Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation

Task 2: Client feedback of magazine

When getting our client feedback from our tutor firstly she picked up on that our front cover established a theme which was centred around the Christmas time of festivity which was attractive and alluring to people to want to have the magazine. This shows we are following codes and conventions by including a creative theme to attract our audience into wanting to buy our magazine. However, she pick up on the fact that there were some large areas of space featured within our front cover which could have been filled in more but our argument was that we didn’t want to over complicate our front cover which would have made our front cover look unprofessional as it would have been messy with added text. When looking at the picture itself i.e. the main image she did say that it really did focus on the deep empathise of Christmas . However, maybe it would have looked a more realistic magazine if it had featured someone else other than a group member as the main image within our front cover because it isn’t part of the normal code and convention used within the magazine industry to photo someone from the team instead of using someone else. The client also stated that she liked the colour scheme which looked sophisticated and professional. With using the choice of colours it was continuing continuity with the cover lines while the use by having the drop shadow really helped the name of the magazine Inbox became a brand which meets the code and conventions of magazines. She did however express that she liked the selling line for the magazine “providing students with a voice” saying it was effective as we were making a student magazine therefore she was able to see that in that one small yet vital title it was paying homage to our target audience which are students as well as our genre and niche of magazine.

When firstly looking at contents page our client said it looked more like a report and that it didn’t clearly have the codes and conventions to make a professional student magazine contents page. Therefore, I added previews of our articles to break up the text .Still this didn’t look effective so the client said that if they were making the changes they would have more graphics to make use of the contents page to look effective rather than look like a report, which comments I do agree with . However, I feel that if we were include more graphics within at Photoshop I think they the graphics itself would look tacky and unprofessional as I not good in creating graphics with Photoshop which wouldn’t look professional and be an amateur contents page.

My articles:

When looking at the articles in question she did notice continuity within the two layouts of the articles with the use of effectively laying out my pictures which looked effective and professional as the text and pictures really illustrated the point I was making within my within my article with needed the full attention of my audience. However she did feel that the continuity of the Christmas theme was lacking through my articles due to the fact the subjects I was doing was serious and not the context of Christmas, but I tried to reiterate the Christmas theme through having a strapline at the end of the page along with the date and page number which reiterated that it was a Christmas theme magazine. With one of my articles in particular i.e the exams the client expressed that the colour scheme wasn’t to her satisfaction because she preferred one lighter colour as it looked on A4 much more darker however on the computer screen when I was making it looked more vibrant so I decided to keep the colour scheme as we found out the target audience liked the vibrant colour as it would attract them to the magazine therefore I chose to keep the colour the way it is.

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Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation

Other articles:

Other articles such as Omar , Brad and Zashia needed total restructure in order to make their articles look professional and meet codes and conventions to meet the clients satisfaction .So in the end there was vast improvement and the end quality of the magazine was vastly improved. To whether the magazine looks a student magazine the client said that what let us down was the continuity to the Christmas theme running through our articles as we only had really one true Christmas article due to the fact the audience wanted purely education stories with hints of Christmas as education is more important.

Task 3: Q1: What is the quality of the overall composition?

Well I think the overall composition is high standard from the front cover to the double spread ,if we look at our front cover which is shown right. The layout from the front cover is set out professionally with clear and precise effective cover lines which makes the readability clear to read and see we are establishing characteristic used in magazines through an effective theme. We done this from using the concept of our main picture of the magazine as itself i.e the colours from the Christmas tree gold and green are also the colours used for our coverlines .This is effective as it creates continuity through the magazine front cover which is very effective and important process when making a professional magazine.I hope we have achieved this.

However, when looking at our articles themselves I don’t think we continued with the continuity of the Christmas theme because more of our stories are educational based with only one exception of a Christmas story theme which focused on who switched on the lights in Solihull town centre. However, we as a group found when asking our target audience that although the Christmas magazine would seem an effective student magazine a large amount of the target audience argued and highlighted within our research that a Christmas issue would be fun ,but education comes first .So we as a group then took on board this decision and decided that a serious comprise had to be made therefore this directly had an impact on our overall continuity within the magazine articles as well as the magazine overall. The masthead is positioned at the corner of the magazine because we didn’t want to take too much room and overpower the audience which would take too much information way from the theme .

