Preliminary Task Feedback

Preliminary Task Evaluation


The link above takes you to the blog, where I evaluated the preliminary task that was such an essential part of my coursework. This was the task that counted towards nothing in relation to my coursework, but if I didn't complete it, I would lose around 15% of my final mark.

I have now been given feedback for that task. For the preliminary front cover, I received an E grade and for the contents page, I received a U grade. Since this task doesn't actually count towards my final grade, I am not overly concerned about these grades, especially since my main front cover and contents page are a lot better and I should get higher grades for the main task.

I do understand why I received these grades though.

The preliminary front cover doesn't look professional at all and I wouldn't buy this magazine if I saw it in a store. It looks a design brief made on powerpoint. The only essential information that I included on the front cover was the barcode, which didn't really help in making the front cover look professional. I did include the date of the issue, but again, it didn't really help. I also didn't take advantage of the space and I only included few articles with basic text and font that didn't look like text you would find a professional magazine. Not only that, the different colours of the text made it difficult to read.

The preliminary contents page was worse. It looked unfinished and it resembled something you would find on powerpoint. The image I used for the contents was the same image I used for the front cover. Again, the image and the text made it difficult to read. There was also no clear colour scheme because, I used a variety of different colours which all made the text difficult to read. None of the text stood out apart from the text that wasn't ingrained into the contents image.

If I was to undertake this again, there would be several improvements that I would make to both the front cover and the contents page.
For the front cover, I would have a more clearly established colour scheme and an image that was less busy to allow the text to stand out. I would have also used more article suggestions to take advantage of the space because, the front cover looked bare and lifeless. I would have also used a more bolder font and perhaps a different colour and I would take more time to ensure that the text was readable. I would also include more essential information (issue number, magazine website) to make the magazine look more professional.
For the contents page, I would use another image and I would also use more text with different fonts. Like with the front cover, I would use a more clearer colour scheme to relate to the theme of the magazine and I would construct the images better because, the end result of the image looked unfinished and basic.

However, the feedback is going to help me massively for when I undertake this task again because, I now know what improvements I need to make to increase my marks. I suppose it would have helped with the main task if I had received this feedback before I started it because, I would have known not what to do in advance. However, I do think that the front cover and contents page for the main task is a lot better than the preliminary task.