Factual Evaluation

1. L3 Creative Media
Production & Technology
Year Two Evaluation Template

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?
For my factual project, I created a fanzine based around the music industry. It includes articles such as major label vs independent,
gender inequality in the music industry, how social media and streaming services influences the music industry and an interview with
an independent artist. The intention of the fanzine was for it to be informative about different aspects of the music industry. What
attracted me to this theme was my interest in music. I enjoy listening to music often and have always been interested in learning
about other aspects of the music industry behind the scenes. The overall theme of my project is the reality of the music industry, and
that although things may seem glamourous from an outsider's perspective, there are also a lot of struggles while in this industry. For
example, as an audience we only get to see an artists' music releases, promotion and touring whereas in reality more work goes into
being in the music industry whilst also being at risk of being exploited, not earning enough from their work, limitations from
contracts. My fanzine shows a more realistic side of the music industry as opposed to the lavish lifestyle that is often promoted.
What attracted me to this theme, as I said earlier, was my interest in the music industry and want to gain more knowledge in these
aspects. My project will help inform other music enthusiasts like myself the more realistic side to the music industry and how it isn't
always as simple as solely making music and then releasing it.

5. How did you develop and improve your
ideas throughout the project?
When I was first planning my fanzine and the articles, I had originally intended on
it to focus on solely the negative aspects of the music industry. However, as I was
researching to write my articles and began the process of writing articles, I
thought it would be more interesting to write about the music industry as a
whole and shows both sides of each topic. An example of this is with my 'Major
label vs Independent' article. I had originally intended for it to focus on the
negatives of a major label and promote being independent. However, after my
research, I decided it would be better to show both the positives and negatives
of each and let the audience decide for themselves, although it is still implied
with the color scheme for going independent being green and the major label
side being red. The process of making the fanzine overall helped develop and
improve my ideas, as I was working through each page it helped me gain
inspiration for the next. Looking at different fanzines on 'Issuu' about topics such
as social media, gender inequality, etc. And seeing how those articles were
displayed also helped me with inspiration. For example, the front cover of a
fanzine called 'Real Virtuality, Generation Z on Social Media' by 'Miquel Pulido'
gave me inspiration for my article about social media page. I liked their concept of
their layout being in a phone, so I decided to recreate my own version to fit my
own article and color scheme.

6. What research did you undertake and how did it help develop your project, what
was the outcome of the project/task?
To start off my research, I looked into general fanzines online to help me get a general idea on how fanzines look in comparison to magazines and
the different layouts. After deciding the topic for my fanzine, I started looking into other music fanzines on 'Issuu', fanzines such as 'DIY Magazine',
'Loud And Quiet' and 'Tom Tom' were my main inspirations for my own fanzine. These magazines were very creative, and each page had different styles
and layouts. The July issue of DIY Magazine inspired my front cover page with the polaroid pictures. For my articles, I read a variety of news articles
and magazine articles online about each of the topics so I could learn a wide range of information to write for each article.
The outcome of this project was that I created a factual fanzine about behind the scenes of the music industry. It is informative and tells the audience
about different aspects and issues that go on such as gender inequality, issues with record label contracts, streaming services and social media. It
is targeted to music enthusiasts and the age group 18-25.

7. 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.

8. How did you feel about the project before you started, and how did you
feel when it was completed?
Before I started the project, I felt prepared and ready to start production. However, as it had been a long time since the FMP and a long
summer break, I was slightly worried that I would have not been able to use Photoshop properly, but I was able to use the production
experiments during the planning stage to get used to the software again. I was also looking forward to having more creative freedom in
comparison to last year as I was able to choose the topic of my project and how I wanted to present it.
When I had completed the project, I felt accomplished that I had finished the first project of the year. I enjoyed creating my fanzine
and watching my planning come to life. It was also helpful to have creative freedom with a fanzine, so I was able to experiment and try
different styles and design ideas for my pages.

