Media Evaluation Essay – Skills development
Paige Jones
On my foundation
course the task was to create a music magazine, including a front cover,
Contents page and double page spread. We had to come up with our own artist and
take all of the pictures and design all three parts of the magazine. Prior to
actually creating the website we planned and researched, I looked at R&B as
my genre for my magazine so I did a LIIAR analysis for three other existing
R&B magazines and looked at current R&B stars.
At the beginning of the
year we also made a college magazine, we followed the same stages as we did
when making the music magazine. I made a front cover and a mock up contents
page for the magazine. I think that looking at the two magazine front covers I
can see I have improved a lot since starting this media course in all different
ways, mainly been more creative and coming up with better designs and getting
to grips with the different software to create my magazine.
Before I started the AS
media course I had a basic understanding of Photoshop as I had used it in
school a couple of times but I also used it at home so I knew basic controls. I
hadn’t really studied media before studying it at Wyke but I felt that once I
picked up on the basics and understood them properly it allowed me to work on
my designs and know what conventions they needed and what to put on them to
make them look better. Overall before I started media at Wyke my skills were
very basic compared to how they are now.
For the college magazine planning
and research I think that I didn’t do a lot of it compared to the music
magazine. I think the main reason for this is because I understood it better
when it came to creating my music magazine which helped me to look into things
in more detail. I think that if my research was better it might have helped me
when it came to designing the college magazine, I might have put more thought
into layout and been more creative with the design. I also think that looking at the conventions of a
magazine in more depth would have helped me to get a better understanding and I
would have come out with a better design in the end.
For the research for my
music magazine I used prezzi, which I learnt how to use in media, to put my
initial ideas on for the magazine and also looked into the target audience, how
much I wanted to sell the magazine for, I also looked at three other R&B
magazines to get an idea of what they looked like and the type of things they
included. Another thing I did was look at R&B artists so I could see what
they dressed like, particularly females as I was going to have a girl on the
front cover. For my collage magazine I didn’t really look at any of these
things in enough depth, I looked at some other college magazines but didn’t
plan out everything properly. When it came to taking the pictures for my
magazines I think there is an improvement from the college magazine to the
music magazine. For the college magazine I didn’t plan what I was going to take
pictures of, I just went around the college and took random pictures, whereas
for my music magazine I planned everything out, including the outfits, before I
took the pictures, so the shoot went better and I ended up with better images.
My front cover for the
college magazine is very basic. The writing on it doesn’t stand out and just
blends in with the picture. When it came to taking the pictures for my college
magazine it wasn’t planned, I went around college with a friend and took any
pictures that I thought would look good and I think that if I planned this
better then it could have improved the look of the front cover. I have also
learnt a lot more about manipulating my images to make them look better.
Editing the levels and airbrushing the images improves the overall look of the
magazine and you can see this on my music magazine more.
During the media course I
have learnt to be more creative with my work and make sure it stand out, the
writing on my music magazine is a lot more noticeable. Although I did establish
a colour scheme I don’t really think it comes across very strong on the front
cover whereas on my music magazine you can tell the colours I chose to use as
my colour scheme. I think the improvement in the final designs is mainly down
to learning how to use Photoshop better in media and other subjects so I could
use it to create better and more professional looking designs and also having a
better understanding of the conventions towards the end of the year so I knew
what is expected from an R&B magazine and what would look good and interest
people.
On my contents page
it shows that I knew that making sure the text stood out was important and I
could change it a lot more as my skills in Photoshop improved a lot. This made it easier for the audience to see
the writing, on some of my drafts you couldn’t see the writing very well but I
learnt new ways of making it stand out more. Although I think there could be
further improvements on my music magazine, you can see the difference between
what I knew and my skills when I was creating the college magazine and when I
created my music magazine.
On my double page
spread I think my images and the layout of it are a lot better quality than my
college magazine. This is down to planning it out before I started it, without
this when designing it I would have just been putting in what I thought of at
the time like I did for the college magazine rather than following what I set
out to do.
Overall I think I have
improved in all areas after my first year of media. With digital technology I
have learnt how to use the camera to get the best and most professional photos
I have also learnt how to use new programs such as Prezzi and my skills in
Photoshop have improved a lot. I think my creativity has become better as I got
more into the designing and knew the conventions of magazines better and
understood them properly. For my college magazine my research and planning was
very basic and my college magazine didn’t turn out very well. However for my
music magazine id did more detailed research and put more effort into planning
it and I think this improved the overall look of the magazine.
