Reflection on my AS media coursework

1. End Result: In the end I think that overall my
designs could have been a lot better. I feel that
out of the 3, my double page spread was much
more successful than both the front cover and
contents page. I feel this is because I took more
inspiration from other magazine when I got to the
creation of the double page spread. Also the
colour scheme of the front cover and contents
page didn’t work very well as a lot of things got
overpowered by less important aspects of the
pages. I think that it had a lot of good aspects but
they were overpowered by things that overall
didn’t work. For example, I liked the masthead,
however I don’t think it worked at all with the
colours as they were too similar and blended a bit
too much.

2. Front Cover: Overall I like the design aspects of the front cover, such as
the masthead and headline in the middle. However, I feel that the
colour scheme really diminished the overall look of the page as
everything was a similar colour and also all of the colours, including
those of the image were very dark so things blended too much and
nothing ‘popped out’ to the viewer so when passing by they would
probably ignore this magazine. I really liked the sub-header with some
words larger than other and some darker too, but like the rest of the
page, I used dark reds on this and things didn’t pop enough. I also feel
that this lacked detail too as it only has names of people and didn’t
provide enough information into what those names had to do with the
magazine. I also liked the bar at the bottom too, with all of the social
media details and barcode in their own section so people could pick out
the information they needed. I notice now, that only using a single
image, brings down the overall appearance of the page as there’s not
much to look at.
Looking at this I now know a lot more about overall design, which I can
use to greatly improve my magazine this year. I will now realise what
colour schemes work and what don’t, and I also now know that I need
to make sure aspects of the page don’t blend too much and make them
contrast more so the viewer will be able to read it more easy.

3. Contents Page: Like the front cover, I think the layout worked
well but the entire thing was dragged down by the choice of
colours. I feel that this is more bland than the front cover as it
uses a lot more grey colours which don’t work too well towards
the appearance of the page. I think that text is easier to read on
this page, with the choice of white on dark grey, so they
contrast enough to read well, although it could still be better.
Like the front cover I feel like this is lacking an appearance with
only the use of a single image, not including the social media
logos at the bottom. I also didn’t pay as much attention to
detail as I should have as it shows that there is less than 35
pages in this magazine which shows that it isn’t a very long
magazine compared to it’s potential competitors.
Looking at this I have a wider range of design knowledge into
what works and what doesn’t. I will pay more attention to detail
to try and perfect every aspect of my magazine this year, such
as the page numbers and the colour schemes I will use and I
will now use more images.

4. Double Page Spread: Of the 3 pages I feel this one
worked a lot better than the rest as I took a lot
more inspiration from other magazine. I think the
colour scheme worked a lot better as it’s a lot
simpler with only 2 main colours, cream and black,
which work very well together. I didn’t take as
many images as I initially should have, but I think it
worked out alright with the DPS as I edited it
enough to look better than it may have if I only
edited it a bit. I really like the large drop-cap as it
add a lot in the way of appearance to the page.
Although I really liked the outcome of this page, I
really don’t think it works well at all with the front
cover and contents page as they are drastically
different to this one. So for my magazine this year I
will make sure to keep the design consistent
throughout everything.

5. AS REFLECTION: This year in A2 I now know a lot in the way of design compared to
AS and I have this to compare to when designing my work this year. I know where I
need to improve and will work on bettering my skills in design with Photoshop. I
really enjoyed the creation process in AS so I have decided to work harder on it this
year.
Strengths: I had the design skills I needed, and knew what I wanted to create and
did it. Although it may not have been the best design, that’s what I wanted it to look
like at the time.
Weaknesses: Overall I feel I had the skill to create the product, however I don’t think
I had the ‘eye’ for design and will work harder on trying to improve this. I also need
to work on my time management as I was stuck doing a lot of my work in a single
week before the deadline so I need to make sure I don’t do the same this year.