The Grid 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 the grid project, we decided to create a digital platform that displays and sells digital art to inspire our target audience to explore more
digital art and be inspired to look into or try graphic design. This meant that we would be creating lots of different pieces on Photoshop for this
website based on a theme. The themes we chose were ‘Illusion’ and ‘The Future’. What attracted me to this was that I have always been drawn
to these themes because of the bright colours, colour schemes, and creativity of each of the different images. Because of this, I wanted to
learn how to make products that fit within that theme.

5. What research did you undertake and how did it help develop
your project?
First, we did audience research. We looked at a variation of different social media platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest etc. We looked at the
average age groups that use these and what is trending currently. This allowed us to find out what things our target audience is interested in
and what social media they use most compared to others. We found out that image-led social media platforms is more popular for a younger
audience, which is beneficial for our project. Then, we researched the topic ‘digital art’ and freelancing as our platform is made for young
digital artists and freelancers. Artstation is a platform similar to our idea, it allows digital 2D and 3D artists to display their portfolio and sell
their art. This helped us get more inspiration for our page. To finish off we created an audience profile to display our research and give a brief
overview of our audience. For the theme, we researched illusion, the future, nature and fantasy in digital art, writing about its origins in art
and how these themes are shown in todays work. This, along with making mood boards, helped us understand the type of products we were
creating for each theme and common trends within these themes that we should follow in our own designs.

6. How did you develop and improve your ideas throughout the
project?
At the start of the project, we wanted to have our website have a nature and fantasy page as well as illusion and future. However, as we
were working through production, we found that we wouldn’t have time to make pieces for each theme and would rather spend more
time making more products for the illusion and future pages, as they also have a similar theme and color scheme. To make our products
we watched YouTube tutorials to learn different skills on Photoshop throughout the project, this allowed us to create better quality images
and demonstrate a wider range of skills. It also helped us get inspiration for what we wanted to make while also remaining consistent with
each theme.

7. What was the outcome of the project/task?
The outcome of the project was that we created a platform/website for The Grid based on an illusion/futuristic theme. The purpose of this
website was to present digital art based on these themes and encourage young digital artists (ages 18-24) to submit their work and promote
their work to help them get into industry. We did audience research to gather more information on what the 18-24 age group are interested in
and the social media platforms they use most. Mood boards and color schemes were created to present our inspiration of how our products
and page would look and we also researched how the theme is presented in digital art so we would be able to work consistently to the
themes. We displayed the images we made in a slideshow style on our website, and we also featured a small online store that would allow the
audience to purchase the work that is presented if it was fully functioning. This would also encourage young freelancers to submit their work
as there is opportunity for them to make profit off of it. Overall, I think we successfully completed the task we were set and created a platform
that caters to our target audience.

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?
Before I started this project, I felt very inspired after finding out the brief and exchanging ideas for a concept with my partner Dodoh. After
completing the fanzine project, I felt confident and prepared as I will be able to demonstrate my Photoshop skills that I have been developing,
as well as have the opportunity to further improve them. This project allowed us both to express our creativity whilst also adhering to a
specific theme(s). As a pair we also had lots of ideas on what products we could make and how it could be displayed so I was excited to have
the opportunity to collaborate with someone else on a project and bring our individual skills and knowledge together to create one final piece.

10. What do you think about your project development and how
did it help you to refine your idea?
When starting the project, we wanted to have a page for each theme of nature, fantasy, illusion and the future. However, as we had two weeks
production, we decided we should spend more time focusing on less pages and create more content for them. The future and illusion as
themes fit together a lot better meaning the pages were able to be more consistent in terms of color schemes, layout and logos. I think nature
and fantasy could fit together for a separate project in the future. Making these changes during production allowed us to have more pieces of
work for each of the pages and at a better quality. We were able to experiment more creatively and try out new skills in Photoshop.

11. Did you collaborate on your project or engage contributors,
etc.?
For this project we didn’t collaborate with anyone externally. As we are creating a digital art platform/website we didn’t require any outside
help such as models, interviewers, etc. to contribute. We created a variety of products on Photoshop, and we were able to do this using
existing images that we got from Pexels (a free stock image website), as well as creating things digitally using the shape tool or adjustment
layers. Although we are working in a team for this overall, the topic we chose allows us to work independently on our own products for the
website and then combine our work later on for the final piece.

