EVALUATION: Representing- Constructing the ‘real’

Overall, I believe that my ideas and their execution amounted to representations of school/college life in my preliminary task quite accurately. The pictures I took reflected school life and community very well and the ideas of approaching the tasks informally worked very well and produced an impact when I surveyed it to my target audience. My idea for the preliminary task was to be a generic student life magazine that covered topics involving everyone. For my music magazine my ideas and execution of the punk idea for my magazine was a hit as it allowed me to be creative and produce original, high quality work. The pictures conveyed everything that the industry conveys, such as anchorage. Furthermore my ideas for colour schemes, titles and designs worked exactly like I hoped it would and thought it ticked all the boxes for the industry convention. In addition to this, the construction of both magazines was very professionally done as was credited by my target audience and peers. One area that I thought was most successful was the thoughts and execution of both front pages in both tasks. I thought that the school/college magazine front page was everything I hoped for, after difficulty in thinking of an idea. Although it could be criticized that for my preliminary front cover the execution of the images first time round wasn’t as good as it could have been. For my music magazine I thought the execution exceeded my expectations and was better than I thought. Another credit, I believe is the idea and execution of the twin band idea for the main task. I had my doubts about it throughout the task but after looking at the finished product I thought It was a creative risk well taken. Along with good executions there were bad ones too. The execution of my interview pages fist time round wasn’t as good as it could have been and did not follow the industry conventions.
I believe that in each task I created a real sense of reality and the right people were included and excluded as a result of this. For example in the school/ college magazine task it was aimed at students and therefore my production welcomed students and it wouldn’t of been an interest to the working class society who would be excluded from this. In the same light, in the music magazine the target audience was limited by the genre of music I was doing and therefore it would only appeal to punk rock fans and not to a grime fan. So in this sense I feel that the right people were included and excluded in each case.
If I was to do it the whole project again I feel that I would have done things slightly differently. Firstly I would have organized my time a bit more with more time for certain tasks as I found it, at times, that I was getting to the deadline of my plan for that particular task and my work still needed vast improvements. In addition to this I would have taken photos with a variety of different settings, as it was pointed out, but didn’t have enough time to do it. Furthermore, I thought that my process was not as tidy as it could have been and next time round I would make sure that the process is done chronologically as it goes in an order for a reason, which is to help you onto the next part. In conclusion, I believe that I did quite well with the resources at hand and I was able to complete the coursework to a reasonable standard.

EVALUATION: Thinking about audience- Making meaning

Throughout both the preliminary and main task activities made creative decisions based on ideas I was developing about my readers. I developed these ideas through my research on my ideal reader. This involved me asking certain questions to myself about what my ideal reader and what would they’d be like, do, live like, all these things came into account as I was developing my ideas. Then after I developed my ideas I was able to make decisions on whether a certain issue would or would not appeal to my ideal reader. In addition to this, with the knowledge behind my thinking now complete I was able to influences different parts of my magazine whether it be the style or even making creative risks in the hope that it would be a positive attribute to my target audience. I was also able to address the micro detail of shot composition in my work. Most of my Imagination and creativity was put into the thinking of how detail, such as pictures, could be made to make meaning. I did this with most of my images in the main task as it was a broader task and it was something I didn’t think about in my premliminary task which could have made it better. In the main task, I anchored pictures as I learnt it conveys more information and is more valuable than just a picture itself for the task in hand. I also framed some pictures, like in my preliminary task, as I found it was credited and gave an impact to the person looking at the pictures. Similarly in both tasks, research and developed ideas of readers were crucial to creating layouts for both tasks as they were two tasks for two different target audiences. Pictures had to fall into the right place where appropriate, I felt that this was done effectively in both the tasks and was done appropriately with other elements in mind such as text. Most of my images in both tasks were iconic and I felt this was important to explain here as through my research and creating target audiences I felt that iconic images was best suited for the task in hand as music magazines and school/college magazines have images that’s says what it does on the tin and no thought is needed to interpret the pictures. For example, whilst researching magazines I found that on an issue of classic rock it has the lead guitarist of Metallica. Fans of these magazines wouldn’t need to much think to work out who it was and why he’s on the front cover. Another aspect of micro detail that I feel I covered well in both tasks was the mode of address for each magazine. For the school/college magazine I felt that the tone had to be informal as students get bored easily with constant formality so I cam e up with approaching it informally. Through feedback I felt was a success. For the music magazine I knew it that the mode of address had to be centered crucially round my target audience. As I aimed to the punk music market I knew I had to make the tone very punk friendly and entertaining to read. I took a couple of attempts, but after constructive criticisms from my teacher I made it article the best it could be.
Audience feedback throughout this section of my tasks, I felt, was very important as for the school/college magazine feedback came from my target audiences as I asked my peers. Also I felt that it helped me improve my work to the best it could be. My audience feedback confirmed expectations rather that generate surprise as I knew that all my attempts needed improvements in one way or another as nothing was perfect. It confirmed expectations of improvement s I needed, which I wanted as I wanted to keep improving and updating my work as I wanted to succeed. Audience feedback was a very key part of my task, especially through the process as it is important to involve the people around you and survey your work to see errors you have not noticed and to make things to the best of my ability.

EVALUATION: Using technology- creative tools

Technology was a big part of the task as I needed it in order to construct layouts, design ideas and the actual final product. One thing that was key and extended my creative control over both tasks was being able to print my work. This allowed me to physically see my work to annotate and spot mistakes that need adjustments and a copy for my target audience to see so I could survey my design ideas and see what they think too.
During my preliminary task I was able to utilize an interactive whiteboard to aid me in my annotation and explanation to my focus group that I was presenting to. This use of technology allowed me to explain and receive feedback on my work that I was able to note and save a copy the annotated work. For example, there was a problem with a big open space on the front cover of my school/college magazine that was noticed by one of my fellow peers and through the use of the interactive whiteboard I was able to circle the problem so I could later use the annotated copy to see what needs fixing. This extended my creative control as it aided my in the production.
Throughout both tasks desktop publishing software such as Photoshop, for imaging editing, helped me immensely as I was able to do many things with images and layouts such as: cropping, resizing adding effects, changing the lighting and constructing layouts. Photoshop also helped me extend my creative control through it broad availability of options and was software you could truly do anything with. An example of this was in the main task, where I was able to add effects to the two different characters so they looked like they were slightly different to show the thought about design.
Although Photoshop is one example of technology that obstructed my creative process as my knowledge of the application was insufficient as I wasn’t able to sort out a lighting problem on one of the images on the preliminary task. Learning how to use applications such as Photoshop would be propriety if I was to do the task again so I am able to sort out different problems that arise.