9. What do you think about your project development and how did it help
you to refine your idea?
In project development, my research helped refine my idea. At the very beginning when I was researching fanzines in general, I was struggling
to find inspiration for how I would like my own fanzine to be presented. However, as I did deeper research into music fanzines specially, I was
able to get inspiration from fanzines such as ‘DIY Magazine’ and see their creative techniques. Researching the different topics of my articles
also helped me refine my idea, whilst writing the articles I was able to brainstorm different ideas and as my articles developed, quotes
throughout and statistics helped me visualise how I would like this text to be presented on the pages and inspire the overall result.

10. Did you collaborate on your project or engage contributors, etc.?
For my fanzine we were required to do an interview. I wanted to interview an independent artist to find out about their experience in
industry. I contacted singer 'James the Seventh' on Instagram and she was able to be part of my interview. She sent detailed answers in
response to each question which allowed me to make two double page spreads for my interview. For those interview pages, I used
images from her Instagram and music videos to make photos with different creative effects. For the color scheme I focused on the
colors throughout her music video 'Double Edged Sword' so that the pages would be fitting with the artist and their brand.
I enjoyed collaborating with someone else for this project. Being able to communicate with an artist and talk about what they are
passionate about benefited me and help me gather inspiration for my own work.

11. 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

12. 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]
• A good point about my project was that I was able to research and learn more about a topic that interested me, I got to learn information
about different aspects of the music industry and how they affect artists. This was beneficial as I was interested in the subject, which in
turn, inspired the different ideas of my fanzine pages and made me more eager to create and present my articles during the production
stage.
• I was able to independently work on this factual project with creative freedom to make a fanzine about a subject of my choice and present
it in a unique way. This was helpful as it taught me to work more independently, especially during the planning and research stages in
preparation for production. I was also able to look at my own strengths and weaknesses with Photoshop and then learned different
techniques during the production experiments stage. This will be beneficial to me when working on my FMP, and even after college, as I am
gaining experience working on a project and building my portfolio.
• A positive thing about this project was that I was able to communicate with an independent artist and interview them for my fanzine. This
was beneficial because it helped develop my communication skills when I had to contact the artist and arrange this interview. This also
helped me gain experience which will benefit me when working in media later on as I will know how to contact and communicate with
potential clients or co-workers.

13. What challenges did you face and
how did you respond to them? Try
and think of at least 3...
• One challenge I faced was losing all my work halfway through the project. Whilst working
on production, I was saving all my work onto my desktop. However, during the half term,
the computers were wiped so I lost everything I had made so far. Luckily, I had screenshots
of my progress for my production log saved onto OneDrive. During the weekend, I spent
time recreating all the work I had lost to make sure I wasn't behind in lesson. Next time, I
will make sure to always keep my work saved onto OneDrive, so I am always able to access
it.
• Another challenge was that I struggled with how I wanted to layout my text on the pages.
Specifically with my first interview double page, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how
I would like to space the interview questions out around the different images. To help
resolve this issue, I added rectangle shapes and moved them around to show different
concept layouts to help me decide how all the text would fit. Doing this made me realize
that my interview page would be better across two pages.
• Near the end of production, when creating my back cover, I had issues trying to fit
the background text across the whole page. This is because, when creating the
image design, I followed a tutorial that had me fit the image into a square. However, I
changed my mind when adding my image onto the back cover, whenever I pasted the text,
it was not even between them all and it stood out. To fix this, I brought the image up
slightly, so that the bottom half of the photo with the cover star is slightly higher and then
faded it out to black so that the text would be able to fit evenly behind her.

14. What were the negative points about the experience, and what could
you have done to improve them?
• One negative point about this experience was that I lost my work halfway through production. This was because I saved my work on my
desktop at college before half term and the computers were wiped whilst I was away. This meant that I had to redo everything so far
halfway through production, so I had not a lot of time to finish the fanzine. To resolve this, next time I will make sure to upload all my files
onto OneDrive and save backups to ensure that none of my work can go missing. This will mean that I won’t be struggling for time halfway
through the project again.
• Another negative is that throughout the production stage I had quite poor time management which led to me having to remove my
contents page that I had planned. I also didn’t stick to my schedule as I was eager to present my interview page as soon as I got my
interview back. Although I started the production stage making my pages and writing articles alongside, I ended up having to go a lot of
work from home halfway through after losing my work on my computer. Next time, I will make sure to stick to my schedule, as well as make
backups like I said previously to prevent any missing work. I would also start writing my articles before production started in the future so I
can be prepared to go straight into creating the pages.
• A negative aspect of my fanzine is the glitch text. Although I like the look of the glitch text for each article title as it is eye catching and
consistent throughout, I would have liked to have used a variation of text effects for each page to better present my Photoshop skills in this
fanzine. Next time, during the production experiments stage, I would make sure to watch tutorials on various text effects so I can find more
creative ways to present the article titles in the future.

