Evaluation Question 7

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?




(I apologise for my slight stutter, as well as my cold)

Evaluation Question 6

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

In the process of making my music magazine, I used a number of online tools to upload and arrange and convert the posts featured on my blog:

• Scribd
• Prezi
• Youtube
• Pinterest
• Slideshare
• (Blogger)

Scribd, I learned, can be used to upload word and PowerPoint documents to blogger while retaining the font, shape, margins and positions of various elements on the document in the form of a large scrollable box. This allows for easy presentation of a document as it is, and was used numerous times on my blog, such as my photo shoot and it's analysis; I am able to view my blog and scroll through the various photographs and descriptions with the images used in the correct places.

Prezi is an online program that functions in a similar style to powerpoint, as it allows for the presentation of images and text on a chosen path. However, Prezi allows for further exploration of this method of presentation, being more aesthetically pleasing, allowing for increased manipulation, navigation, and allows for more presentation styles including spider diagrams, flowcharts and mindmaps. I used this for evaluation question 1, as well as my magazine research task. 

Pinterest has enabled me to 'pin' images to an online board, so as to accumulate a collection of images which bare connotations to the genre, allowing for a 'moodboard' to be developed. This allowed me to gather images that could be analysed (which they were) and let me generate a larger idea of what kinds of images my magazine could incorporate to construct a housestyle.

Youtube enabled me to upload videos and embed them onto blogger using a link generated with the video. I was also able to use this embedding process with Scribd and Prezi; this allows for the content to be viewed on Blogger without any form of navigation to other pages.

These programs helped with the process of constructing my product, as I was able to place content directly onto my blog posts, in most cases, opposed to leaving links, allowing for easier navigation of my blog and an easier time viewing,displaying and arranging my research ready for the process of construction and general reference.

I also developed my skills with the following programs for the process of construction:

• PhotoShop
• InDesign
• Macromedia Flash

With Flash, I was able to use a process I practiced in the past known as 'masking', which allowed for an easy path to applying texture to a selection shapes and letters, as well as moving the texture around to perfect the positioning of it inside of the text or shape. I used this process to construct my titles, and preferred this over the process of filling the text I created with the texture, as the masking method was much easier to alter and position. I also learnt that files which I wished to import into InDesign must be exported as PNG files, as the transparency around the images exported would not apply with other files types, such as JPEG.

InDesign helped with the construction of my product with it's easy process of setting up columns and pages. Magazines, of which usually use columns, 'bleeds', margins and general organisation can be created with such ease using this program. This program also allowed for easy construction of images that curved text around them, and made the task of wrapping text around shapes easier. It also allowed for me to see the double page spread pages side-by-side as I worked, allowing for me to transfer text and images across to retain the house style I established with the cover and contents pages.

PhotoShop allowed for large and small editing of various images. I used it to not only quickly draw layered backgrounds and images (such as the small black backgrounds used with the columns on the DPS) but to apply transformations and effects to photographs for the magazine. For example, the picture of the chain that I took and quickly edited using a hue/saturation layer. I made thorough use of the selection tool, with it's magnetic selection feature that automatically draws along the outline of shapes for quick object selection. This can be used to separate the part of the image needed from the background or white space. There was also a process I used whereby I was able erase the background in another way, which is where I selected the part I wanted to keep by selecting around it's outline with the polygon select tool, and then inverting the selection with the 'select' option at the top of the screen with the other tools, and going over the whole image with the background eraser to delete the background, lastly, cleaning up the edges of the image by reducing the hardness of the eraser and going around the edge; there are so many different ways to edit an image to be exactly the way you want it, and PhotoShop proved to be my most valuable asset for these reasons.

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation Question 4

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

TeamRock might distribute my media product, as they already publish magazines of the rock/metal genre, of which I researched. Metal Hammer, a magazine that influenced my choices greatly, is published under this company, and so bears a similar style to mine, and would likely benefit from their publication.

Bauer media group is also a good company to publish my magazine, as they also publish not only hundreds of different and varying in genre magazines, but they also publish Kerrang!, one of the most mainstream metal magazines. This would mean that my magazine could benefit from their publication greatly, as they have managed to keep Kerrang! in the top area of it's genre.

I would also consider dark arts limited, as they publish Terrorizer, a magazine that I took a look of information from, and has greatly affected many of my choices. They, like Bauer, distribute a magazine which is considered in the lead of it's market, and so would prove, and has done so, to be an amazing distributor for my magazine, as both are of similar theme and genre.

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation question 1

In what ways does you media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?