2. Evaluation Overview
This evaluation form is designed to assist you in the evaluation of your projects.
When using this form it is good practice to:
• Use appropriate terminology.
• Stay concise and focus on key points.
• Evaluate and analyse your statements.
• Focus on judgements about work rather than telling a story of how it was made.
Please find the grading matrix here to help you assess you are working at the right level.
Level 3 Extended Diploma Grading Matrix - https://bit.ly/2Jnqj3v
3. Project Overview
In this section you will outline the aim of the project/task and give an
overview of the activates you undertook to complete it.
4. What was the theme of your project and
what attracted you to it?
The theme of my project was vivienne westwood. I was attracted to this because I
am very interested in vivienne westwood and thought I would enjoy every aspect
of this even the research. Another reason why I decided to make my fanzine on
vivienne westwood was because I am interested in doing fashion photography at
university so I thought this would be a good way to become more knowledgeable
on this fashion designer.
5. What research did you undertake and how
did it help develop your project?
When doing my research I made sure to research a wide variety of existing
products in order to make sure I knew what I needed to include in my fanzine. I
started off by looking at production methods of fanzines, for example what style
they are made in, what colours and fonts were most used and the basic structure of
a fanzine. I then looked at a various existing products to see what sort of things I
liked and wanted to include when making mine. I then did some subject research
on Vivienne westwood herself and her work so I knew what information I needed
to include.
6. How did you develop and improve your ideas
throughout the project?
I developed a few ideas throughout the project that I felt like didn’t work when it
came to the production of it. For example I changed the order of my pages as It
didn’t look how I wanted it to. I also changed the Vivienne westwood punk era
page as I thought it was too text heavy and I wanted it to be of a graphic page. I
think that these changes made my fanzine look a lot better and give off the
aesthetic I wanted more.
7. What was the outcome of the project/task?
I created a 12 page fanzine on Vivienne Westwood. The majority of my pages were
more visual rather than just purely information as I didn’t want it to be too text
heavy. I created various pages on vivienne westwood for example I showcased a
few of her fashion shows, showed different westwood eras, gave an insight to her
and talked a bit about the brand. I edited various images and cut them out in order
to achive a scrapbook style which I think turned out very well as it was personal
and had a niche look to it. I think the outcome of my fanzine overall was good and I
am pleased with it however if I did have more time I would probably have tweaked
a few pages.
8. Personal Response
This section will explore your thoughts and feelings about the
experience. This will help gain a understand of how your personal
feelings may have impacted the final outcome.
9. How did you feel about the project before
you started?
I was quite looking forward to this project as I enjoy the print side and I enjoy
making magazines and posters etc. I also liked the fact that I could base it on
something I was actually interested in rather than something I had no interest in
whatsoever. This meant that I even enjoyed the research side of it aswell as I was
researching about something I genuinley had a passion in . I think the fact I enjoyed
doing the research reflected in my final product as I didn’t mind putting in the time
and effort to make it really good as it was something I was interested in .
10. What do you think about your project development and
how did it help you to refine your idea?
My project development was good as to start with, when I was
researching exsisting products I was just looking at fanzines in general
and not research specifically to the genre of fanzine I wanted to do.
However later on I narrowed down the research and started looking at
specifically fashion fanzines which really helped me know what I had to
include to target my audience.
11. Did you collaborate on your project or engage
contributors, etc?
In terms of collaborations To start with I was going to go to the
castle museum and speak to the person who was In charge of setting
up the vivienne westwood exhibition however because of my poor
time management I did not get this sorted in time. Instead I spoke to a
fashion student about vivienne westwood and the effect of westwoods
products and later wrote that up in an interview style.
12. How did you feel when the project was
completed and why?
I had mixed emotions once I finished my project as I did really like the outcome as I
felt it hit the brief well and I enjoyed the visuals and editing in it. however I thought
I could have done a lot better. I felt like this as I was comparing my fanzine to the
magazines I have created in the past and although there are some similarities
between a fanzine and a magazine I need to realise that they are also very different
and this was my first time creating a fanzine. I think if I practiced more and created
a few more fanzines they would turn out a lot better.
13. Evaluating the project
In the previous sections, you have been commenting upon the project development. The
evaluation may include some similar information but it will also include critical comment.
An evaluation must include information about the good and bad points of the project and it
is important to be honest. Finally, you should make a judgment about the effectiveness of
the success of the project
14. What were the good points about the project/task and what did you
learn from them? [try and think of at least 3, more if possible]
One good point about this task is that we could decide what we wanted to do it on,
this was great as in the past we have been given projects with a specific topic and it
has become quite tedious when creating it as it is something I was not interested
in. I have learnt that if you are working on something you enjoy creating and have a
passion for, your work will be better as you wont get bored and will enjoy making it.
