Producing print based media

Composition

How have you chosen to set out you designs and why?

The layouts we have decided for the project are very simple as they were aimed at young children so therefore the layout had to be easy for them to follow and be well structured. On the front of the card the ingredients where located in the left hand side, the image on the right hand side, logo of the superhero in the middle so the children can identify what character it is, title inserted at the top so its easy to find and on the back of the card the method of how to cook the food was located as it wouldn’t all fit onto the front as we had used A5 cards. Setting the cards on A5 made the cards look more professional and easy to handle as the target audience where children. We thought that this layout would be affective as children could follow through easily as everything was well structured as it was not busy and crowded making it more complex for children to understand. To make the layout of the cards more interesting we thought that we would add a comic book strip in the background as this would make it more interesting than having blank white space this made the card look more lively and would appeal more the audience.

As you can see in the image inserted the layout of the finalised recipe card. The layout is the same throughout each card as this makes the cards look more professional and as a set. In our original layout flat plans we had designed we had the method on the front of the card, we then decided to change this as we thought that would over crowd the recipe card and also it didn’t look very professional, this would have been heavy on the eye especially for children as they would not be able to follow the card and thy would get confused easily. Here is an example of the flat plan.

Lusi Ndoja

Method located in the front of the card

Image construction

Discuss the contents of your final images and reflect upon decisions made.

The images we have used are stock images, as we didn’t have enough production time to take our own, as this was our original plan to do so. The images we selected were high quality images and look very professional and fit in with our recipes that we have chosen. Originally decided to take our own images for the project but unfortunately we could not as we didn’t have much production time left and we felt that our contingency plan for this was to use stock images. The text on the cards are well balanced out with the images as children do not like a lot of text as they are more visual learners and like images to look at. We limited the amount and made it suitable for children to read. Also on our cards we have used comic book sound effects to make the cards more affective and will give it a really unique look to them making them more interesting for children. The images that we have used on the cards have got a black boarder around the outside we thought this would give the images a greater appeal to them as they looked flat and boring, this way it made the images stand out and more eye catching by grabbing your attention. The images we used were appetising and very good quality as this would appeal more to children as audiences eat with their eyes first so this was an advantage as this also made the cards look even more professional.

Representation

Discuss the semiotics and connotations created from the content you have included

In our recipe cards the food we have used fit in with the theme that we have chosen. For example for the iron card we did we used tofu in the food we decided to use this as it fit in with the vegetarian brief and also iron man is represented as strong and powerful and tofu has lots of iron and is good for you to keep you strong, this is how we thought we would present this as it was linked in with the characters and our target audience which are children would feel like they are just the same as the superhero. As young children like to mimic their favourite characters and icons we felt that was a good way to symbolise the characters and make children believe that they can be just like them as they like to fantasies and have a great imagination which we believe worked really affectively. Also linking to that the play on words and the language how it comes across for example ‘souperman’ on our cards we used soup to represent superman, the language is affective as this will make children believe they can be like superman and also eat healthily which is also a positive for the children and also the parents of the children. This however represents superman in a different way than iron man a tofu has iron but this suggests that children will be more encourage to eat vegetarian food in a more fun way.

For our colour scheme we haven’t stuck to a few colours for our theme as superheroes have a wide range of colours, as they are so many characters. However for each card we stuck to the colours of the character to give us a base and to work on, for example the Batman card was with mostly black and yellow as it links in with the batman symbol. Throughout the set of cards we have chosen to stick with the colour black as it is a bold and is the main colour for most of the characters chosen.

Following on, on the background of the card we thought it would be a good idea to insert a comic book strip in the background of the card to give it a more interesting affect and bring the card to life as it looked dull and empty with just the plain blank space. As our theme was superheroes we want to give the impression that the cards looked like comic books to link in with the theme, as comic books are popular with young children. Each comic strip is associated with each character for example the Spiderman card will have a comic strip of Spiderman in the background.

