1. Factual Writing
1
Task 6. 52.4 (P/M/D)
Critically evaluate your work in the context of professional practice consistently using subject
terminology correctly.
With your finished product, you should consider:
• the extent to which your intentions have been realised
• the appropriateness of your work for the audience
• the content
• the style
• the skills you have used
• how your skills have developed
• areas for improvement.
You should discuss your:
• planning
• preparation
• time management
• reviewing work in progress
• technical competencies and creative abilities
Sources of information should include your own self-evaluation and comments from others
such as your audience, peers or tutors.
3. Planning
What planning did you do before you started your project?
The planning that I did before I started my project was I crated a production schedule. This helped me
to plan what work I would be doing on what day and helped me to keep focused and on track. I also
crated a paper booklet that was the same size as the booklet that I was creating in the project so that
I had a physical copy of what I was creating so I could make sure that they lay out worked and that it
all flowed. This help me to get to grips with how my booklet would look when I had finished the
project and helped me to make sure that it all looked how I wanted it to and made sure that the
pages were in the right place.
Did you stick to your planning, if not why not?
I stuck to my production schedule and this helped me to understand how much time I had left and
how much work I had left to do. However on sections of my production schedule I hadn't given myself
enough time to finish the task. Although on some sections I did not have enough time, on others I had
given myself more time than I needed, this made up the time that I had lost on the bigger sections of
my project such as my infographic.
Have your intentions been realized?
I think that most of my intentions have been realized, the way that the booklet looks and the way it
has been lay out. However the inforgrpahic I don’t think my full intentions have been achieved, this
is because I wanted more information and more images to be shown in the inforgraphic. However on
all of the other aspects of the booklet I believe that my intentions were realized, for instance I
wanted the article to cover five pages and I wanted it to include pull quotes and images and my
article includes both of these aspects. I also wanted the images to not have straight edges, I wanted
them to be more interesting to look and and I wanted the text to wrap around them with curved
edges. This was what I did with my images in Photoshop and I am pleased with the outcome.
4.
5. Time management
What did you do to help you keep in good time with your project?
To help me manage my time I created a production schedule, this told me
what work I had to do in what time. This helped me keep on top of my project
and make sure that I was not falling behind.
Do you think you managed you time well, if you were to do this project again
would you do anything differently?
I believe that I have managed my time well with the help of my production
schedule. However on some section I had given to much or to little time to
create certain aspects of my project, however because I had given some
aspects to much time to finish this made up for the time that I had lost on he
aspects of my booklet that took longer than I expected such as the
infographic. I left myself time at the end of the project so that I could make
any improvements that I needed to, this was a big help because some of my
booklet needed little tweaks to make it look and flow better.
6. Reviewing your work in progress
Did you review you work in progress, did you make any changes as you went
along, if so what were they?
As I progressed in my booklet I went back through the pages that I had
already created and made slight changes to make sure that they fit in with
each other. For example while I was making my infographic I made the border
smaller so that I could space the information out more, I then went back and
did this to my other pages (fact file and recipe). This helped me when I got
the the end of my production because it meant that I could focus more on
other changes that I wished to make. As well as this I made changes to my
front cover to make it stand out more and to make it easier to read, removed
the smaller tag lines and put one longer one on top of the title. I also added
drop shadows to the title and the ‘Veganuary’ logo to make them stand out
more.
7. Technical competencies and creative
abilities
Technical aspects
Firstly I learnt the when I started this project was the program InDesign, this
was new to me at the start of the project and I have learnt how to create a
article that links from page to page. I have also learnt how to place image and
pull quotes into the article and make the text wrap around them. Another
program I used to create this booklet was Photoshop, to place my images into
my 12 page article I first had to resize them so that they would be the correct
size, to do this I changes the image size in Photoshop and then placed them
into InDesign.
How did you make your work interesting for the reader, what would you do
differently if you were to do it again?
I think that I used my creative abilities in several aspects of this project, for
instance in the infogrpahic and the fact file I have used a running theme and
colour scheme and I have used the images of animals that I created on
Photoshop using rotorscoping technique. I think that my booklet is interesting
to look at because it is colorful and has different areas of information as well
as real photographs. However I think that I could have made my 5 page article
look more interesting by adding some colour to the background.