15. How would you rate the final piece? [think along the lines of poor,
satisfactory, good or excellent...justify your rating]
I would say that my project is around satisfactory or good. This is because, although it is a whole fanzine with a consistent theme, layout and
color scheme, there are a few aspects that I feel could be added or improved to make it excellent. Firstly, next time I would add a contents page
and author's note to introduce the fanzine and highlight each of the pages. I would also add more pages with more creative edits of different
artists or introduce the articles in more unique ways, this is because I see this featured in the music fanzines that I researched, and it adds
more to the fanzine and keeps the audiences interest throughout. If I had more time or better time management, I would make sure to add
this next time. However, I still think it is a creative music fanzine that would attract my target audience and I am happy with the fanzine pages
that I created and how I was able to make them come to life after the planning stage.

16. How well did your project apply the
characteristics and conventions of the
medium you worked in?
Fanzines generally have similar characteristics and conventions of magazines.
However, fanzines are open to more creative freedom in comparison to
magazines. Magazines are more structured with their layout and have to follow
the set conventions like with their front cover, it must include cover lines,
masthead, date and issue. I feel my fanzine fit the conventions of a magazine
and fanzine quite well. My front cover has a masthead, coverline, cover star,
date and issue just like a magazine conventions. Whilst throughout my fanzine,
the articles and images are displayed in a more creative unique way. I used a
variation of Photoshop techniques to create different image and text styles, a
main theme throughout was the glitch effect that I added to different images
and text. One of my articles, about 'Social Media's Impact on the Music
Industry', is displayed with one page as an iPhone icon screen, whilst the rest of
my article is shown as 'tweets'. This as an example of how fanzines are more
creatively presented and how I followed the same conventions.

17. How did you design appeal to your target audience?
My design appealed to my target audience because firstly, a fanzine is a publication shared by enthusiasts of a specific subject for the
enjoyment of other enthusiasts. My fanzine fits this purpose as my target audience is for other music enthusiasts. Other music fanzines,
according to my research, also have a variety of different photo and text effects throughout to make it bold and unique and grab the audience's
attention. There is also variation in colour schemes and style, so no page is exactly the same. My main inspiration was music fanzine 'DIY
Magazine', these also have the same target audience as my fanzine. My front cover is eye catching and presents the cover star of the fanzine in
different polaroid photos. The masthead with the title has a subtle glitch effect that remains a consistent theme throughout. Several of my
screenshots of other fanzines that I were inspired by also had this glitch effect throughout various pages. The bold, bright colours and the glitch
effect text on the quotes attracts my audience as it makes the pages stand out and draw their interest into the articles. Also, the articles all
being centered around different aspects of the music industry will also attract my target audience.

18. 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.

19. In what ways was the overall project a success?
The overall project was a success because I was able to achieve the task we were set to do and complete a factual fanzine. I started out by
researching into what fanzines are and how they differ from magazines, I learned that they were more abstract in their design meaning I could
take a more creative approach to this project. I then analysed four fanzines that I were mainly inspired by and wanted to create a similar style
for my fanzine. During production experiments, I created 3 different images on Photoshop to learn techniques about clipping masks, glitch
effects and editing lighting as I would end up using these techniques in the fanzine, I also did a practice interview prior to my fanzine interview
which helped me gain experience writing interview questions allowing me to create a successful fanzine interview and present it in the style
that matches the artists aesthetic. After, I went on to plan, in detail about how I would like my front cover and article pages to look and what
each page would include, I also made a schedule. This planning and research in advance helped me not only get a better understanding in the
product I was creating, but also to help me be more prepared ready for production. I was able to successfully create a 16-page fanzine about
my chosen topic, the music industry, with each page demonstrating a variety of Photoshop techniques and creatively presented, also meeting
the deadline.

