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

Before I could set about creating my magazine I had do some planning and preparation. This was vital in order to successfully create a proffesional product. It was important to have a set genre in mind for my magazine so as I could then undertake my audience research, and research into existing magazine's in my chosen genre, to see what features they choose and how I could use these forms and conventions as well as challenge them, in order to create a magazine suitable for my chosen genre and audience. Without doing research I could not find out what I needed to include and most importantly who I was aiming my magazine at and how I could go about targeting them successfully. In my preliminary task I only carried out a small bit of audience research and didn't really look into it as much as ai should have. My magazine didn't look as proffesional as my magazine now does. I feel that this is because I carried out extensive research into audiences and existing magazines and there for had alot more knowledge of what I was aiming to do and could carry out and complete the task alot better.
As well as the audience research and initial planning I also had to draft out my magazine and try out different fonts and layouts, colours and images. It was important to be creative whilst doing this and closely consider what my target audience is looking for in a magazine. So drafting is essential in order to reach a final product the audience could clearly see was off a chosen genre.
The planning of time and organisation was extremely important in this task as there's lots to underatake, such as the research into existing products and researching audience's, drawing up audience profiles and then the actual planning of the magazine. With out planning out the time and making sure you know what your going to do and when your magazine can not look proffesional and you can not aim the best you can to your target audience and explore deeply if you have to rush the end product, or the actual planning its self. You have to look into the conventions of the magazine its self and see how and what existing media products do in order to attract their audience. On the front cover it is important to have a catchy and appropriate mast head and make sure that your main sell draws in the readers eye and that the cover doesn't look messy. The contents page has to be set out correctly, as done in existing magazine's. Using collumns and photo's and the use of fonts and colours has to be expored.
Photographic skills are highly important in this task and it is essential that you caputure photo's which represent your chosen genre. You have to research into existing magazines and see how they use photographic skills to appeal to their audience. When taking photo's you have to consider the following .. Framing, lighting, costume, backgrounds. The photo's you include in your magazine tell the reader alot about the magazine they are reading. So getting these factore right is crucial to the success of your magazine. In my preliminary task I didn't really use the camera's to the best of their ability or explore what they could achieve and took your basic/standard photograph. There for the photo's I included didn't look proffesional and brought the whole magazine's standard down. In my real task I made sure I developed the skills I had already learnt in order to capture more arty and proffesional looking photographs.
Since the preliminary task I have developed my skills in both Photoshop and QuarkXpress. These two pieces of software are what can (if used to theire full extent) make your magazine look proffesional. I have extended my knowledge and explored more into what they offer and what can be achieved when using them.
The biggest thing I have learnt from this project is that its not what you think looks good on a magazine when creating it and that you have to consider more than what you think about genre's when producing a magazine. You must always reffer back to audience research andprofiles and make sure that you are creating a magazine which appeals to them and not jsut what you think looks good whilst in the procces of making it.