12. How did you feel when the project was completed and why?
When the project was completed, I felt accomplished and happy with the overall result. I enjoyed working with Dodoh on this project as we
were able to combine both of our ideas into one final product whilst also demonstrating our abilities creating digital art. I also enjoyed being
able to create a variety of products based on a theme and present what we thought the future and illusion means in digital art. If we had more
production time, I would have liked to have created more things for the website to make it look more professional. I would have developed a
logo for the illusion page that I felt fit the theme better, I would have also created more images to build up the page, as well as content for the
digital store. But considering the time we had and the number of products we made, I am happy with the end result. Ending this project, I feel
more prepared to start my FMP as I feel that I have improved my Photoshop skills even more and will be able to create good quality content for
my final project.

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 the task is that I was able to develop and demonstrate my skills in Photoshop.
Specifically, when creating the futuristic car image, I learned how to create that background scenery
digitally and using shapes instead of existing images. This was beneficial as I have learned how to
create more things independently instead of relying on existing images meaning that my work can
entirely be my own. Experimenting with textures and layer styles also allowed me to add extra effect
onto my images, with my space image for the future page I found this particularly beneficial as it
really completed the image.
• Another good point about this project was that I was able to learn more information about my
target audience. Because an important part of this project was focusing on audience research, I was
able to learn how to really explore my target audience and their interests in order to cater our
website and products to this group. This is beneficial as I will need to be able to gather this
information for my FMP and I have been able to practice and improve my research skills with this
project.
• With this project we had to collaborate with someone to create a final piece. This was beneficial as I
have never had experience working in a group for a project like this before and having to combine
and communicate our ideas to create something that we are both happy with. Working with
someone else helped me gather inspiration from their ideas to create a wide range of products. I
also had to demonstrate communication skills so we both knew what we were working on and what
we wanted to go on the website. It was helpful working with someone else for this project as we
were able to create more products for the website as opposed to working independently, so the
website benefitted with more work submitted. This will also be beneficial for me in the future if I
have to communicate with others to help with my FMP, or when I have to work in a group in
industry after college, I will have some experience on what that will be like.

15. What challenges did you face and how
did you respond to them? Try and think
of at least 3...
• One challenge that I faced was during the research process. At first, I had difficulty trying to find
enough audience research to learn about our target audience and social media. The website
'Statista' helped me a lot as it showed me statistics of each age group and what social media they
use most so I was able to find out about our audiences most used social media and cater our
website style to something similar.
• Another challenge we faced was not having enough time to follow our original plan for the
website. As we were working on production we found that we wouldn’t have time to create
enough content for each theme. To resolve this, we stuck to illusion and the future for our themes
as they also work well together, this allowed us to create more content for these themes that we
were happy with for the end result.
• I found creating the city illusion image challenging at first. This was because I had to cut out parts
of the image in detail to create the illusion background. I found the pen tool was the easiest way
although it was time consuming. I also had issues creating the illusion effect at first as I hadn’t
much experience using the liquify tool in Photoshop. To resolve this, I kept experimenting and
adjusting the pattern until it reached a final stage that I was happy with. Although I had
difficulties at the start with the image I am happy with the end product.

16. What were the negative points about the experience, and what
could you have done to improve them?
• A negative point about the experience was that I struggled with audience research. Although I was able to look into my target audience and
their social media habits in order to create an audience profile, I feel that I could have provided more detail and statistics about my target
audience as a whole and topics they are interested in. This would have improved our research and allowed me to have more knowledge
about the demographic and how we could cater our website to them even more accurately.
• Another negative point was that we had quite a short amount of time for production in terms of what we had originally planned to make.
When we decided on a concept and proposal for the project, I think we planned too large of a platform for the time frame we were given. In
order to create a website at the extent of our original plan, we needed to be better at time management and more organized in making
products ahead of time in preparation. However, we were able to resolve this and focus on detail on two themes that go together quite
well.
• When looking at the products made for the website, I feel like I focused mostly on ‘the future’ theme and made more products for that
page instead of illusion. To improve, I would have made sure to split the topics equally and communicated that within my team so that we
both were able to make a good amount and variety of products for the themes so that when the audience looks at the website it doesn’t
appear as if just one of us had focused on illusion or the future.

17. How would you rate the final piece? [think along the lines of
poor, satisfactory, good or excellent...justify your rating]
In my opinion, I would rate our final piece as good or satisfactory. This is because overall we have managed to create a platform that follows
the brief, as well as catering to our target audience of 18-24 and remains consistent with our planned proposal. Achieving this is what I think
allows our final piece to reach a satisfactory or good rating as there isn’t anything missing or lacking anything. The website follows the
characteristics and conventions of a general website, the home page is made to introduce the website and it’s function, although to make our
rating ‘excellent’, I would have added more features on the home page. Then, there is a menu at the top of the website with hyperlinks that
lead the viewer to different pages where they can explore products that we have made that explore the themes ‘illusion’ and ‘the future’ and
how we perceive them within our own digital art. This is presented well in a slideshow format that showcases the products, there is also text
on the website along with a moving visual in the background that gives a brief overview of each theme. To improve the website as a whole and
to bump the rating to excellent, next time I would make more products for each of the themes so there is more variety. I would also add
something else to the background so it’s not just a plain background and stands out along with the moving ident that is displayed at the top of
the page.