20. How did your skills develop during the portfolio? [remember, skills
aren't just technical, remember things like organization, time
management, communication, etc. as well]
My organisational skills definitely improved in comparison to my previous projects last year. This project had me working more independently
as I had to conduct my own research into fanzines overall and target my research to be relevant to my own project. I improved my
communication skills as I had to contact an independent artist and arrange an interview for my fanzine, as well as conducting a spoken
interview in class during the production experiments stage. I had to work on my time management skills overall as during the production stage
I had to do more work from home to ensure I met the deadline. My technical skills also improved during this project as I felt out of practice as I
had not worked on Photoshop since before the summer, but I was able to work on my skills and improve throughout, I found working with the
pen tool to be easier and more precise than the quick selection tool, which allowed me to work quicker when cutting different things out of
photos. I was also able to experiment overall with a different more colourful style in comparison to my FMP last year which has a dark theme
with a black and green colour scheme.

21. What meaning and messages did you want to convey and were you
successful?
With this fanzine I wanted to convey that, although the music industry may seem very glamourous and overall enjoyable experience, there are
aspects that are maybe not so positive about it or issues that artists have to face and how much hard work they have to put into their music. It
shows the reality of the music industry and educates music enthusiasts or those interested in a career behind the scenes about different issues
that they may be dealing with in industry. I feel I was successful in this and spoke about a variation of different topics that affect larger and
smaller groups of people such as signed artists vs independent, or women in the music industry.

22. What would you do differently in the future and why?
In the future I would have better time management to allow me to make more pages for my fanzine. Because I didn’t backup my work and had
to spend extra time redoing the lost work, I had to sacrifice my contents page, I was also hoping to have made more artistic pages of different
artists to go in between the articles but I ran out of time in order to meet the deadline. In the future, I would write the articles prior to officially
starting production so I am ready to add them straight to the pages, and I would also accurately follow my schedule in order to stay organised.

23. Action Plan
This section will identify what you would do differently in the future and
identify ways you could develop.

24. If you were making a similar project in the future, what would you do
differently?
If I were making a similar project in the future, I would be more prepared and start writing articles immediately after researching each topic. I
would also be at an advantage as I have knowledge about fanzines and music fanzines from this project from conducting research about the
subject. I would also plan in advance in more detail how I would like my pages to look, making a layout plan would be beneficial to show
vaguely how I would like the fanzine pages to look and allow me to visualise it prior to production. I would also experiment with a variation of
text effects and poster designs to allow me to demonstrate a wide range of skills and have each page being a different theme, keeping the
audience intrigued. When planning my schedule, I would be more accurate as to how long each double page would take me and accommodate
for that time frame and make sure to accurately follow this schedule.

25. 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.
To develop my skills for future projects, I could create more experiments for photo and text effects. YouTube has a variety of free videos that
teach this, including short courses in Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, etc. It would also be beneficial for me to develop my skills in other
software apart from Photoshop so I can work on a variety of software which may be beneficial or easier for my next projects or FMP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyR_uYsRdPs - Adobe Photoshop for Beginners (Envato Tuts+)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ib8UBwu3yGA - Adobe Illustrator for Beginners (Envato Tuts+)
https://youtu.be/RXRT3dHu6_o - Adobe InDesign for Beginners (Envato Tuts+)
https://youtu.be/Lo6RxFD5cds - 5 Creative Photoshop Text Effects + Styles (Always Creating)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KzRm_W-wtk&list=WL&index=52&t=51s - Liquid Text Effect for llustrator + Photoshop (Always Creating)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfyUsW2xNSo&list=WL&index=3 - 1960s Psychedelic Poster Tutorial (Blue Lightning TV)

26. What personal attributes could you develop to ensure you are working
at a professional level?
Personal attributes I could develop to be more professional is my organisational and time management skills. Whilst leading up to my FMP, I
will be trying to be more organised with my work and presenting it, so I have less to do from home and backing up my files to make sure I don’t
lose any previous work, as well as developing my time management so I am able to create everything I had planned in time for the deadline.
This will benefit me and help me be more professional as organisation and time management are key skills that are needed when working in
the media industry and I will need to be able to think and work fast and meet short deadlines.