8.
9. Audience
Dose your work reflect on the audience you wanted to appeal to?
I believe that my work to fit with my audience, I think that the language that I
have used and the way that the sentences have been structured reflects my
audience. As well as this I think that using the bright blue and green background
colours reflects my audience because these bright colours stand out and this is
what will catch their eyes. I also think that my work fits with my target audience
because the way that the booklet is set out and the amount of text image ratio is
even. There is not to many images and not to much text, to gather feedback from
the public I created a questionnaire which I then shared on social media. One of
the questions was ‘what audience do you think this booklet is aimed at, the
majority of people answered 16-25, this was the age range that I was targeting. I
also asked if the text to image ratio was even and all of the people who answered
said yes, this shows that other people also think that there was not to much text
and not to many images.
As well as the age I wanted to target a specific gender, female. However I think
that the design of this booklet and the colours us are more traditional male
colours. Because of this the look and design of the book appeals to more of a
male audience and the text and facts that are featured in the article and fact file
are more targeted at a female audience. This creates and contrast between the
two sections and if I were to go back and improve my booklet this would be one
thing that I would focus on, making the look and design of the booklet appealing
to a more female audience.
10.
11. Content
Written
I chose the subject of health because I felt that this approach would be most
appealing to my target audience of younger people aged 16-25, however I
tried to use as many different subjects within my booklet so to not bore my
audience. I felt that they would be more interested in reading about the
benefits to themselves, with some other facts from other sectors mixed in.
Also because I have used several different themes throughout, I think that
this will keep my audience interested in the content of my book as it is not all
based around the same subject.
One thing that I like about my written content is the way that it is very
informal, I think this fits with my audience and the themes of my booklet as it
comes across relaxed and friendly. As well as this I also like the way that it has
several different points from different areas of the subject, I think that this
gives the audience a wider range of information and will keep them more
interested. One thing that I dislike about the written content of my booklet is
the was that some of the sentences that I have used in the written article are
very long winded. I feel like if I was to improve my booklet I would use less
words to make my points in my article. As well as this I think that my written
work could be improved with the correction and checking of the spelling and
grammar of the booklet as this is one of the weaker parts of my work.
12. Image
I have chosen to use both real photographic and rote scoped images because I
feel like in each different section had a different need for images. For example on
the article I used real images, I did this because I felt that it looked more
professional and felt that rotorscoped images would not look as good for this
section. In contrast to this on my infographoic I have used only graphic, I have
done this because I think that this style fits better with the information and the
way that I wanted my infographic to look.
Infographic – For this section I used small graphics to represent information,
things such as small PowerStation towers and graphs to show the audience the
information without making them read big chunks of writing. I chose to do this
section in this style because I felt that using real images would have made my
infographic look cluttered and that the real images would not have represented
the facts as well as the graphics would.
Fact file- For the fact file I only used two image that I had created, these were
rotorscopes of animals. I have chosen to use these two images because I think
that they were the most relevant to the facts and they were the right size to make
my fact file have a more interesting shape and style.
Recipe- For my recipe I used two real photographs, I have used these because I
feel they they fit in this section and they are more relevant that a graphic. This is
because by using real images I could show what the food looked like, this could
not be achieved with a graphic as it would not be a realistic representation of the
food on the recipe.
13.
14. The style
Why did you chose the style that you have?
I chose the style that I have because I think that it creates a good running theme and
the colour scheme. I chose the colour scheme of blue and green because I felt that
these colours connate calmness and they are seen as quite naturel colours because of
there connections to nature (the sky and plants). As well as this I chose these colours
because I think it is a colour that is easy to read off, the text stand out and is easy to
understand. I think that the flow of my booklet could be improved, this is because the
article is the only section that has a white background. However I do think that having
a full written article on a blue background could put readers off as the text is much
smaller and there is a lot more of it than throughout the rest of the booklet, this could
make the article harder to read.
What do you like and dislike about the style, would you change it if you had more
time?
One thing like I like about the style is the way that who whole booklet has the same
style, this helps the booklet the flow and makes every section consistent to the next.
