Preliminary Task
Task: Our task was to produce a school/college magazine which should have encompassed
a front cover of the magazine and the contents page of the magazine.
While studying magazines
for our preliminary task; it has helped me to increase my knowledge about the
sort of shots that are used for magazines and the angles of the shots. It has
also helped me with the themes and colours of the magazine and how they relate
to the main headline of the magazine.
Previously I have taken a
lot of pictures and shots, but I have not used an SLR camera before. While I was
thinking of images and photo shots for my preliminary task I chose to take the pictures
with an SLR camera as I think that the pictures taken by an SLR camera is at
better standards than an ordinary digital camera. I personally believe that I
still need to work on using the SLR camera to progress further in media.
My strengths throughout this task must
be organisation; throughout the task, I consider that I used my time rapidly
and organised myself well for the task that was set. For example, I researched
some contents page topics form college magazines to give me an idea about the
kinds of topics and headlines they had. I also had a look at Yuri Arcurs who “is the world’s most successful
microstock photographer” I researched him to see the style of
pictures he had which gave me an idea about recreating a picture that he
created from students. Alternatively, I think one of my biggest
weaknesses that I came across while undertaking this task was Photoshop as I was
struggling to use Photoshop since I did not know much about Photoshop and how
it worked, I did not have any knowledge about it. I believe I have improved a lot
while completing this task as I have increased my knowledge about Photoshop and
have definitely got use to using it. I feel as if I have really come around it
and have definitely progressed well through the few weeks of implementing our
preliminary task.
When I finally got my
resources together for the magazine; it was time for me to start editing and
putting the magazine together to form a front cover of magazine and a contents
page of a magazine. I originally wanted
the model to lean to right side of the edge of the magazine but changed my mind
and decided that I wanted the model leaning towards the left; in this way the
magazine cover looked a lot clearer and spacious. While choosing the colour
theme for the magazine I realised that I chose many different colours for the
different type of headings that were going to be placed on the front cover of
the magazine. When changing my mind I wanted
the colours and fonts to be kept simple and tidy as then it may help the reader
to be able to read it. I tried to link the colours to the actual picture that
was used for example;
-
the red heading was the same colour as one of the
folders/ books:
-
the mid headline colour was taken from the
models nail polish:
-
I chose to use one particular font mostly for
every heading. The reason why I chose to do this was because I wanted to make
the magazine cohesive between the contents page and the front cover of the
magazine.
I also chose to change the
layout of my contents page as I felt that it looked a lot better when the pictures
were scattered around on the righ hand side rather than the left hands side.
Overall, it has truly
been amazing to be a part of the media class for this term. Our prelim task
that was set was a great insight of Photoshop and the tasks that we might be receiving
this year. The only think that I would improve on my next task is “blogger”. Using
blogger for the first was a great experience. It has definitely given me the
chance to have an insight about blogging and how important it is to keep it
updated at all times.
