Evaluation: Question 7

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

Strengths

I am good at working out how to use Indesign to my benefit to create the magazine design I was aiming for. I succeeded well in creating the magazine look I wanted and the way my magazine turned out was very similar to the image I had in my mind of my image. Indesign is a complicated program to use but I found it fairly easy to get to grips with and work out how to use it for what I needed. I often stumbled across things I was not planning on adding to my magazine but used them because I thought it would suit my magazine well. I was good with managing my time well when designing my magazine and had a plan for what I was going to add to my design every week. I kept on top of the designing work well and the end result looked positive. I was pleased with my end result of my magazine design.

Weakness

I could improve on my use of images in my magazine as I don’t think I used enough images to make my magazine as interesting as I would have liked it to look. I should have also planned my cover lines in advance so I could have come up with multiple different cover lines that would make my magazine sound really interesting. I think the amount of text I used on the double page spread ruins my magazine a little bit as the page looks too busy and not as simple as I would have liked it too.

Opportunities

I can improve on my music magazine by using more images in the double page spread and not get too carried away with the article. I believe if I had taken the time to learn a bit more about Indesign before I started using it I could have found some really useful skills and used them to extend the quality of my magazine further. I also believe I could have used other software to help add extra interesting things on my magazine design.

Threats

The problems I encountered with designing my music magazine to how I wanted was often the lack of having Indesign at home to continue some of my work there. I also found that Indesign could be bit of a threat at times as you could do with learning how to use all the features on it before starting the design work. Often I had to spend ages trying to find a feature I had used previously and wanted to use again. This wasted a lot of design time and often ruined some of the ideas I had for my magazine. So because of this I believe that learning to use Indesign first would have helped but the problem with that is you need to remember what you learn and only skilled people who use it often have the knowledge to help you learn to use it.