Audiences

Create an audience profile of your chosen demographic

Age: For our recipe cards we have 2 audiences the children ages from 6-13 and adults to accompany the children when they are making the food. We thought that this would be appropriate, as children at a young age will find it difficult to make the food on the cards.

Gender: The is no specific gender for our recipe cards as children male and female are really drawn towards fictional characters. In our cards we have used both male and female characters so there is something for every gender.

Psychographic: The psychographic is based on the values, attitudes, interests and lifestyles. As children fantasies about fictional characters we thought it would be perfect that our theme would be superheroes as they have an interest in cartoons and heroic characters.

Geodemographic: Geodemographic is an art of science that is based on where you live. Geodemographic can estimate the most common characteristics of people based on their profile of people living in a small area near a particular address. The target primary target audience for our recipe are children so therefore the Geodemographic for a child would be families that are middle or working class families.

NRS Social Grade: This is also linked to Geodemographic as it categorises the class of each person in grades A- upper middle class, B- middle class, C1- lower middle class, C2- skilled working class, D-working class and E- those at the lowest levels of subsistence. The NRS social grade is mostly based on the occupation of a person’s characteristic. For our recipe cards the social grade it would target are B, C1, C2 and D.

Sexuality: Our recipe cards do not have a specific sex it is targeted at as children of all sex male and female are fascinated by fictional and heroic characters as we also have included both male and female characters so it is well balanced out.

How have you constructed your work to appeal to this audience?

As you can see the recipe card above we have used the symbol of the superhero for children to identify the characters for example in the middle of the card we have used captain America. The text are in a comic book font to give the card a more comic book affect as it is hugely popular with children and appeals more to them as its more cartoon like. For the headings such as the title we have used the original characters font. The background we have used a comic strip so that again it looks more like a comic book this makes the card look more interesting especially for children as it will be admired. On the back of the card we have used comic book sound affects this makes it more appealing to children as they are more visual learners and like to look at pictures than the card to be over powered with text this way its evenly balanced out as there is not much complex text for children to get confused over for example the language had to be changed so it would be understood by children more easily such as ‘get a grown up to help you’ we found that this was commonly used on children’s recipe cards as children at a young age will need help preparing most of food they are cooking as it can be difficult.

Historical and Cultural Context

What did you use as your design influences and why were they chosen?

In my group my team member and I had a look at some existing recipe cards on the Internet to find recipe cards that would inspire us to come up with our own cards. We looked at the colours that we could use, for example children are more attracted to bright, vibrant colours such as primary colours, red, blue yellow. We also found out that children are visual learns and like to look a pictures we decided not to over power the cards with text to make it confusing for children to read, we simplified the text to fit the target audience.

We also looked at different layouts from existing cards there was a side range and this is how we can up with our layout having the ingredients on the left hand side, symbol of hero in the middle, title right at the top, picture in the right hand side and finally having the method in the back avoiding confusion. Using an A5 size was perfect as we could use all the space and not having missing spaces making it look unprofessional. We used the 2 sides making use of the space and making them easy to handle by children. Doing something with the background of the card by using a comic book strip to make it look like a comic book was a good way to make it more appealing to children. The names of the food are linked in to the superhero character so children will think that their favourite character eats the same food as

what they are making for example ‘Captain Veggie’ for the vegetarian burger we used captain America we thought that this would make it more interesting for the children as we found out in our research that this is commonly used in children’s recipes. We thought that using a burger would be more appetising to children as it’s easy to make and finger food is popular with children.

Do vegetarian products have a specific design aesthetic and how does your project reflect/contrast this? Why?Vegetarians do have a specific design aesthetic for example the colour green and nature organic resources link to vegetarianism. Using substances such as quorn and tofu are reflected in our recipe cards again the name of the food we have selected such as ‘Captain Veggie’ our target audience will instantly know its vegetarian and it is healthy. Another example is the Tofu Iron man, again this is another vegetarian substance and although tofu is not extremely popular with children using the superhero character in the title of the food this will encourage them to eat the meal.

