Cover Comparison

Contents Comparison

Learning progression

• I have made many changes and improvements from my preliminary task through to my final production.

• The lighting and framing used in my shot on my preliminary cover is very poor, with the shot being unfocused and badly lit. The lighting in my production is far better. High-key lighting is used to allow the model to be well-visible and the shot is a mid-shot to allow the shot to draw the right amount of attention without taking up too much or too little of the page.

• My contents page preliminary used slim, small point fonts for category headers, making them difficult to read. I corrected this in my final production, using bold, contrasting colours and sans-serif fonts to allow letters to stand out more. The article sub-headings also suffered the same problem, so in my production they were shortened and made larger to draw more attention to themselves.

Learning progression

• I altered the layout of my front page substantially from the preliminary. The preliminary uses a very basic block layout and only features three headlines, whereas the final production uses a complex layout and features many headline listings, with a slanted theme throughout.

• My magazine’s title banner was another element that improved dramatically over time. My original banner wasn’t fully capitalised and was smaller than my production’s banner. The newer banner used in my production is larger and uses a bolder, more apparent font which draws more reader attention and in turn, might encourage more sales.

Creation of double page spread

Creation of double page spread

• The skills I had learnt from the creation of my preliminary through to my final production allowed me to create a very high quality double page spread.

• I used the skills I learned while producing my model image for my production cover page in the creation of my double page spread’s model image. My double page spread’s model image follows the same conventions also, with it using high-key lighting and being a medium-close shot. This allows the image to blend well with the white background.

• Looking at my codes and conventions allowed me to create a double page spread with a flowing-text 3-column layout that reads well.

• Experimenting with fonts in my earlier production work allowed me to know which fonts worked well as heading fonts and what colours would be suitable for headings. This is evidenced in the use of black, bold fonts for the article heading and smaller, house-colour-blue fonts in subheadings. The use of correct fonts allows for the direction of reader attention across the page in the desired way.

In conclusion…

• The quality of my final production was raised significantly due the skills I acquired through the work I did creating my production from my preliminary. I also made use of online tutorials to learn how to best operate the equipment I used, such as the DSLR camera. My research in to audience and codes and conventions played a big part in allowing me to know how other magazines best reached their target audiences. Without these things, my production quality would have been no higher than that of my preliminary task.