Evaluation Question 6 Draft

• How closely did your final product resemble your initial ideas and expectations?

 

Does your product match up to your initial idea? How did you develop your initial idea and why? How successful is the design and content of your final product? What was unsuccessful in your product? How might you improve your product if you had more time? What does your audience feedback tell you about your final product?

 

I believe that I have achieved what I initially thought of. I think that the actual concept and idea has been fulfilled, however not to the quality and way I wanted it to go. The development of the idea started from the very beginning. As I said previously, the amount of research I did, definitely contributed to creation my final product. It helped me to mould my idea and build upon it. I feel that the design of the magazine is at a very professional level and has reached a very high standard due to my experience in using Photoshop. I believe that looking at other magazines was key element that contributed to the design of my magazine. For example, I looked at several magazines which I did want my magazine to look like and several that I didn’t want my magazine to look like. The main goal for me was to make the magazine look stylish and have a sleek design and I feel like that is what I achieved. On the other hand, when it came to content within the magazine, I feel like we have lacked in that aspect of it. Initially the plan was to present to the target audience beautiful close-ups as well as long shot pictures of the buildings. However, upon looking at other examples of magazines it was brought to my attention and my partners that the content was also a key component to making this magazine a success. I feel that the content in our magazine is decent but I am not satisfied with it. I believe that the type of fonts, colours and design was a complete success, but I know that the content of the magazine was a huge disappointment to its failure to meet our expectations. If we had more time, we could have sourced out more information and have more content within our magazine. From the feedback, we received from our audience, they also expressed their views on the lack of content. Just under 40% of the people we surveyed rated the content of the magazine a 3 and below. I and my partner had the hope of generating content worth a 4 or 5 star rating.

Evaluation Question 5 Draft

• What have you learnt about media technologies from the process of constructing this product?

 

What ranges of technologies were available and what hardware and what software did you use? How difficult/easy are they to use? What problems did you encounter? How have your skills developed across this project and across the year?

 

Here at Leyton Sixth Form, there is a vast variety of hardware and software available to us. Software I used are the following:

• Adobe Photoshop
• Adobe InDesign
• WordPress
• DSLR Nikon Camera
• Tripod
• Studio Lights

Software

 

Photoshop is an image editing software. You can create and manipulate objects and images. In this project I used Photoshop to create an appropriate title for our magazine. I also used it to create any necessary adverts which would be featured in our magazine. Furthermore I used it to manipulate images and fix any image related issues. An example of image manipulation, would be applying the blue tint to several images. I added the tint as I wanted it to synergize with the rest of the magazine. Photoshop was easy for me to use as I have been using it for a very long amount of time so I knew how to use Photoshop pretty well. I understand how to almost rectify any problem and I fully understand the different tools, however if I do forget, I tend to look at an online tutorial to possibly help me do any editing in a more efficient way and manner. Throughout my use of Photoshop within this project I face quite a few problems, however none were really much of a big issue. One issue that really annoyed me in the process was designing the title. It was easily fixed by redesigning the title and exporting it as a PNG-24 image. This helped to keep the quality of the text at the highest level of quality.

 

InDesign is a programme that is used to manipulate text, combine images and text and create media products such as magazines. Due to its use of precise measurements and design capabilities, InDesign is a programme I and Shane used to create our magazine. We used InDesign to create most of our magazine, we only resulted to using Photoshop if we couldn’t edit properly due to lack of knowledge or ability on InDesign. For me personally I never liked InDesign at all. However, I was constantly told that InDesign was the best software to use. Unlike Photoshop, InDesign isn’t as easy to use. Its confusing settings and weird looking tools always used to stress me out, mainly because it would slow down the rate of work I was producing. There were many times I just wanted to use a different software, however professional institutions tend to use InDesign, hence the reason why I continued using it to create my magazine. Over time we encountered several problems within InDesign. When placing an advert into the magazine. The quality of it was absolutely terrible and looked disgusting. We later found out that this issue was caused because we had to place the image and not drag and drop. Personally, I feel that it would have been a lot easier to create the magazine in that software, however we needed to ensure that everything was precise and juxtaposed together well. The use of guidelines within InDesign was really helpful as it did help us to think where we are going to place images or text.

 

 

WordPress is a website which allows me to blog. I have been using this site almost every day. I use the site to present the work I do. I use it to upload work such as planning, research, pre-production and production as well as reflection. WordPress as whole is not easy to use, however over time I learned how to use it in any and every way possible. I have never truly encountered an issue, however at the beginning of this process it would be very hard to create categories as there are several diverse ways to create it. Over time you learn how to use the software in the most efficient way possible.

 

Hardware

 

A DSLR camera is what we used to take photographs around London. DSLR stands for “Digital Single Lens Reflex”. In simple language, a DSLR is a digital camera that uses a mirror mechanism to either reflect light from a camera lens to (which an eyepiece on the back of the camera. The one looks through to see what they are taking a picture of, or let light fully pass onto the image sensor which captures the image by moving the mirror out of the way. We used a Nikon D5300 to capture our images in the studio as well as capturing images outside. The camera we used were ideal, in the sense that it was easy to use and not very heavy. The interface on the DSLR was simple and easy to use. I found it easy to use the camera as I have been using them in previous projects which helped refine my skill and knowledge of them. A few problems we encountered whilst using the camera was the ISO. Throughout the day we had to constantly adjust the ISO level and other various settings which was very time consuming. Furthermore because of the distance between us and the actual building we was photographing we felt that we needed a more powerful lens. For example, the one we were using was measly 200mm max lens, where as the one we really wanted was 400mm lens tops. Nevertheless, we still manage to snap amazing shots of the structures.

