Media Studies Coursework: Evaluation

After completing my finished music magazine, the final step was to evaluate the process of constructing my product from beginning to end. I presented this PowerPoint presentation to a group of my peers and my teacher on Friday 6th May, adding my own commentary and explaining in detail my answers to each question. Here is a copy of my PowerPoint presentation:

Finished evaluation

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Diary Entry - Week Eleven: 11th – 14th April 2011

The final deadline for our finished music magazine was Thursday this week, so I used every lesson this week as well as after school most days to add my finishing touches and make my final pages as professional as possible. By five o’clock on Thursday 14^th, everything was uploaded to the school hard drive and my blog, so that over the Easter holidays I can complete my evaluation.

Media Coursework: Week by Week Guide

This is a scanned in copy of the hand-drawn calendar I made myself to make sure I kept up to date with diary entries, and knew exactly what had been done in each lesson to ensure no time was wasted in the process of completing my coursework. 

Cover, Contents Page and Double Page Spread: Final Drafts

 These are the final drafts of my music magazine's cover, contents page and double page spread, with all improvements made.

Diary Entry - Week Ten: 4th – 8th April 2011

Following advice from multiple people who looked at my rough cuts, I used Monday this week to re-take the images for my double page spread, as my original one was slightly out of focus on the face. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were used to continue improving my rough cuts and to re-draft my double page spread using the new and improved image. On Friday, we were given an explanation of the different ways we could evaluate our product, which I will begin to do following the final deadline on Thursday next week.

Diary Entry – Week Nine: 28th March – 1st April 2011

The deadline to have the rough cut first drafts of my cover, contents page and double spread uploaded was five o’clock on Monday this week, and the following day I received feedback of these from both my teacher and the other students in my class (who are conveniently all part of my target market). After learning what they liked and thought could be improved about my magazine, I was able to type up these comments and upload them to my blog, and then in my remaining three lessons I began to work on my second drafts based on their advice.

Rough Cut Feedback

After completing a first draft of my front cover, contents page and double page spread, I was able to get some feedback from my teacher and other students - here are a selection of their comments:

Teacher:
Front cover - Really well made. Strong Photo, good font diversity.
                     Possibly too dark? The logo could be stroinger.

Contents Page - Well presented. Clear articles and descriptions. Good photography.
                          More diversity in photos (Long shots/ Close-ups?) Stronger logo again.

DPS - Really good! Great photo, good positioning of the eext and range in fonts.
           Photos posisbly a bit blurry? Maybe break up the text a bit.

Other students - What did they like?
Front cover - Good colour scheme, matches her clothes. Good makeup/ costume on model. Good layout,    variety of font styles. Uses conventions well. Clear house style.

Contents Page - Good main image. Good layout of text. Inkeeping with colour scheme. Good range of images. Clear house style. Well sectioned and easy to understand.

DPS - Lovey choice of colours, all inkeeping - even her nails and bracelet! Text fits around the image. Very strong layout. Good writing style. Bright, very girly.

What could have been improved?
Front cover - Date, issue and price should be the same size. Writing in box at the top should have more space at the sides.

Contents Page - Retake two smaller images - Don't fit in as well and look as professional. Add a page number at the bottom.

DPS - Image slightly out of focus? Make quote stand out a bit more. Possibly have standfirst in a different colour/ size to differentiate it from article. Make headline stand out more?

Music Magazine First Drafts:

Following are the rough cuts of the cover, contents page and double page spread of my music magazine:

 

Diary Entry - Week Eight: 21st – 25th March 2011

On the Monday of this week, I took my photographs of my model portraying Paloma Faith for my cover, double page spread and contents page. In Tuesday’s lesson, I again used the digital SLR to take the remaining two photographs for my contents page, and the rest of the week was devoted to using Photoshop to enhance my images and begin to insert them onto my pages.

Location Shots

These are the three locations I used for my photoshoots, all located around school.

Original Images

These are the original images I have taken using the digital SLR camera, which I then edited using Photoshop to be used on my cover, contents page and double page spread.

Cover:

Contents Page:

Double Page Spread:

Diary Entry - Week Seven: 14th – 18th March 2011

Coming back to school this week with all of my research done, I was able to use all of my findings to compile hand-drawn initial designs for the way my magazine’s cover, contents page and double page spread are going to look and uploaded these to my blog. Following this, I was able to use the remaining three lessons to map out the features of my magazine on Photoshop, as well as plan in detail the images which I plan to take early next week on my photo planning grid.          

Picture Planning Grid

Here is the table I have created to plan in detail the images which I will take on Monday and Tuesday next week.

How Will I Make my Magazine as Professional as Possible?

Initial Designs

Here are the initial designs I have drawn for my cover, contents page and double page spread, taking into consideration all of my research.

Cover:

Contents Page:

Double Page Spread:

Diary Entry - Week Six: 7th – 11th March 2011

Work experience week

Diary Entry - Week Five: 28th February – 4th March 2011

After gathering feedback from my demographic in my questionnaire and putting them into graph form, I was able to evaluate the results, and therefore begin to make decisions about what properties my final product will have. This took up two lessons, as did creating a spider diagram of my initial ideas to be expanded upon when creating my music magazine. The Friday of this week was the deadline for all of my research to be uploaded to my blog, including my preliminary task evaluation, analyses of existing products, audience research and initial ideas.

Initial Ideas - Spider Diagram

Following my extensive analysis of existing music magazines along with my audience research, I was able to create this "Initial Ideas" diagram which I can build upon to create my first sketches of my final design for my product.

Diary Entry - Week Four: 21st – 25th February 2011

Half Term

Diary Entry - Week Three: 14th – 18th February 2011

Two lessons this week were taken to finish the thorough analyses of the covers, contents pages and double page spreads as these are the three elements I will need to produce for my coursework. In the remaining three lessons, we turned our focus to audience research. For this, I created a questionnaire which covered every aspect of front covers, contents pages and double page spreads for the target audience to give their opinions and preferences on. My focus group consisted of older teenagers (16 and 17 years old) as this is the slightly more mature audience at which I am aiming my product. I chose to ask 20 questions as this corresponds to the number of questions and I feel this is a big enough number to get an accurate result with a wide variety of opinions. Once my questionnaires were returned to me, I used Microsoft Excel to create bar charts to present my findings in a professional and easy-to-interpret way.