Another good thing about this was I loved how creative you could get with it as it
wasn’t a traditional magazine structure you could create it exactly how you wanted
it and include anything you wanted. Also it was great speaking to a fashion student
all about vivienne westwood because, even though I did a lot of research, I got to
see it from a different perspective and get a different insight on her and her work.
15. What challenges did you face and how did you
respond to them? Try and think of at least 3...
One challenenge I faced when creating my project was the fact that I wanted to
hand draw a lot of my images as when researching exsisting products this is a style I
really liked. However I am not the best at rawing and I had to use a graphics pad
which at the start was very hard to understand how it work and what technique
was best, however as I began to use it everyday I got to grips with it and I think in
the end my drawings came out just how I wanted them. Another challenge I faced
was my time magangement, towards the end of this project a few of the back pages
were rushed in order to complete the deadline, I feel like this shows and if I had
time I would go back and redo these pages to a higher standard. As I said a few of
my pages were rushed, I think my organisational skills werent the best as I didn’t do
as much planning as I should have for these pages, therefore if I had done more
planning maybe I would have known exactly what was going to go on them so I
didn’t have to waste time thinking about this when I could have been producing it.
16. What were the negative points about the
experience, and what could you have done to
improve them?
One negative point about my fanzine was that the behind the logo page
did not turn out how I had planned for it to but I think this was because
of poor time management. I feel like these pages just look out of place
and don’t fit the general aesthetic of the fanzine as it has a more
professional look rather than a scrapbook style to it. Another negative
point was that on my back page I feel as though it looks quite rushed
and although I had a clear plan of what I wanted to achieve I feel like I
didn’t portray this as good as I could have done.
17. How would you rate the final piece? [think along the lines of
poor, satisfactory, good or excellent...justify your rating]
I think my final piece was satisfactory as I hit everything on the brief and created a
fanzine that included the conventions it needed in order to be a fanzine rather than
a magazine. I think my final piece was good because it had a scrapbook style, which
when planning, this is exactly how I wanted it to turn out. I think some parts of
my product are better than others, for example I think my front cover was very
thought out and therefore turned out really well, however some other pages, for
example the 'about the logo' page was not very thought out as I didn’t have an
exact plan for page and I think this is shown in the final product as I feel it doesn’t
really fit in with the scrapbook style and if I had more time this is something I
would change.
18. What is your opinion of your final piece? What
elements do you think are successful and why?
In my opinion the overall aesthetic of my final piece was what I had in mind and I
think it works really well and looks how a fanzine should look. One of my favourite
pages in the fanzine is the timeline page. Even though it is quite simple I think it has
achieved the scrapbook style and looks like it has been cut out and stuck in the
fanzine which is what I love about it. I also really like my front cover I think the
editing I did on the picture of vivienne westwood works really well and has a very
cool look to it.
19. How well did your project apply the characteristics
and conventions of the medium you worked in?
My fanzine applies the characteristics and conventions of a fanzine quite well. For
example on the pages where there is writing I make sure it wasn’t in the traditional
column layout or anything close to it was nothing like a magazine. I really enjoyed
creating it like this as It meant that I could get very creative with it and didn’t have
to stick to the traditional layouts. I also used cut out letters etc to get the scrapbook
style that a fanzine has, I also wanted to make it look quite rough in a way so I
added a lot of torn paper effects to achieve this.
20. How did you design appeal to your target
audience?
To appeal my fanzine to my target audience which was 16-24 year olds I thought a
lot about what I would have wanted to read about and see in a fanzine. I decided to
do mainly visual pages and lay off the writing a little bit as, being a 16-24 year old
myself, I know if the fanzine was too heavy on the writing it would not appeal to
me. As vivienne westwood is a fashion designer I wanted to showcase as much of
her work as possible aswell in my fanzine. I think my fanzine also appealed to my
audience as I chose a very 'on trend' designer. The majority of 16-24 year olds now
wear a lot of vivienne westwoods work, whether that be clothes or jewellry and if
they don’t they at least know who she is. I thought this would appeal to my
audience more than a fashion designer they had never heard of before.
21. Analysis
In this section, you will focus on the details of the project and make
sense of what happened in the project. You should demonstrate how
your decisions informed the project development and the success of the
outcome.
22. In what ways was the overall project a
success?
My overall project was a success as I managed to hit all of the brief and
I made a fanzine that targetted my audience well. It was also a success
as I kept the scrapbook style all the way throughout my fanzine and it
had a very personal DIY look to it which is exactly what I wanted to
achieve. Another way my project was a success was good as all the
drawings I did turned out just how I wanted them and even though it
was a struggle at the start working out how the graphics tablet worked
I was very proud of them in the end.