 

Just as a precaution, when we went out we took a tripod with us. A tripod is used to mount a camera on to. It is needed so that we can take stable shots. We used the tripod several times to ensure we get the best possible picture of the buildings or products we were photographing. The tripod is simple to use as it only has the three legs and uses them to stand up. I found that at some points the camera was not high enough as the tripod was too short, so in future it would be ideal if we could get a bigger tripod to allow us to get shots a lot easier.

 

To get good shots of our products that we would feature in our magazine, we used several studio lights, to ensure that the lighting would be a very good professional quality. Using studio lights are easy and straight forward to use, simply turn on the light and adjust the brightness and sync it to the camera and you are ready to go. Due to the amount of product we were photographing we constantly had to change the positions of the lights. It was very time consuming as it was not a simple move, we had to re adjust the height of them as well. It was very annoying and tedious.

Evaluation Question 4 Draft

• How did you attract/address your audience?

What specific techniques did you use to target/attract your audience? How did you manipulate representations in your product to target your audience? How did you select content to appeal to your audience? How did you use design to attract your audience?

In order to attract our target audience, we used a range of social media. We used social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram. Both are used by millions of users and are constantly thriving with content. Hence the reason why we decided to use these two social media sites to promote and advertise our magazine. Another way we attracted our audiences is by using particular content. When you think of London, especially its amazing buildings you would generally think of the biggest and most popular one. So we made a decision to feature the Shard on the front of our magazine. It is one of the most beautiful pictures of the Shard that we own and we decided that we would exploit it for our own gain. This gamble was worth it, as it did in fact attract the eyes of many people. Furthermore we represented our target audience through the use of images. Throughout the magazine, you will find pictures of buildings all within London. This clearly indicates that this magazine is for someone who either lives in London or has some strong connection to it. The magazine is based on globalization, thus attracting those who have an interest in it. The content also consisted of facts of a specific building.

 

 

Evaluation Question 3 Draft

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

 

Who is the audience for your product? What are their demographic characteristics? What do they think of your media product?

My target audience are well educated men or women who earn a fairly high income. People who are like this mainly fall into this specific type of demographics. They are typically people who work within London or in the city of London. They are likely to have an interest in politics and economics. From the second survey we conducted, the results we received were good. A majority of the target audience rated the design aspect of the magazine highly. However, when it came to the content, they did not rate it as high. This will be due to the lack of content in some pages. Furthermore, we also asked them whether they would recommend our magazine, an overwhelming majority of 87% of people would be likely or extremely likely to recommend our magazine to others. When asked what could be improved, the lack of content was pointed out consistently. After taking a look at the responses I do agree with them all, as I believe that content can be improved.

Evaluation Question 2 Draft

• How has your research and planning helped you develop your final project?

 

What kinds of research have you done? Primary, secondary, audience, professional products etc? How have you researched your audience? What characteristics and conventions of named professional products have you identified and how did you use these? How well did you plan your product? How well did you manage your time?

In terms of primary research I have created a survey that I asked many people within my target audience to answer accurately so that I could get an idea of my target audiences opinions on the product I will be creating and make any necessary improvements based on these responses or I will act upon the responses I have received and continue going forward about my work , an example of this was the very first question I asked in the survey, I asked “What association do you have with central London?” the answers I received encouraged me to continue doing the project and gave me confidence to continue working with the theme. To understand the critical side of my audience within the survey we presented to them a picture of the `Tate Modern’ and a picture of Tower 42. The responses I received was surprising as the audience did not rate the `Tate Modern’ building highly. What association do you have with central London?This survey also helped me refine my target audience and get a true representation of my audience.

 

In terms of secondary research, I did a sufficient amount and I felt it was a lot easier to do, as I was more hands on. One thing that helped me massively and continued to help me throughout the project was looking at several different copies of magazines online and in-store. The magazines I looked at which made an impact upon my magazine was `The Economist’ and `Architectural digest’. Both magazines helped refine my vision of how I pictured my magazine `Global London ‘.I believe a combination of both are clearly visible in my magazine as it does looks sleek and high end. I also took a lot at the dimensions of GQ magazine, as I wanted my magazine to look unique compare to other regular A4 Based ones. In order to influence myself of the architectural aspect of the magazine I also looked at the website of 2 of the buildings within London that I was going to research on, The Shard and The Gherkin and this made me think about who works in these buildings and then I looked at the ‘staff’ section on The Gherkin’s website. I also looked at several different articles about who owns buildings within London such as the article on the gherkin and its owners where I began to really take an interest into what globalization is and inspired me to bring this big issue into the public eye and make what is exactly what is going on in these buildings much more interesting than just some facts and figures within a newspaper, this ultimately lead to my final product.

 

In order to keep organised and know what we want and what to expect from the magazine we started off from the basics. I created a style sheet, flat plan and risk assessment. The style sheet was used in order to keep our magazine grounded in terms of theme. For example, when editing the magazine, we did not want to make it look cheap and weird but mixing all types of colours. So, we kept it very limited and only used 3 shades of blue. Furthermore, due to time constraints the magazine flat plan didn’t go to plan as some parts of it was left unfinished, hence the reason why the rate of production slowed down when creating the actual magazine. Apart from that the planning went well and smoothly. Also, to ensure that we get good and high-quality shots of the buildings within London we booked a Sky view on 20 Fenchurch Street. Next time it would be a lot more ideal if we focused much more on the content of the work rather then that actual design. The designing process of the magazine was vital; however I believe we took it too far and focused on it way too much. Aside from that we lacked content in our magazine, nevertheless eventually we researched a bit more and added more content to our magazine.