18. What is your opinion of your final piece? What elements do
you think are successful and why?
Overall, I am happy with the final piece. I managed to work with Dodoh and create a website/platform that presents digital art, as well as
remain consistent to our chosen themes and I think we presented these quite well. I believe our project was successful in creating a platform
that would be interesting for our target audience, as well as visually appealing. I think the moving visuals were successful for the website as
they add movement to the pages, as well as something extra that stands out amongst the page. I also think that the products we made for
each theme were successful and we were able to each express our creativity whilst also sticking within the theme for each of the images. This
can show the viewer that different styles of images can be made within this theme that are quite broad, along with different layouts and color
schemes depending on the image whilst also remaining within each of the themes.

19. How well did your project apply the characteristics and
conventions of the medium you worked in?
Overall, I think we followed the characteristics and conventions of our topics quite well. I think we successfully created a website within theme
and within the brief, as well as created work for this platform that stayed consistent within each of their themes. For the website we wanted to
combine both styles. This was quite easy as both styles often have bold, bright or neon colors for their color scheme that contrast with the
background, so this was easier to put together, we made individual logos for each page that fit with their theme, as well as a consistent logo
for the home page and the digital store. Our website follows the characteristics and conventions of a website. It features a home page that
introduces what the website is about and what will be featured, as well as a bar at the top with hyperlinks to access the different pages of the
website. The pages also follow this pattern, with the images of their theme being displayed first, and then writing below about the theme and
a digital store of products similar to the theme. There is also a ‘contact us’ page which allows the audience to email and submit their work to
the website, this is a common feature on other websites and platforms in general which is used for emails or FAQs. We also took inspiration
with the website ‘ArtStation’ which is also a platform that allows creators to submit their work and profit off of it. For the illusion page, we
stayed quite within the theme for that as well as adding our own style. When creating the illusion mood board, I found that the color scheme
was most often bright, bold colors or contrasting colors. For the art style even if the images weren’t specifically illusion, they were made neon
to stand out or in a trippy psychedelic style to draw the audience in. We tried to maintain this style when creating our own artwork for this
page. There is a variety of colors throughout the different images, and I feel that each image follows their own unique style within the illusion
theme. The future as a theme in digital art most commonly features futuristic cityscape images, with neon colors throughout the image and
shades of purple and blue or contrasting red and blue are most common throughout this image style. A lot of the work we created falls into the
cyberpunk sub-genre. We also did some editing city scenery whether to add a space background to the scenery, or to emphasize the neon
signs and adjust the lighting, this is a characteristic that can be seen throughout the future theme.

20. How did you design appeal to your target audience?
Whilst carrying out research, we found that the 18-24 age category most commonly use image-based platforms such as Instagram, Pinterest
and Snapchat. This is what helped inspire us to create a mostly image-based platform to promote digital art. As the brief was to create a youth
focused media platform to allow young people to discuss and explore ideas, we designed our website to encourage young digital artists and
freelancers to submit their work and show off their portfolio, as well as make money from their work. I think the color schemes are quite fitting
to the themes that we chose. Bright colors contrasting a darker background is often a common theme, so our website has a bright logo that
stands out and the images pop against the background. As our target audience prefer image-based platforms, our website presents the images
first, so it grabs the audiences' attention. The products we created for the website would appeal to our target audience as freelancers and
lovers of digital art, they would appreciate seeing different types of content created and it would possibly inspire them to submit their own
work and see it presented for others to see and showcase their skills.

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?
I think the overall project was a success because firstly, we were able to create a product that successfully adheres to the brief. We were
required to work in pairs to create a visual branding for a platform called ‘The Grid’ that follows a specific theme and is designed to attract a
young audience of 16-24. Choosing topics ‘illusion’ and ‘the future’ was beneficial as these two themes were able to go hand in hand so the
website as a whole and the individual pages were all able to be cohesive as one product instead of a different look for each page. We also
successfully created a variety of images on Photoshop that follow these themes as well as visuals on After Effects, which allowed us to combine
our different styles to provide a range of images on the website. This allowed us to equally showcase our individual skills and develop new
skills whilst also working together to create a complete product. To create this platform, we were able to successfully research the individual
themes, along with our target audiences in order to correctly follow the brief and create a final product that remains consistent to each of the
themes whilst also expressing ourselves creatively.

