My Preliminary Task

Evaluation

My preliminary task fullfils the brief; I have completed a front cover of a school magazine using my own medium-close up of a student, along with a contents page. Both documents were produced on Adobe Photoshop. For the image, I have chosen a sixteen year old female student, as this is the age of the appropriate target audience of this magazine. I chose to have the model in smart dress and in a working or learning environment to reflect on typical schooling conventions and to convey an archetype of a model school pupil as a positive example to other pupils. In addition, I have laid-out the text and masthead in a style appropriate to the stereo-typical conventions of a school magazine.

I overcame obstacles in order to complete this task as I have never used Photoshop in this way before. To help me to do this, I researched into tutorials to help me work out what to do, especially when enlarging or reducing the photographs.

In order to improve the production values of my design I would take this stereo-type of a model student further. I would do this by taking more suitable photographs with props e.g. by showing an ideal pupil being studious with a book, writing or by a computer. In order to make the layout more visually appealing, I would also change the text styles and colours.

In order to complete the preliminary task and understand the software, I researched into multiple YouTube tutorials as they are easy to understand because I am a visual learner.

In preparation for completing my main task, I have learnt to become more familiar with Adobe Photoshop; as I had little experience with the software beforehand. This will help me with my main task as I now have a beginner's understanding of how to use it, so I can therefore push myself further and produce a more visually appealing main task.