Having children as a target audience and reflecting vegetarianism to our recipe cards is difficult as children are not huge fans of healthy food as they more approach sweet sugary things such as desserts. In our group we decided to make dessert cards too to appeal to children and get them to eat vegetarian food as some families find it hard to. We decided to stick with a vegetarian audience than vegan audiences, as this would not be approached by children as such as vegans have a more strict diet and there are limits. For example we have used ‘Invisible ice-cream’ for invisible women, as this would be a more fun way to make the primary audience to eat.

Finished Products

Does your finished product reflect your initial plans? How? If there are any differences, describe why changes were made.I believe that our final product does reflect on our initial plans as we stuck to most of our original plans. We had a few changes as we thought we could not fit this in as we had a contingency plan to back our project up. For example we was going to take our own images and cook the 8 meals ourselves unfortunately this could not be done as production time was limited and we therefore didn’t have enough time for this to be done we decided to use stock images instead as this saved more time and we hit the deadline in time by doing so. We also decided to put a comic strip in the background to make the card look more interesting and that children would be more attracted to the affect as it give a comic book feel to the cards. And finally rearranging the layout of the card as we had several flat plans of how the card we were going to look. We decided to have the ingredients, image and symbol of the character on the front and have the method on how to cook the food on the back as the original idea was going to be to have the method on the front. We felt that this would not work as this would over crowd the card and make it more confusing for the audience to follow. These changes helped our overall outcome of the cards as we made it look more child friendly. Also doing the survey and getting our peers opinion on our cards helps used make the card look better as we could see what other people like rather than having one persons opinion.

This is our first design of the card as you can see the ingredients symbol and method were going to be located in the front of the card. Having discussed this

in our group we decided that the method would be more affective if it was located on the back of the card.

In the final design the method is now located on the back making it more simple for the primary audience (children) follow.

Does your finished product match what you were set in the brief? How?

I believe the finished product matches to what was set in the brief as we have chosen vegetarian meals and not non-vegetarian. We also well planned the project and worked within the 10 weeks we had and reaching the deadline. Also our work is not offensive and we also understand the issues of the copyright as we have researched especially for our theme superheroes could be a problem, as it would need to be discussed with Marvel the company that works with the fictional characters, as it is a copied idea. In the brief it was said to come up with 8 different cards representing vegetarian food as again we have also done in the project as we have come up with 8 different cards representing vegetarianism. It meets the brief as it appeals to young children for the age we have selected aged 6-13 as this would not be approached by a much older audience as fictional characters are children based.

How did the use of peer feedback help you in your production?The feedback helped us to see what could be altered or what we were doing right. One changed that was made was the size of each section to be enlarged, “The ‘ingredients’ list could be enlarged slightly, so that it could take up more space on the cards.” This was taken into consideration and in our group we decided to make the ingredients list larger than the original. We also had a good feedback, as our peers were pleased with the originality of theme we have used. The comic book strip in the background was picked up on by the peers’ ad they liked the idea something different was done to the background of the card, “The comic book background is very effective, as it is eye-catching as well as highly vibrant.” This was a positive as this was liked and we decided to keep this idea as we thought this would be popular with our target audience. The font for the headings was altered as we found out from the feedback it was not clear. For example the superman font was not a very clear font to be used for the title and headings so we thought that this would be changed and that the title of should only be in the characters font and the headings in a different font. This was also a good change we made as children would find it hard to read, “The font is cartoon-like, which is relevant, however, the text could be clearer or enlarged in size.”

As you can see I the original idea the headings was not clear in the superman font. This was then changed into a comic strip font and was applied to all the headings in each card.

Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your final product regarding its technical and aesthetical qualities.

In our project there were a number of strengths such as it was appropriate to the target audience as it was aimed at children, the colours that were used were bright and colourful and eye catching. Also the text was simplified to make it more understandable for children at the age of 6-13. The layout was simple but affective as it was easy to follow through and was well spaced out and not over crowded as the space was well laid out. Another strength is that having changed the layout from the original helped as this would of made our recipe cards confusing and this would not have looked professional as the original idea was to have the method on the front, this was then altered and placed on the back so there was room for the image of the food to go on the front.

