Section 3 of my coursework evaluation

1. “What have you learnt about technologies
from the process of constructing this
product?”

2. Technology
While creating my product, technology was very helpful in
the areas of:
• Editing pictures
• Research
• Putting the final product together
• Feedback

3. Technology- Editing pictures
In order to make my magazine look professional, I had to ensure that the images I used
looked good. To edit my pictures, I used a website called Picnik. This was especially useful
for ‘touch up’ tools, which I made great use of.
As shown here, I could use the eye colour editing tool to change Penny
(my model)’s eye colour. I had fun manipulating the image, and made
Penny’s eyes a brighter blue for the cover photo.
Penny’s eyes (original)
Penny’s eyes (on front cover)

4. Technology- Editing pictures
As well as editing eye colour, I used the mascara tool to make penny’s
eyes more bold and defined, so that they really stood out in the
pictures.

5. Technology- Editing pictures
I found that something as simple as editing contrast and exposure can make a huge
difference to how a picture looks. By using Picnik, I was able to make images look bolder
and brighter.
I really like this photo because it is full of colour. Since I photographed it myself, I
decided to use it in my magazine. To give it an extra burst of colour, I turned up the
exposure and the contrast, which made a huge difference, as shown above.

6. Technology - Research
Research was essential to creating my product, as it allowed me to look at the different styles of music
magazines, and ensure that I used the same codes and conventions. Throughout this coursework task, I
constantly referred to Google and Wikipedia to make sure I was on the right track.

7. Designing my product
I started off the process by making a ‘template’- a sample magazine with pictures of celebrities rather than
my own images. This allowed me to see how many pictures I could fit on each page, how the layout
worked, etc.
I drew out some ideas
of how I wanted
“Penexo” to be
By creating this
written. I wanted to
template, I was able
use a different font to
to try out different
make it look like a
layouts, even
logo, and distinguish
though I hadn’t
the artist amongst the
taken any
others.
photographs yet. I
spent a few hours
playing around this
way before taking I also made a sample contents page and
my original images. double page spread, using images of existing
musicians.

8. Technology – Making My Video
I wanted to make a video to go on my media blog. However, I did not want to merely shoot a video of
myself talking to the camera about my product. I thought about what kind of video I should make, and
eventually settled on making an advert for my magazine. I wanted the advert to be appropriate for
internet or televisual viewing.
To create my advert, I used Windows Live Movie Maker. I found this program relatively easy to use. After making
a few mistakes, I started to get to grips with how to use it to insert pictures, text and music into my video. When I
became more confident, I put various effects on the transitions to make the whole video run smoother. Using a
program that was unfamiliar to me was daunting, but I enjoyed the challenge. I worked on my video for
hours, and am very happy with the final result. The link to the video is displayed on my media blog.

9. Comic Life- Pros and Cons
The Positive
I really liked this tool on the
bottom right. It allowed me to
access my folders and simply
drag pictures from there onto
the magazine. This made it
quicker as I had all of my
photographs right there next
to the magazine the whole
time I was working on it.

10. Comic Life- Pros and Cons
The Positive
Comic Life was extremely flexible, and offered a
tool that allowed me to change the shapes of
words. In the end, I did not use this tool in my
magazine as I wanted everything to look
straight, but it did open my eyes to how much
difference this can make.

11. Comic Life- Pros and Cons
The Positive
My favourite part of Comic Life was the fact
that it managed to keep the quality of my
images high, even when the images were
stretched out to quite a large size. Most of the
time, increasing the size of the image makes it
blurry, but on Comic Life, the image stayed
high quality, which was essential to the
appearance of my magazine.

12. Comic Life- Pros and Cons
The Negative
One thing that irritated me about
comic life was the fact that when text
boxes overlapped, selecting one often
meant that the other would become
selected as well. This meant that I was
sometimes moving around more than I
wanted to, and had to put the feature
back in its original place and start
again. This greatly slowed down the
process of creating my magazine.

13. Comic Life- Pros and Cons
The Negative
Another fault of Comic Life that made it extremely hard to work with was the
fact that it sometimes closed for no reason. I often found myself having to re
do half an hour’s worth of work because the program had crashed. Plus, it
sometimes failed to save my document, and I had to go through very long
processes to ensure that my work had saved each time. However, I managed
to work through these problems and complete my magazine to a standard
that I was extremely happy with.

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

15. Progression from Preliminary Task
For my preliminary task, I used Comic Life, as a friend had recommended it to me. I
did find it difficult to use at first, and I was glad that I had the chance to practice
using the program before starting work on my main task.
During the main task, I learnt a lot about editing photos to make them appear more
professional, and how to put together a colour scheme that worked. In the
preliminary task, my writing was often hard to read, as I had not spent enough time
trying to find a font that worked well.
I also learnt about how crucial the layout is, as it can be the difference between a full
looking magazine, and one that has lots of gaps and appears empty.
Another big lesson I learned was the fact that even the tiniest details make a huge
difference. For example, changing the position of a picture even slightly can
dramatically adjust the appearance of the magazine.

16. All in all, I am extremely happy with my finished
product. I put in a lot of hard work- more than I
would have predicted- but I think that it has
paid off.