AS Media Studies Preliminary Task Evaluation

By Lizzie Mitchell

Front Cover Similarities

Masthead + Header

Price in a flasher

MCU of a person using the rule of thirds

Cover Lines

Footer

When making my front cover, I tried to use all the usual features a normal magazine would have including:

Front Cover Differences

My front cover has no barcode, because it is free so it is not needed.

The main image on the Kerrang frontcover is very different to mine. Myimage is of a friendly student whorepresents most of the population ofthe college. The Kerrang image hasfrowning men which creates a moretough, unfriendly look. I didn’t wantthis for my magazine because I wantedit to appeal to my target audience.

The colour scheme on mymagazine is blue and purple torepresent the college colours andlook appealing to all genders. TheKerrang cover has blacks and reds,which are more masculine colours,and fit with the genre of rock.

Contents Page Similarities

Magazine Title with Contents

Images of Students/image relating to magazine.

Features with page numbers

Editors Letter

Features separated with different headings

Contents Page DifferencesNo magazine title

Editors Letter – mine is on the right hand side and Kerrang’s is at the top

Several Images were used in Kerrang with page numbers relating to that feature next to it

Colour scheme is bright and eye-catching in mine, and Kerrang’s is white, yellow and black which is more subtle.

The technologyAdobe Photoshop

One of the main programmes we learnt how to use was Adobe Photoshop. We used this for image manipulation so we could make the students in our images look more like models to suit our magazines. Before this task, I had never used Photoshop before, whereas now I have a fairly good understanding of how to use it to manipulate images.

Adobe InDesign Another program we used was InDesign. We used this to puttogether our contents page and layout our front covers. Again, Ihad never used InDesign before this task, but now I amconfident in using it to create and edit magazine pages andlaying out structures of pages.

Digital Camera I had to use a digital camera to take photos of the

students, then upload them to the computer before manipulating them in Photoshop.

Stages Of Development

Evaluation

I think I did relatively well in this task. I had a good, bold colour scheme that ran throughout my contents page and front cover, and the same font, so I had a good house style. I tried to make it look professional by adding a header and footer to my front cover, and using as many cover lines as I could to fill the space without overcrowding. I think I manipulated the images well in order to make them suitable

for a College magazine. I thought my layout on my contents page was clear and easy to read, and it was easy to find all the right information.

Peer Evaluation• I asked my peers to evaluate my Front Cover and Contents Page. Heres the feedback

they gave me;

The feedback was constructive; they said they likedmy images and clear font on my front cover, and theway I had blurred out the background.To improve, they said I could have made theMasthead stand out more, as it wasn’t very eyecatching or memorable. I could have also used morecover lines to fill the dead space.

For my Contents Page, they said it was bright andeasy to read, with a consistent house style andgood detail. However, the bright colour schemewasn’t to everyone's taste, so I could have usedpaler colours to attract more students. I could havealso used a few more images and a few morefeatures/page numbers to fill the dead space.