If you look at the particular masthead on our front cover we have used bold effective tones of green and also white colours to make our title become a brand which is an effective part of the code and convention used in magazines such as the National Student Magazine and magazines to establish as a brand, as you can see on the right which changes depending on it each issue. We decided that we wouldn’t position our logo Inbox spread across the top part of the magazine in order not to overstate the logo presence as it will take too much attention away from the magazines main picture which needs a deep analysis and keep the audiences full attention. So as mentioned within

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Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation

our proposal we said we would pay homage to our college we have done through using within our masthead colour scheme white and green.

When choosing how to layout the main coverline we wanted it to be effective and have a strong purpose which our target audience highlighted with our initial research so we positioned the main cover line in the middle of the front cover to allow the audience to take in the front cover and establish that the theme Christmas which is warm ,inviting yet festive. In relations to establishing this as a student magazine I think we have done this through a simple yet effective selling line for the student by providing students with a voice which is symbolic and relates to the genre of the magazine. We also have continued this theme of the students stories through their education journey i.e exams and how to write personal statements.

What didn’t go well?

However I don’t particularly like the front cover because it actually features me which I didn’t really want to do as within proposal we highlighted we wanted students other than ourselves so that is what I would rather have done rather than me be featured which would been more professionally done within the magazine industry as they would pay a model rather than the team to appear in the front cover. However this picture was a last minute decision as I did instruct the team to sort the front cover when I wasn’t in so that the production would be ahead of schedule however this wasn’t to happen .So the lesson we as a team have learnt is that we could have spent more time in creating an effective front cover rather than rushing the cover . As I have said the other coverlines are positioned in neat and aligned positions so the audience can visibly see and read the magazine in a professional manner rather than cluttered cover lines which would be unprofessional which impacts on the readability. We decided that we would fill in the left third which is unusual to the normal codes and conventions which magazine follows because we had large spaces. However if I’m going to critically analyse the magazines front cover I would say there is too much white space that could have been filled i.e the top half of the magazine and the front half.

2. What is the quality of the pictures ?

When looking at the quality of the pictures for both the front cover and all the articles I firstly had to discuss with the senior photographer Brad how I wanted to position the camera and the type of shot I wanted. So he gave me feedback about what I should be aware of within the location as it may impact on the shot and we chose a medium close up as the major frame shot because it was able to capture the emotion of the person which was needed to reflect the tone and feel of the articles itself.

The problems that I faced while I was getting the shots I needed I did have problems getting images from the internet i.e peoples exams timetables which I needed within my exams article and UCAS video to personal statements for my personal statement article which when I tried to print screen first it became blurry . Also one of the UCAS videos of a personal statement looked amateur as I took it while it played which should have been paused when I had taken ,but the problems that occurred were that you were able to see the pixels then which distorted the pictured .So when I tried the using the camera I was still getting distorted yet darker pictures so I had to do further

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Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation

improvements through Photoshop through making it brighter which helped the readability and make it more clearer to read and make the captions easier to understand the purpose of the pictures. The connotation why I used pictures from the internet was because I wanted more resources to illustrate my point to show the organisations involved such as UCAS and the resources in college I.e ILP exams timetable which parents can access and reiterates my article which is effective as the picture speaks louder than words. The weakness of this process was that maybe if I should have spent more time and effort within taking the pictures and instead of rushing it I like did I might of more colourful and brighter rather than some that didn’t feel or look professional and dampened the mood of the article.

3.How readable is the article :

For both articles I had decided to have double page spread free flowing because I wanted it to be informative through creating an in-depth discussions with revolving subjects such as how to write a personal statement and the examination process as this is what our audience wanted when conducting our initial research into our target audience. Therefore I didn’t want to any way under achieve this through having singular articles which would mean that certain aspects of the article itself would be cut down . This wouldn’t make an effective article because it would mean that all the relevant information wouldn’t be there and the message wouldn’t be as effective as I would like. The reason why when looking at the article there is a massive main title which is white because I wanted it to be clear and precise for the audience to read rather having smaller text which would be effective. Looking back on the title itself for my second article exams are here!!! I could of really put more time and effort into coming up with a catchy journalistic convention i.e sarcastic titles which have made the magazine more fun and exciting towards our target audience. But when it came to my other article for the personal statement it had to be formal as I was aiming it at parents and students so I had to be very forthcoming as this subject is serious and needed to be sophisticated to meet my target audience so I made the personal statement big and bold yet effective to be heard.