This is the original idea we had by placing the method on the front of the card. This was then changed and place on the back of the card giving more room for the image to be placed.

This is the final idea as you can see the method is no longer on the front of the card and it has been placed by the image of the food instead. The card looks well structured and is simple to follow.

This is an image of the back of the card; you can now see that the method has been placed here, as its better structured out and there is no confusion. This was also

strength as we have used the A5 sized card wisely and used all the spaces by not leaving any blank spaces making it look unprofessional.

However there was weakness’s in our recipe cards such as the images of the food we have selected. Originally we was going to take our own images of the food to show more skills in our project and making them unique unfortunately I and my team member ran out of production time so we decided to get stock images instead as this saved us time to meet the deadline for our project. In our presentation speech we was asked that the images do not suit the target audience, as they look more appealing to adults rather than children “the images don’t look suitable for children” this was our weakness for our cards as this was agreed by other of our fellow peers.

What skills/knowledge have you gained/developed in this project? How could these be applied in future practice?

Over the past 10 weeks I have gained a number of skills. Firstly using Photoshop more professionally and remembering the basics on how to use it again was really useful as we got to use it more during the production time such as for the recipe cards and getting them up to a professional standard. Also using new tools such as the font was interesting as this showed that our work was unique and was a skill that we didn’t know how to use before and will help us with future projects as it makes the work more interesting and original as you can show your creativity in Photoshop.

Also during this project I have learned to work well in a team and contribute ideas as the wok load was split this made it easier to get more of the work done, as there was two people working on the same project. Another good reason for working in a group is there were more ideas generated and we could both agree and disagree on the things we though that worked and did not work so well. I found that in my group that one person was more creative at the design part of the project and the other was more text based by finding out our strengths and weaknesses we helped each other during the project as it was one persons reasonability to do one thing and the other person to do the other.

In this project I also learned that I had to be more organised and plan out what I will be doing each day to have a clear idea of what work needs to be done so I could move on to the net. This was good practise as in the industry organisation skills are important, as you will need to plan out head to meet deadlines. This will be used in future as it will help me with what I want to do in the near future as planning plays a big part in any sort of project.

Production processes

Do you believe your work is creative and technically competent? Why?

I believe that our work was creative, as Photoshop was used a lot through out this project. Also our work we have used different ranges of fonts for each card representing the different superhero characters. To make our cards even more creative we changed the plain white

background and added a comic book strip and changed the opacity to more is visible but not clash with the text and image that is on the card. This also makes the card more interesting and brings it to life, as it is not boring by having blank spaces. Another reason is that, not many cards do this and also it appeal to children as it makes the card look funkier.

As you can see on the recipe card the back ground has a comic book strip which has faded into the background to make the car come more to life and also give it a comic book affect as comics are targeted at children.

The font for the title is the original font that is used for iron man we did this for each title of each hero to make it more different.

The heading font and the text are a different font we have applied this through out each car

to make it look professional and you can tell they come as a set. We also made our work more creative by Photoshopping the famous logos and characters onto the middle of the card so children will know which character it is. We Photoshopped to logo’s to make them our own and also to make it more appealing to children.

On the back of each card we have also added comic book sound affects. This also makes the more creative and again gives that comic book feel to it. The sound affects have also been Photoshopped and are all located on the back of the card.

Each card also has it own unique appeal to it as it has its own theme to it. For example for the iron man card it has the symbol of iron man in the middle of the card, the title is the original iron man font and the comic strip in the background of the

card is the iron man based. This has been applied in each of the 8 cards but different characters have their own theme.

How effectively did you manage your time?

In my group in the beginning we managed to hit each task on time. However during the production things we have planned needed longer than we expected for example originally in my group we planned to take the images ourselves in our own time, but this was not possible as production time for creating the cards took over and we therefore didn’t have

time but in the end we decided to use stock images on our cards to save time so we could hit the deadline on time, we had this on our contingency plan so this was a great way to back up some of your original ideas with another idea just in case.