23. What elements did not go well and why?
One part of my fanzine that did not go well was my time mangement, I
did not manage my time well as I took too much time creating the front
cover to my fanzine and I did not leave myself enough time to create all
the pages up to this standard. I also think my planning could have been
better especially the page planning as I did them quite vauge and when
it came to production I struggled abit with what actually to include in
my pages.
24. How did your skills develop during the portfolio? [remember,
skills aren't just technical, remember things like organisation,
time management, communication, etc as well]
Some skills I developed through this project was my editing skills on
photoshop. I learnt how to edit my photos so it had different filters and
effects on it. Another thing I learnt how to do quite well was the
polygonal lasso tool. This is how I created the cut outs on my pages. I
also developed my interview skills and formed better and more
interesting questions from this project as the brief stated we had to
include a interview.
25. What meaning and messages did you want to
convey and were you successful?
The message I wanted to convey through my fanzine is that fashion is
timeless and I also wanted to show what effect westwood has had in
the fashion industry over the years. I think I was successful in conveying
this as I showed the evolution of her work and I compared modern day
fashion to some older eras of her work for example the punk era to
show she still includes elements of punk fashion into her modern day
creations.
26. What feedback did you get from your peers
and viewings?
One good piece of advice I got about my work was that the front cover was
very well edited, inviting for the reader and encapsulates the essence of
vivienne westwood. Another good piece of advice I got was that my timeline
was very well made . My peers said that it was very authentic and fit in
completley with my theme I was going for, they especially liked how I cut out
different patterns and placed them underneath all the catwalks I was
showing.
One negative piece of advice I got was that the drawing I did of vivienne
westwood just looked a little bit out of place and needed either some writing
around it or at least some context to it. I knew that this drawing went hand
in hand with the 'about vivienne westwood' page however they said this was
unclear to them until I told them so next time maybe make it more ovbious.
27. What would you do differently in the future
and why?
In the future I will make sure to manage my time better as I felt very
rushed at the end of my project and I feel like this reflected in my work.
In order to maintain better time management I will make a consious
effort to create a better time plan and be more strict on myself when it
comes to deadlines so I do not fall behind. Another thing I would do if I
had the time would be go back to my planning and figure out a specific
colour scheme I would stick to throughout the whole fanzine so it fit
better and pages didn’t look out of place. Even though this doesn’t
matter as such in a fanzine I think some of my pages are too different
to one another and doesn’t look great.
28. What knowledge have you gained that would help you in the
future to improve your project? Also, what knowledge from
academic literature and professionals has helped and why?
By doing this project I have gained a lot of knowledge about vivienne
westwood herself and more specifically all about th different eras and
how they were created which was very interesting to research about.
I also gained a better insite to the influence she has had on modern
that fashion when I talked to Lucy, the fashion student, for my
interview, it was really great getting to here her opinions from a fashion
student point of view. As I had no idea the great influence she has had
on many things.
29. Action Plan
This section will identify what you would do differently in the future and
identify ways you could develop.
30. If you were making a similar project in the
future, what would you do differently?
If I was making another fanzine I would definitley push the boat out
more and take a more unique/quirky approach to it and make
something completley different to anything anyone has made before as
I felt like sometimes I was being too profesional with my pages and
some pages looked more like a magazine and less niche which is what I
was going for. Another thing I would do differently would be the
drawing I think if I were to create something like that again I would use
tools on photoshop and create it in a more cartoony way.
31. How could you develop your skills for future projects? Please
identify the appropriate resources and courses. For example,
webpages, tutorials, books, short courses and qualifications.
In the future to develop my skills I think I could have definitley read a
few of viviennes books or even listened to her podcast to sort of get to
know her more so when researching I would have a greater
understanding into different things. Another thing which would
probably help me in the future is looking at different tutorials of how to
do different things on photoshop so I could create some new work so it
was less samey as I stuck to mainly drawings when it came to visuals
and it would have been nice to do something slightly different to break
it up .
32. What personal attributes could you develop to
ensure you are working at a professional level?
To ensure I am working at a proffesional level I will develop my
planning skills which will help stay on track with my time management
and means I will be able to take my time more, not rush and work to
the best of my ability. Another thing I will develop is my photography
skills as in this project I did not use any original images so next time I
think that is something I should include to achieve a higher grade. I will
also work on my interview skills as I feel like the interview in this
project could have been better and I should have had more questions
in order for it to look more professinal. Also by doing more interviews it
means the questions will come more naturally to me as I will know
what kind of things are interesting to ask.
