1. AS Media Unit G321
Preliminary Task
Cover and contents of
a college magazine
Preliminary task evaluation
example
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop
or challenge forms
and conventions of real media products?
2. What have you learnt about the technologies from
the process of constructing this product
By Jessica Perry

2. In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
THE FRONT COVER-SIMILARITIES
Header
Masthead
Plain background
Cover
Lines
Dominant
Main Image
(rule of thirds)
Barcode

3. Differences -front cover
6th Sense Vs Men’s Health
I have spaced out my cover lines
in my magazine where as on
Men’s Health they are close to
each other.
The font used in my mast head is
Sans Serif whereas the Men’s
Health masthead is a serif font.
The font colour used is teal in my
magazine quite a dark colour
whereas Men’s Health use bright
red and blue.
For my main image, I have used a
medium close up shot where my
model is smiling giving it a
friendly feel whereas Men’s
Health is a medium shot with a
serious action pose. Men’s
Health use an action pose
because it is promoting health
and fitness.

4. In what ways does your media product use, develop or
challenge forms and conventions of real media
products? contents page
Date of magazine
edition
Use of sub-headings to
help the reader.
Use of pictures to
add colour
Text on left side
of image(s)
Block capital text
used
Page numbers
Left of text

5. Differences – Contents page
I have used a variety of
images to show what the
magazine has to offer
whereas Q has just used
two.
I haven’t put the title of
magazine on the
contents page whereas
Q have.
I haven’t put text on any
images.
I have got a voucher on
my contents page
however Q do not.

6. What have you learnt about the technologies from the
process of constructing this product
Learning and using Adobe
InDesign to create contents pages.
The use of Moodle to get
resources.
Learning and using Adobe Photoshop to
design magazine front cover.
The use of digital cameras.
(learning about shot angles and
shot types)

7. Using my digital camera I could ensure my magazine cover main image is a MCU (Medium
Close Up) so it could dominate the frame. I also took into account the rule of thirds and
made sure my model’s eyes were roughly in the top third.
I made sure there was space on the sides for cover lines so they would be on a plain
background therefore they could be easily read.
I told my model to smile so it shows happiness and that college is a friendly place.

8. For my front cover image, I used http://www.picyou.com to edit my main image.
Orignal Image Edited Image
I edited my main image because I thought my model’s face was really shiny and thought it
was too bright.
In adobe photoshop I found the colour of my background and used a paint brush to paint
over a bit of hair that was sticking out.
I also cropped the sides of the image too.

9. Using InDesign, I made sure the text saying Contents was the same colour as the masthead so
it maintained the same theme.
I wanted my text to all be the same size so I changed the shape of all text.