Another aspect of the project that links in to the photography is that we was also planning on cooking the food as well as taking the images but again the production time took over as therefore it was not possible to proceed.

If you could repeat the process what would you do differently?

If we were to repeat the process we would make sure that we had time to cook the recipes ourselves and take our images with a camera to show our range of skills that we had learned in the past and apply it in to this project.

Another thing that I would have done differently is every piece of work done should have been uploaded on the blog straight away, as this would have saved the hassle rather than going back later and uploading all the work. I realised that during the end of production that the schedule we had planned for each day didn’t go according to plan as some things changed or some of the production too longer than expected.

Working to a brief in the creative media industries

What constraints experienced

Legal constraints

In my project I had to consider what legal problem it could may cause. For example the recipes we added to our cards had to be altered and changed into our own words. Since our target audience where children my partner and I and to research on how to present language to such a young audience and what is suitable.

Another legal problem that had to be considered is that our theme we had chosen could be a problem with copy right as superheroes is part of marvel a company that makes millions to promote the different characters. In our production schedule we have mentioned that this could be an issue if we was to sell these recipe cards as we have used the logos in the middle of the cards of each hero.

Regulatory constraints

As our cards are aimed at children I feel that our work does not come under the regulatory constraints as our work is aimed at children from the ages 6-13. Our project is appropriate and the language is used is not offensive or even the recipes we have chosen are harmful the audience in any way.

Financial constraints

In our project we had to consider how we would financially create the recipe cards and plan what we would need to fund. In the beginning of the project we decided to financially pay for

our own materials and set a budget by creating a budget sheet to give use a rough outline on how much we would need to pay for the project.

As this was a college project we didn’t have to go into depth about the financial side of the cards. But however if this was in the industry and was given a project to create we would have to think about every material we would need to make the project work and give ourselves a budget and stay within the budget.

Management

How did you work as part of a group?

I believe that my partner and I worked well I a group as we listened to each other’s ideas and both contributed to the project. We both planned out who would do what as we split the workload to make it easier to get the work done and also we found out each other’s strengthens and weaknesses. We supported each other through out the project. I think I worked well as part of the group because it showed how well I worked as a team member and that it showed our work was stronger as a team rather than if I was on my own doing the project. Either of us in the team was a leader as we felt both responsible on what we was doing we had an agreement that both maximum effort would be going into the work.

How important is communication when working in a group?

Communication is very important when working in a group as you both need to good understanding on who is doing what so you can keep a track and not miss any sort of work that hasn’t been done. For example my partners and I thought it would be a good idea that the design part of the project would be better if the other team member takes on the job as its one of the strengths, where as I felt that the decisions and the theory based side of the project would be more better if I were to do it as writing is my strong point as I’m not artistic. We both came to an agreement on how we was going to work and finding out each other’s good points and bad points.

What have you learned about working in a group and how have will you apply this to future practices?

Working in a group I have learned that both effort from both sides needs to be put in the work. When working in a group you are part of a team and you shouldn’t let the other member down, as it will affect both of you. Communicating with your team member is very important as you can both see what needs to be done and find out what isn’t working and make some kind of agreement together about the project. In future I will take this on board and use the skills I have learned such as coming to the conclusion on who needs to do what so both parties are aware on what has been done.

What have you learnt about working in to a brief and how will you apply this in future practice?

By working in to a brief I have learned that reading on what has been asked o do is very important and making sure you understand what has been asked by you is key before starting any sort of project given. Also by working with a brief there was a wide range of

freedom that could be done which made the project more relaxed and gave us the chance to come up with something very creative at the end. However taking into consideration on what has been asked is important as both parties need to take on board what can be done and what cannot. Also working in a brief made us feel that we were more professional and gave us a taste of what its like in the media industry when employee’s are given briefs this was a good way of training ourselves and having that contract to work in.