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

Since the creation of my preliminary task I have enhanced my ability when using Photoshop CS3 as I believe that I can now do things on the programme that I could not do before. Furthermore, my research into magazines has also been a great assistance as it has given me the knowledge of knowing how to construct a magazine, and what it should look like. This has then taught me how to make the most out of all of the available space on a page and to make sure that everything is coherent in terms of font, images and colour scheme. The difference in this skill that I had learned can be noticed between the preliminary task and my final task because on the first task there was many white spaces along with boring fonts and no focal points on the page; whereas on my final task I think I have corrected all of these errors and learned from my previous errors in order to create a professional looking magazine.

Another skill I have learnt from the final production is how to cut out images properly without any jagged edges. In my preliminary task, the images had rough edges and I didn’t apply any effects or editing as I did not know how to. This is never seen in magazines, and highlights my inexperience but also how I have grown over the duration of the task. I am now also able to work the professional lighting and this has resulted in much better images for my final piece. Learning the skills needed to cut out, edit and add effects to images meant that not only did my images look good and professional it highlighted my development over the task and how I have grown in confidence when using Photoshop CS3 as I can now apply professional skills like feather, lens-flares and to adjust the hue and saturation.

Throughout the task I also learned how to wrap text around an image or any certain shape. I believe that this was a very useful and important skill to learn as it helps to fill up empty spaces on my page in order to make my magazine look action packed and exciting. I used this skill effectively on my third double page spread where I wrapped the text around my image so that the image would not be ruined but ultimately to fill all spaces on the page. In my opinion, it also makes the images appear to be more striking as they stand out from the text, and the words just act as a background to the strong pictures.

In conclusion, I believe that I have developed my creative knowledge of magazines as now know how to create an effective balance between not only words and images, but also how much should be on the page so that it does not look too busy, or too empty. I also feel as though I know what the target audience of a magazine are expecting to see in a magazine, and therefore have my own knowledge of what to include in a magazine and how to go about creating the magazine with less assistance than was needed in the preliminary task in order to create a stylish, professional and creative magazine.