numerous videos on how to perform certain tasks and edit images in certain ways on photoshop. My attention to detail also increased during production, this could be due to my photoshop skills slowly improving, and my plans for the magazine finally taking shape and improving.
One feature that I have dramatically changed between the preliminary and this task is the use of space on the cover. As you can see on the preliminary task I left a lot of space on the cover, and the majority of the page was the main image, with empty spaces left making the cover look bare and empty. However, after conducting vast amounts of research for the main task, I discovered the problem, and realise that actually magazine have barely any space left empty on the pages, and the majority of times, text is left overlapping the main image. Therefore when it came to producing the cover page for the main task I realised that I needed to use space a lot more effectively than I had done in the preliminary. Therefore I dramatically increased the amount of cover lines on the page, and also included other features onto the page.
After extensive research I also concluded that I needed to include something on the page that stood out and grabbed the audiences attention. I soon realised that this was something that I had fail to do on the preliminary task, and needed to include on the main task. I therefore decided that I would increase the size and boldness of the masthead, also making it a bright more contrasting colour.
Due to these improvements and changes, I feel as though I have learnt a great deal since when I first started the course. My photoshop and camera skills have greatly improved through the course, and I feel that if I was going to repeat the task again, I would be able to improve and advance them even further.
Matt Reed's blog 