Audience feedback and evaluation- preliminary task/ college magazine (Planning)

 Media Preliminary task evaluation

Photography: Photography was one of my strengths as the pictures I took was clear and bright. I think that I positioned the images very well as in the front cover, the image I used was positioned right in the middle. When I took the front cover picture, I took it against a red wall background which saved me time when I was working on my magazine as I did not have to change the background. I made sure that the photography was the main focus on the magazine as it attracts the audience. However, I think that I didn’t use enough images to follow the conventions of a real professional magazine.

Image manipulation: I did not really need to manipulate my images because they were of a high standard. However, I did have to make the person on the front cover bigger in which I had to be careful to make sure I have not pixelated the image which would not look professional. The contents page image did not have to be manipulated as I wanted to stay the way it was however I had to make the image bigger. However, to improve this I should have manipulated the image so that the magazine looked of a high standard.

Page layout: I think that the page layouts on my college magazine was neat and readable and I made sure I thought about where everything was going to go, the college magazine outlines that I made beforehand was very helpful as I stuck to it. I tried to follow the conventions of a college magazine by having a masthead at the top, date, main coverlines in bigger fonts and the normal coverline in a smaller font to show the importance of each coverline. However, I think that I lacked in the contents as it does not look as neat and professional as it should.

Masthead: I found it hard to find a simple font that looked sophisticated. However, I kept and looking for a font that is simple and bold. I put the Masthead at the top so that it stands out and also I made sure that my front cover image of a student was quite low to ensure that the font of the Masthead does not contrast with the image of the student.

Colours: I used the three colour scheme in my magazine which was red, yellow and orange. I felt that all these colour where bright so that it catches the readers eyes. I stuck to a three colour scheme as most professional magazines have a three colour scheme so that the magazine looks sophisticated and simple.

I think that creating the college magazine helped me become more knowledgeable in using Photoshop and InDesign. I learned how to change the fonts, manipulate the images, and change the colours.

The audience feedback I got for the college magazine was “For improvement, you should consider using a different layout for your contents page and start with the sub-heading "Features" and then move into the detail in the contents page.  For the front cover, you should focus again on the layout and when giving quotes which are going to be in the magazine, state the page number”. I found this audience feedback very useful as if I was to add these improvements, my magazine would look more professional and follow the conventions. Stating the page number is vital as it finishes of the look of a magazine and also yet again follow the conventions of a professional magazine.

What do I need to improve on?

One of the things I would say I need to improve on is I need to work on finding the right fonts to make the magazine look more professional and also stand out without looking too scattered.

Three key points for development when producing the main task (music magazine):
One of the key points I would say is that I should take a variety of pictures to include in my magazine. The second point I would say, make sure I follow the conventions of a music magazine i.e. add in a certain genre i.e. with the colour. The third point I would say is that I need to make improvements on my contents page by thinking and planning a suitable layout.