Feedback and Evaluation - Print Product Experiments - Michael

Across the Media classes, we looked at each other's practice print tasks and evaluated them using post-it notes with comments. The comments mainly reflected what we all knew already, but helped me to work out what I will need to do when working on my next products.

 

Evaluation of Poster and Magazine

What did I do well?

I feel that with my poster my choice of background works really well with my title and foreground image and gives the whole pieces a mysterious, eerie feel.

With my magazine I believe the overlay of the heads on the mast head and the expressions of the characters’ face make the magazine look very professional.

Which Codes + Conventions of “real” posters and magazines did I use?

With my poster I tried to include the names of the characters and teaser release information to try and replicate a real poster, which I think a used successfully.

For my magazine I included a puff saying “free poster” and had it on the left hand, to interest a reader and play to the left hand bias. I also included sub headings and tagines to mimic a real poster. I also used a barcode which is used in all magazines.

What did not work well in my products?

One of the things I did wrong in the poster was overly erase the heads of the characters in the foreground which makes the whole poster look a tiny bit odd. Also the font of the names did not match the main title and they were far too small.

With my magazine the main issue with it was that the image I took and used, the characters were far to spread out and so did not leave a lot of room for text. Something that I should have avoided. For both products, I have learned that having the right photo is key - without it, there is a limit to what you can achieve. it has to be your main priority and makes your editing job much easier.

What will I bear in mind when I start my examined print products?

When I start my actual poster I will try to use an image of higher quality and not a print screen from the filming as it just doesn’t look very good, and I will focus more on the information which makes the poster more professional. I will also light the shot carefully - good lighitng in photos can really add to the impact and again leave you less to do in editing.

With my magazine cover I will try to make it look as close to a real magazine as possible, I will choose an image that looks as professional as possible and make sure the composition of the people is correct.  I need to make sure I replicate all the industry elements such as price and issue number. I think the hardest thing is actually going to be the text. Finding a text layout I liked and which worked well with the image was difficult.

Overall I will have to make sure I don’t use any images from the internet in my examined print products which is something that I relied heavily on in this attempt. This will mean some creative photography, but the end results will be more personal and much better.