Question Seven

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

Over the creation of the whole coursework i feel that i have progressed and learnt alot. At the beginning when we first created a simple preliminary task i felt that i was unconfident and had a lack of experience in creating such things. The preliminary task was to make a front cover and a contents page for a school magazine. This task felt daunting and hard when it was first done. Now looking back over the past few months i feel that i have improved a great deal from that first task we did to what i have created as a final overall product.
I also feel that i have gained an understanding about what a magazine entails and what codes and conventions are needed in order to create a successful one. For example everything that is on the magazine has a purpose and reason for being there. Another thing that i have learnt is that it is vital that you know exactly what your audience want and this could include things such as colours, fonts and layouts. Its important that as the creator of a product you makesure that everything fits and works as a whole so this means that questioning your audience and getting an opinion to begin with is important. Whether or not you are certain about what you are doing it is always vital that what you do is related back to your target and intended audience.
Also i have learnt that as little as you know to begin with, with a bit of trial and error you can learn something completely new and create a desirable product.
Another thing that i have learnt over the progression of the coursework is how to use many different design packages on the computer. This means that i am now able to further my skills throughout other courses and in my spare time. By usuing Serif Page Plus to create my preliminary task and then moving on to a much harder programme such as Photoshop i feel that i have made alot of progress and this is not only helpful to me now but will help me later on in the course and also for other things i do such as photography.
Overall i think that being made to do the preliminary task was a great idea. This is because now looking back i can feel proud of what i have achieved and i can see that i have made considerable improvement on my work. It makes me feel as though the magazine i have created has been worth while as a whole. The great thing about doing the preliminary task is that it shocks you in to seeing how little you actually do know and how much work and of an improvement you are willing to make to makesure you create something which is desirable and suits the purpose of your audience.