However on thing that I dislike about the style is that the colours that I have used do
not fit with my female target audience as they are stereotypically male colours. If I had
more time I would try to change the colours slightly to give them a less harsh more
female look. As well as this I dislike the way that the article stands out against the rest
of the booklet for not having a blue background and green border, although this could
have made the article harder to read it would have made my booklet flow much better
and pulled everything into the same style.
15.
16. Although my article dose not fit completely with the style of my booklet it looks like a
real article. On the right hands side is a read article and on the left is my article, a
similarity that I can see is that both have white backgrounds. This is because it makes
the article much easier to read, it means that the reader dose not have to strain their
eyes to read it. This is a running theme through most written articles as people wont
read something if it is hard to see. As well as this another aspect that is similar is that
both articles use real images, this is because they better represent the subject that the
article is about. However not all articles chose to use real images, some chose to use
graphics, it usually depends on what the subject of the article is.
One thing that is very different about these two articles is the spacing of the words, in
my article there is lots of space around each word, in the other article all the words
are very close together and they are a lot smaller, this could be because the designer
of the article only had a certain amount of pages to fit the article onto and therefore
they had to make the text fit and look good, this could be why the two texts look s
different.
17. On this infographic about vegans in the USA we can see that they have also
used a blue background, I decided to use a blue background because I think
that it connotes nature and vegan food in usually made of naturel ingredients.
This could be one of the reasons that this real infographic chose to use this
colour, as well as this blue is an easy colour to read from. Although this is one
similarity something that stands out that looks different is that there is much
more information on the real infographic and a lot more colour, chose to try
to not include this much information as my infographic would be displayed on
an A4 page, because of this if I had to much information it would make it to
hard to see and read. Also my infographic has much less text compared to the
real one, I chose to use the graphics more to show the information and to use
less text to make my work look interesting and to not have big chunks of text.
18. Skills
What skills have you used?
When I started this project I had never used the program InDesign before, I had to
learn how to use this program to be able to complete my project. I have learnt how to
set up a article and create tag lines and place images into the article, I have also learnt
how to wrap text around the images and create space around the image. As well as
this I have leant how to set up a whole written article and make all the text boxes link
up , so if one section becomes bigger or the text moves because images and tag line
have been place in, that the text will move along in the other boxes making sure that
the article still makes sense and is in the right order. As well as using InDesign I used
Photoshop to create all my assets such as my infographic, fact file and recipe, I have
used Photoshop in the passed for other projects however still continued to develop
my skills. I have learnt how to set out an infographic and link layers so that when I
transform them they all stay in the same place and become bigger or smaller at the
same time. I have also learnt how to create more accurate rotorscopes that look more
realistic and have more detail, I used these to create the faces of farm animals, I then
used these in the fact file and infographic to represent the animals and to add a bit of
colour and something more interesting for the audience to look at.
19. Areas for improvement
If you were to restart this project or had more time to improve it, what would you change?
One thing that I would change would be the way that I have set out the article, the rest of
my booklet all has the same colour scheme of blue and green however this is not used in
the article. To improve my booklet I would make sure that it had a running colour scheme
throughout the whole booklet that was consistent and relevant. As well as this I feel that
some of the points that are made in the article are a big long winded. These points could
have been made using shorter sentences with less words, I think that in some cases the
reader may lose interest, this would be another thing that I would improve if I had the time.
For my colour scheme I chose a green and a blue colour, I felt that these fit the topic and
the themes of my booklet, however they do not fit the female target audience. Because the
colours I have chosen are stereotypically male colours this dose not always attract the
female audience. If I were to restart my project I would use more traditionally female colors
I my colour scheme to make sure that they would be more attracted to it.
Editor's Notes
Production schedule, Paper booklet,
Technical – InDesign
Creative – how did you make it interesting and look good, infographic, fact file, lay out
Why you chose the subject
What you like and don’t like about it- how you would improve
Infogrpahic, which images you used why?
Fact file
Rescapie -- why did you chose to design these in this way. Use lots of images.
Colour scheme + flow
InDesign, Photoshop, what have you learnt and what have you used