7. Looking back at my preliminary task, do I feel that I have learnt anything in the progression from it to the full product?

When doing my preliminary task I particularly enjoyed doing the print task for the coursework. This is why I chose to do print for my main coursework.

When planning for my priliminary work I was a bit behind so often planned as I went along. When doing the main task I knew that I was not going to be able to do this as I needed to know exactly what I was going to be doing and when I was going to have it done so that I would be able to stick to the deadlines set. If i had not done this correctly then I would not have been able to stick to the deadlines set as I would not know when I would be able to fit everything in.

I chose to make draft designs of my magazine front cover, contents page and double spread so that when coming to designing the magazine on the computer it would then be easier and more efficient to do and so that I had a clear idea of what would work in the magazine and what I needed to include.

In order to organise my time efficiently I made a time plan of when I needed to get things done by and I made sure that I strictly stuck to this time plan so that I kept up to date with the different tasks.

For my main task I looked in depth to the conventions of the magazine and the specific target audience for my magazine. This was to help me to understand clearly what was needed to be done to attract the particular audience to the magazine. To do this I researched into different magazines with similar audience types so I could see the forms and conventions they use and then slightly adapt them to be more suitable for my magazine.
With my particular magazine type I found that it was important to make them look slightly different and bold to go with the attitudes of the audience by 'standing out in the crowd'. I found that the contents page needed to be clear and understandable so that the audience will know where to find the information within the magazine easily.

One of the things which I found most difficult in the preliminary task is the editing and using the technology of paintshop pro and qwark express. Two pieces of software which I had never used before. This was a challenge for me to be able to understand what all the different buttons did and how it all worked. To be able to understand the programmes I just did a basic magazine front cover where I used all the different tools available so that I could understand what they each did and how I was going to be able to use them for producing my magazine.
This is one area which I think I greatly improved on from my preliminary task as after the main coursework task I was able to use the software easily and I would be able to explain how to use the programme correctly if anyone needed to use it.

Overall though I think that the main thing which I learned from this task is how important it is to do market research beforehand so that I knew exactly what I needed to do in the project. I know realise how important the consideration of the target audience is and why there is so much detail which goes in to think of the end product of the magazine. This market research of the target audiences often affect the production process of the magazine as they have to decide what is going to be needed to agree with the audience's wants of the magazine. For example when looking into my target auidence I found that they liked to be more edgy and slightly different from the norm so I tried to create a magazine which would appeal to this auidence structure by making the colours bold and stand out from the rest and use different colour types for the audience type of mainly females so that it would go against dominant ideology and also make it different.

On a whole I am generally pleased with the outcome of my magazine. It is evident that during the production of the magazine I took into considersation the key assesment objectives in order to produce an effective magazine front over, contents page and double page spread where all significant conventions within the genre are considered.

The biggest thing which I have learnt from this experience is how important it is to make a time plan and to make sure that you stick to this time plan exactly so there are no mad rushes to complete the work at the end. On the full project my time was managed well as I reached the deadline set. I feel that I managaed my time better on the full project compared with the preliminary task. I also think that how much I have learnt on how to use the two pieces of software has helped me greatly so that I was able to make my product look more appealing to the customer.