Sub title / first paragraph:

The reason why I inserted an opening paragraph within my article was that I wanted to give my audience a flavour what my article was beforehand because I wanted them to understand what the article was about because I would be referring to technical language / organisation involved with my article, in which I included a serious tone as I was covering a vital subject regarding peoples future whether in education or not. When looking back at the content of my first paragraph it looked too pushed together and too overpowering which I could of cut out of the irrelevant information so next I must be more considerate of the quality rather than quantity as if I do this, this makes a big deal as when looking at the text in itself was a mini article as it was taking too much attention away from picture and article.

Drop line/ captions and page number

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Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation

The reason why I decided to use a drop capital size 4 because I wanted to establish this as the start of the article which begins the journey for the readers as they venture through my two articles .This decision also reflects our proposal we indicated as we did decide we would use this which showed we have met on one of our many promises we made to the client. After deciding the pictures I would use within in my magazine article an important matter needed to be decided up on such as how I would use captions. The reason why I needed to use captions was that I need to clearly illustrate the significant connotation of the pictures I.e I used a picture illustrating ILP tyber for how parents can use the service to find out information such as exam timetables and how the parents can clearly see how the students are getting on in college which was important to illustrate as I was talking about this within my article. The troubles that I came across was that when setting them within my article was that it disrupted the rest of my article which didn’t look professional. So I tried my best to rectify this too and make it look effective which my first article did compared to my second one which looked a bit shabby.

Page numbers was positioned on of the one pages on the left hand bottom corner because this is one of the many codes and conventions used within media industry in order to identify the page numbers with print publication. So therefore I decided that it needed addressing therefore we as a group decided to put the Christmas issue i.e the month and the website as the magazine national student magazine provide the contact details for subscription purposes which would make our magazine look and feel professional. Another reason why we decided to say the Christmas issue was to reiterate the festive genre of the magazine to provide continuity as well as trying to set out a professional magazine the whole way through our magazine through bringing attention what is the whole purpose of this magazine is about i.e Christmas and other education stories.

How interesting is the article?

Using the group initial research we found out that the audience preferred educational stories so I used important yet relevant stories such as exams as they would be coming up which is very much relevant to students as this is there future has great importance as we are making specifically student magazine made for them using the stories they want. Another reason why the stories has relevance to student magazine is that it consists of both educational and fun stories if we take into account the other articles within our magazine. However I lacked fun stories as I could have done one hard news subject and one light-hearted subject but I decided against this because our audience wanted important subjects that mattered as they said they wanted education stories such as exams and personal statement as these are important life stories that need to be discussed so that they the students need to know how best to approach this decision with caution and choose the right decision.

How attractive colour scheme?

Well we aimed to go with a vibrant yet affective colour scheme such as I was doing guided on what a personal statement was which was a answer and question article in which required a strong yet effective questions so I used the colour red which is bold yet effective as I was making an important point that meant separate questions and answers that looked easy to read and establish the important information such as the meaning for personal statements and how to successfully write

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one to get into university as the students needed guidance on to how to get into the university they want. So when deciding the general colour scheme for the two articles I used purple and grey which looked vibrant and effective .As the impression I was aiming for was a sophisticated yet effective article because I wanted the audience to be drawn into reading the magazine article while trying to make reference to the particular articles which tone is sophisticated yet informative which will be very helpful in making the correct decision regarding their future which is bright.

How far did the article look and did it meet the original proposal?

Compared with our proposal we have made several changes such as creative decisions have been made along the way due to various reasons I.e when getting the pictures for the magazine I wasn’t expected to get the emotions and responses I got from the camera which had a direct impact with the theme of the article and front cover which should have been different due to the fact that in particular it was other peoples responsibility to get more impressive impact I wanted for the magazine through taking the shots I wanted within the proposal I set them when I wasn’t in .Nevertheless the main front cover is okay but should of originally been as highlighted within the proposal been of students other than one of our own group celebrating Christmas. I did ask people to undertake this job instead it was down to me to sort the front cover out. I think it did look a professional magazine. Eventually we did persevere in all the rest of our articles taking our time with each article to through hard work and dedication to get a professional high standard magazine which included face to face interviews which provided more content to our magazine which compared to national magazines made our magazine be on the same wavelength.

