Fanzine Evalution

1. Fanzine Evaluation
Alisha Harrison

2. Planning and preparation
 Before starting my final finished fanzine booklet, I did some planning which involved looking at
different fonts which could be suitable for my fanzine, I looked at a range of bold fonts and
regular fonts for different things for example the titles and headings in my fanzine I knew I
wanted them to be bold and in order to achieve the perfect font I looked at a range of them until
one suited my fanzine. Although I have only used two fonts in my fanzine looking at all these
different ones helped to find these two fonts in which I used.
 I then created a mood board in which has helped me to come up with a range of images to use
and what images are suitable to use in my fanzine, I looked at various different fanzines as well
as images from the topic I wanted to use because I wanted to get the gist of how to actually set a
fanzine out and what mine could possibly look like.
 I also looked at colour schemes in order to create the best fanzine I could by choosing the correct
colours which go with what my fanzine is actually about, for example the colour purple is the
main colour I have used to create my fanzine because I have talked about friends and the main
apartment has purple walls so I have made my pages purple to match the film and people looking
at my fanzine will recognise the purple colour because of watching the TV series, planning the
colours was a very good and successful thing to do because it has helped me to adapt my work
into something good because the colours match the TV series title because of the colored dots I
have used in my titles because friends uses that in there title.

3. Planning and preparation
 I did some pagination to help me know what I was doing with my fanzine and what would be on each
page which helped me to keep track of where I was during creating each page, I kept the pagination
simple and easy to understand because it was only for me to look at which make it easier during the
making of my fanzine, I put key little bits of information on them so I knew what I had to do instead of
forgetting and trying to figure out what was going on each page, this also helped to manage the time. I
did a pagination for 12 pages as I did not want to give my self more pages as I wouldn't’t have got it
finished on time.
 While doing the planning I also created a time schedule because I thought it was important to do as it
would also help to manage time as well as knowing what I was doing and when I was doing it. I also had
on my time schedule the resources I would need to use and have access to on that day.
 Overall I think I did stick with what I had planned to do if not more because I really thought about what
I wanted to do before I started to create my fanzine, and the planning reflects my final product
because I planned well to get a good outcome.
 I also sent out a questionnaire for preparation for my fanzine, because I knew I wanted to do a question
and answer type of thing within my fanzine booklet, so I sent this out before in order to collect results
to keep on time schedule while creating my final fanzine, so that after the rest of the planning and
preparation I could get straight to making my fanzine rather than having to wait for results.

4. Reviewing work in progress
 Whilst creating my fanzine I did actually leave 2 pages blank because I wasn’t sure what I
wanted to do on them but then at the end it came to me, I used the pages for a contents page
and a picture page I don’t think I made any changes as such apart from deciding what I wanted
to do on the pages I left blank during my pagination.
 I also reviewed my work in progress by typing the fact files into word and checking I had not
made any spelling, grammar or punctuality mistakes as this is an important because I am talking
about someone and the information needs to be correct, I also looked on a number of websites
to find the information about the people to make sure it was correct.
 During the actual making of my fanzine I did have a title of “friends article” but then I went
back and changed it to make it look more interesting and add the colour dots in from the film to
make my fanzine look more friends themed, as I wanted people to take one look at my fanzine
and know straight away that it is based on the TV series and I think I have achieved this because
of the design of the whole fanzine.

5. Time Management
 I feel that I have managed time as I have got my fanzine finished on time for the deadline,
however if I had more time I would of done some areas of improvement as have said previously
my fact files look boring that’s because I knew I didn’t have much time left.
 I created a time schedule during the planning which helped me to keep on task during the
making of the fanzine, as I knew what I was doing and when and how much time and what I still
had left to do, the time schedule was very effective on helping me to stay within the deadline,
although I did not factor in 2 pages because I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do on those
pages so I left a gap at the end and went back to do them this was the contents page and a
picture page.
 I also created a list of the equipment and the resources that I need while creating my fanzine
which is on my time schedule, this was useful as I knew what I would need for example
Photoshop and on what day I would need it, to make sure I had access to it in order to keep on
time with creating my fanzine because I didn’t want it to slow me down on having to find the
resources on the same day.

6. Areas of Improvement
 I feel that I have managed to produce some good work due to what I had planned because my
planning reflects of my finished piece as it should, However I would improve my fanzine the
pages I would defiantly improve are the fact files the reason being that they look like they
have loads of text on and people would maybe get bored reading it because it doesn't look as
fun or as interesting as the other pages. I could have possibly only used key information that
the public want to know and made it look interesting by using more images.
 I could have used more images in a way that the friends fans would like.


7. The content
My work
Friends Title
My work is similar to products that are out there in the context that the title I have created is the same as the
title from friends, the colored dots are almost the same and in the same order, I did this to try and resemble that
my article is purely based on the TV series. I have also included the peephole frame in my front cover because the
audience and people who view my fanzine will automatically think of friends because of the peephole frame
that’s on Monica's apartment door the main apartment in the series.
Scene from the series

8. The content
 I personally think the content in my work is purely fact, when I have been creating my
fanzine I was googling and checking the information was true as I didn’t want to mislead
any fans by writing the wrong information as this is a fanzine for the friends fans and they
want to know truthful information.

9. The appropriateness of my work for the
audience
 My work is very appropriate for the audience because the audience are people who like
the TV series friends, only friends fans are going to want to pick up my fanzine and read it,
obviously I focused on all friends fans not just males or females but all who are friends
fans, my work is appropriate for all ages as the content is safe and has not got any bad
words or pictures in.

10. The technical competencies and
creative abilities
 The technical aspects are that I used Photoshop to create each and every page used tools
for example I pasted in images from google of New York I then pasted in the image to were I
wanted it on my document I had made, I then went to adjustments > threshold which made
it black then I changed to opacity to where I was happy with it I also made sure this layer
was on the background but the text and pictures above it. The screenshots bellow are
showing some of the process of this. I think this is an effective technique because friends
the TV series was based in New York, so I decided to have places from New York in the
backgrounds of my pages to make it more interesting and look better.