Preliminary evaluation

Preliminary evaluation

As Bentley states the creative process is “The making of the new through the rearranging of the old ” (Bentley 1997). I applied this to my production through looking at common conventions of magazines before I started planning my front cover and content page. Firstly, I looked at the Bodmin College magazine; I observed that it was not fit for purpose because the pictures are long shots, very poorly taken and I can barely read the writing. Due to this being the case I challenged and broke existing conventions through making my magazine and resemble magazine styles my target audience said they liked in my Survey Monkey. My target audience preferred the styles of the Vibe magazine with empire coming a close second, so I followed some conventions like having one main image, having teasers around the edge and blank to represent the needs of my target audience. However, I did break some conventions because my magazine was from a different genre and I wanted to be original. I broke conventions through having a background and not removing it and having a medium to long shot instead of a medium shot for my image.

My magazine design represents the social group of youth. Stanley Hall said in short, “Youth never changes”. My preliminary task represents this group, as it is a College magazine. The cover and content page use gender neutral colours thus making the magazine have a wider target audience. My image can also be seen as a role modal for the school especially for younger students. This helps it represent youth.

I made a Survey Monkey asking my target audience which front covers they preferred and topics they would like to read bout in my magazine. After making this I posted on Facebook for people to answer it. I got ten replies from it. From my replies I found out what my target audience would like to see in the magazine. The results showed their favorite topics to add in to the magazine. The results also showed which front cover they preferred. They picked the Vibe magazine thus telling me to use it as a style modal.

From making this product I have learnt how to use Blogger, Survey Monkey and more on Photoshop.  I had never used Blogger or Survey Monkey, I picked up the skill really quickly as both programs were easy to use. I have also learnt more about Photoshop’s tolls. I now found it easier to edit images on the program. Finally, I have also learnt about how a magazine is presented to its audience and I can now see that the College magazine that we have isn’t up to the correct standard. Having these tolls at my disposal made it easier to present my product to my audience.

Making my preliminary task had its ups and downs. Firstly the good parts were learning how to use different programs. This will help me in my project for editing images and distributing it to my audience. Another good part is that the image is very well taken and I found doing this easy. When making my project this skill will come in handy for the front cover and the content page. However there are things that could be improved, one of these is that the titles have backgrounds. If I were to do this again I would make sure that it was just the title and have no backgrounds on them.