Diary 17

I have now finished making the improvements needed to my blog. I had set myself a schedule of what I needed to complete and when I needed to complete it by in order to make sure that i got the work done and that I used my time in an efficient way. I have stayed behind after school a lot for the past two weeks in order to make sure that i met the deadline and I am happy with the final product that I have produced. Also, I believe that the changes to my blog were worthwhile and make the blog look a lot accessible and easy to navigate.

Diary 16

In the past couple of days I have been continuing to work on improving the quality of my evaluation responses and trying to raise the standard of detail in my blog posts overall. I have tried to evident the amount of feedback I recieved on my magazine in a number of different ways because I constantly made sure that my product was up to the standards of members of my target audience to ensure that the contents fulfilled their needs as well as making sure that the images and layout appealed to them. I think that the vast amount of constructive feedbaack that I recieved was very helpful in raising my marks from my first draft. Also, looking back to my preliminary task, I feel that I have learnt a lot in the skills I have needed to employ whilst working on my magazine as well as becoming more familiar with softwares such as Premiere, which I will be using constantly through next year. I intend to add a few more posts as well as make my last two evaluation answers more detailed in the next couple of days to show off these skills I've gained even more.

Diary 15

Diary 14

In recent weeks I have been working on improving my blog to a higher standard of detail to ensure I can get the most marks possible out of it. I have dont this my adding more detail or description to the posts I had already, adding more posts to sections such as 'Audience' in which I don't have that many, or making sure that any posts I'm adding from no on make varied use of technologies and softwares that I am capable of using. An example of how I plan on doing this is by taking the answers from my evaluation and making each one in to a separate Adobe Premiere presentation. This way I can gather different pieces of media to illustrate my response to the question as well as presenting it in a way that shows off the skills I have gained when learning how to use it and this method or presenting my post is also different and adds variety to my blog.

Diary 13

I am now at a stage where I have completed the final pages of my magazine. I have created a final version of my front cover, contents page and double page spreads. When doing this, I had to take into account the feedback I recieved for my first drafts and make the changes necessary to improve my magazine and raise my mark. I originally recieved a C for my magazine first draft however, after i had recieved feedback from my peers on my contents page, I decided that it would be worthwhile for my to dedicate some lessons to drastically improving my contents page.This is one of the major changes I made and once I asked my peers what they thought once the appropriate changes had been made, they said that the page looked a lot better and the layout made it look a lot more proffessional. Another major change that I made to my work was chaging my front cove image. I wasn't happy at all with the pose that my model had or the size of the shot as I thought that it distanced her from the readers instead of creating the illusion of closeness and the potential to build a relationship with the artist. Therefore I decided that a mid-shot or close-up would be the best shot sizes to give this effect so I changed my front cover image to a mid-shot. Lastly, I was told that I had too much blank space on my second double page spread so I made the text and images fit on to a single page, thus minimising white space an making the page look a lot more busy.

Diary 12

In the past few weeks I have been creating the first drafts for my magazine. I am doing this to begin to find out what my magazine will look like once it is finished. I have included the necessary conventional aspects of most magazines within my own such as a masthead, sell lines, a bar code, price, website etc. I have also had to make sure that i included a wide range of images that i took from my photoshoot to give a variety to the pages I am creating. I have made sure to keep to the same house colours that I selected earlier to make sure that my magazine flows. I have currently created a front cover and two double page spreads and I am now working on my contents page and will hopefully have completed this by tomorrow. I have gained a lot of skills through working with photoshop in creating my magazine such as how to cut out images, create different effects with the text and how to wrap the text in my articles around the images.

Diary 11

I have completed all these coursework tasks and I will now be able to start working on the actual magazine on photoshop. I just created my article draft that will be used on my double page spread and I made sure that the style of my writing informal so it has a 'chatty' and friendly tone to it that the reader will be able to relate to. I will use all these tasks that I have completed over the past weeks to help me create my magazine in different ways and I have found that doing them has been worthwhile. I'm looking forward to creating my magazine and will start doing so in my next lesson.

Diary 10

As the deadline for completing these tasks is this Friday, I have taken the time to complete some at home. I created my schedule which is a brief outline for when each task is due. This will count as a checklist and help me to manage my time effectively. I also sketched out some quick drafts for my front cover, contents page and double page spread and then created drafts on PowerPoint to give me a rough idea of where I will lay things out on the page and where they look best. I also had to think about where I can incorporate my images in to the double page spread to prove that I have taken a wide variety of different shots and used different angles. Next I am going to create my article draft that will be placed on the double page spread when I complete it on photoshop.

Video Diary 9

Diary 8

This week I am going to start working on creating my sell lines and contents ideas. These will appear on the cover of my magazine and I will rely on these to interest the reader and make them want to buy it. I will also have to ensure that these sell lines correspond with the genre of my magazine and reflect, accurately the contents that I will include. I am also going to create a schedule for my work so I can make sure that I keep organised and am aware of how long I have to spend on each task.

Diary 7

This week I completed my photoshoot for the image for my magazie. I needed to make sure that my model was prepared with a range of different costumes and accessories to make sure that each image looked different. I also used props such as a guitar to link with the genre of my magazine. I used a variety of different shots such as close-ups and long-shots to ensure that I have a variety to choose from and I also used different angles for different effects for the reader. I had to get my model to sign release form which states that I am allowed to photogrph her and I scanned this in. I am currently creating my contact sheet which will include some of the images from my photshoot which I think look best and might use in the magazine.

Diary 6

This week I have started to think about possible designs for the masthead of my magazine. I have had to think about what colour would go with the colour scheme I have originally chosen and I also thought about the different fronts that I could use. I think that the font of a masthead is very important as it can connote the genre of the magazine. For example I believe that a font such as impact could tell the audience that the magazine is of the rock genre. Therefore there are lots of aspects of the masthead that I have has to think about. I have also started to add differemt photoshop effects to the text to create a unique look.

Diary 5

During half term I worked on a few different aspects of my research. First, I created my target audience profile. In this, I analysed my questionnaire results from my blog and worked out how I was going to use these to improve my magazine. Then, I thought of some suitable name ideas for my magazine as well as deciding upon a suitable colour scheme. I then explained the different connotations that these colours could have. Lastly, I created a mood board of different things that my target audience are likely to find interesting such as the type of clothes they might wear to how they might choose to spend their time.

Diary 4

During the week before half term I was given a list of all the tasks that I was going to have to complete before I begin creating my magazine. Thses included a proposal, a mood board, name ideas, colour connotations and draft layouts for my magazine to follow. Last week I began to create my proposal on Prezi where I talked about what style my magazine would have, the type of audience my magazine will be aimed at, the competition for my magazine and how my magazine will synergise with the growing media technologies. I analysed these factors in detail and explained reasons for my choices. I was also made to think about what contents my magazine will include and how this will help my magazine to sell.

Video Diary 3

Video Diary 2

Video Diary 1