Final evaluation

Over the course of this project I think I have managed my time well as I have had come in my own time plus college time to meet deadlines before they are done so that I didn’t leave it to the last minute as it will be rushed not professional . But what I have had to do when I wasn’t in on a particular day was rely on others to do the tasks I set being layout manager as well as trying to catch up on the following day and workwise to still be ahead in the production. What I found out in this experience working in groups and being a layout manager was that I had to step back quite a lot because it was not my responsibility to lead the team as it was the editors job role. Which I found really difficult to do and I tried my best. But when I’m a manager of a department such as layout designer manager sometimes I would become like the editor trying to be in control of the group which wasn’t helpful as it was down to the editor to help enforce deadlines other than me to make sure people were doing their jobs. For communication skills with the group if anything I did help them with trying to understand and establish how they wanted things whilst also having respect for their viewpoints in allowing how they wanted their article to be with frequent meetings attended by group members to discuss any problems they had which helped as we could help each other.

Did we meet our group deadlines and agreed timescales? No, because some people worked faster than others which meant there was division between the group of how people wanted things done such as more people were stuck on how to write their articles . Whereas , some people were getting to copy their articles InDesign when as agreed within deadlines all of the articles would have proceeded to this stage. This also meant being a layout manager I was still chasing people for their initial designs for their magazine so I could approve it before starting this , which was stressful and annoying . Because people were saying they would get it done in that day or lesson but they did not

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Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation

get back to me so I let the editor have a word and told her the production was slow. What I should do next time is relax and allow other people to worry about deadlines and push people to do the work on time.But we did meet the final deadline set by tutor which was important as it had to be done because if it hadn’t then we would done our project successfully or professionally.

What went well was that we all pulled together at the end when looking at each other articles to give each other advice i.e criticism to improve their work to meet a professional standard. Another thing that went well was that we as a group and as individuals we did produce a professional magazine in the end through being creative and using initiative and listening to what the client wanted in the brief as well as what our target audience wanted within their official student magazine “ INBOX”

How could you ensure better outcomes in the future?

To ensure that we have better outcomes we as a team must be equal in an ideal world and make realistic deadlines and stick to them because within the group in this project some people were slow and this had a knock on effect slowing production down and not attending meetings. This had a direct impact on the team at times which caused stress as I didn’t think we were going to meet our final deadline. So for next time don’t be stressed and consider that people work slower than others and accept it.

What new skills have I developed?/ am I mutiskilled?

I have further increased my understanding of both InDesign and Photoshop through developing an effective front cover and using various tools I used within the MIxmag project such as drop shadow and laying magazine which increased my confidence in exploring both InDesign and Photoshop features more with less tutor support from when in the Mixmag project instead I used my initiative to further make my articles even more effective. The skills I have learnt most are to have more patience with the group . Such as when dealing with people , let them get on with their work and focus on trying to still do my job of layout manager to the best of my ability. I think I have become more mutiskilled within this project as there have been times when I have had to do other roles within my two articles such as layout manager, photographer and writer which have required my attention to detail when needed to make the production run smoothly and deliver a worthy article for the student magazine and meet the audience needs using my own initiative . I think another reason why I was mutiskilled was that when particular group members weren’t in or late I was able to clearly give instructions which required me to show clear communications skills .While I do think I did this too much which I tried to avoid doing but tasks weren’t being done.

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Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation

Write down the constraints experienced by you individually in finding the information. Being objective, list the reasons why you had difficulty or why you found it easy to obtain the information.

I did have minor difficulties when making a production budget because I went over the actual budget which didn’t show an effective or realistic budget sheet. This happened because I tried to get best deals from the internet . This took along time on the internet which I do regret that I took the first number at that particular time rather than looking at other alternative special deals with the budget of hiring the equipment like macs and cameras to get a more realistic approach for this particular task. I found easy the legal and regulatory issues because it required simply to use common sense as well as there was a lot of case studies from the internet to clearly highlight how a journalist must consider readability when writing the article and should be incorporated within our articles to make them professional . This is achieved through understanding that the purpose of legal issues and readability are important regulations as we are becoming professional journalists when making the student magazine therefore it was important to have easy access and know the meaning of these too, to make our article clear and precise.

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