23. What elements did not go well and why?
Elements that did not go well was mainly time management. During the planning/research stage of the project, we had decided that our
platform would also feature digital art that follow the ‘nature’ and ‘fantasy’ theme so that we would have a wider variety of images for the
website. However, we had two weeks of production and during the first week we found that we wouldn’t have enough time to make enough
products for each of the themes, or if we did they would be more rushed and not at a good standard as a lot of the work we had planned for
these themes featured a lot of photo manipulation which can be quite time consuming as we are still developing our Photoshop skills. To
resolve this we decided to halve the themes and focus the entire website as a whole on ‘future’ and ‘illusion’. Although I am happy with the
end product, in the future I would have liked to have created a platform that goes with our original plan. And if we had been more organised
with time management, or started making images before production officially started, we may have had time to create ‘The Grid’ that follows
our original concept most similarly.

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]
During this project, I found that I developed more organisational and communication skills. Because this was a team effort instead of working
independently like I usually do, I had to communicate my ideas with my partner throughout each stage of the project and effectively organise
what tasks each of us are working on and how we’d both like the end product to look. My technical skills have also improved during this
project, I am getting quicker at creating images on Photoshop and I am now feeling more confident to be more creative and explore the
different tools on this software as I have more experience and experimented more when creating the images for the website. I also started
developing my skills on After Effects in order to make the ident for the top of the website and visuals for the pages, this was an interesting
learning experience as I had no experience with this software previously and had to follow tutorials on YouTube to help me create the
products. However, I’m starting to get used to the software and feel confident to make basic animations on there independently now.
Developing these skills for this project will be beneficial for me when starting my FMP as I will be able to be more organised and communicate
my ideas during the planning and research stage, I will also be able to provide more detailed audience research as I feel I was lacking with
audience research in my previous projects. For production in my FMP I will be able to create products of a better quality and feel more
confident about being more creative, I could also use After Effects for different visuals if needed as I have developed knowledge on how to use
the basic tools at least.

25. What meaning and messages did you want to convey and were
you successful?
The message that we wanted to convey, and the purpose of the website was to create a platform to encourage young people to create digital
art, or to allow young freelancers to present their work as anyone can make digital art or graphic design and it is open to everyone. There is
lots of room for creativity within digital art as well as the illusion and future themes and the audience can see that everyone perceives these
themes differently within their own work and that you can freely express your creativity and create a broad range of products that can still fit
within the themes. We also wanted to inspire the young audience that have an interest in digital art but haven’t ever tried creating to be
inspired to explore this topic more and possibly encourage them to make images of their own that they could share on this platform.

26. What feedback did you get from your peers and viewings?
• "I really like the website. The color theme is good and goes well together, the animations run smoothly. To improve I would say that you
could possibly add more details to the pictures. You could add a brief description for each image with a title and why or what it is meant to
show.":
I agree with this point, I think that it would add something extra to the images if there was a brief description about the image, or even about
the artist that created the image. This would help connect the images with the audience and also help the artist promote themselves and their
work. I would definitely add this feature in a future project, or to improve this current one
• "I really liked the initial look of the website form page, I think it sets the tone to what I expect from this website, the grid video effect is very
fitting to the logo and concept of grid which I really enjoy looking at. There’s a consistent color scheme throughout the website which I
really like although there is different concepts on each page. I liked the photos used on the website, I also the simplicity of the website
there isn’t too much going on any of the pages like you can get the clear idea of what this website is about. The only thing I would change
would be the that there should have been an “uploading” page as that’s the concept of this website."
I agree with this feedback, as the website's purpose is for digital artists to submit work, it would make sense for there to be a dedicated area
that viewers can upload their images to be displayed on the website. Next time, I would add this feature onto the 'Contact Us' page so that
artist don't always have to specifically email to submit work.

27. What would you do differently in the future and why?
In the future, I would like to further expand the website by adding more pages with different styles and themes so our audience can see a
wider range of digital art and how unique it can look depending on the artist and theme. I would also create more images and more interesting
images and visuals for the existing pages as I feel that the website is quite small, and I could add some more interesting features or text to keep
the audience on the website and interested throughout. Next time I would also like to go more depth into audience research, as I already
struggled with the audience aspect in research previously, I had some difficulty when trying to find statistics or what specifically to look into
with my audience. Adding more detail to my audience research next time would not only improve the quality of my research for a future
project but would have also given me more understanding of my audience and what they like to look at, this could have influenced how the
website looked in the end overall.

28. What knowledge have you gained that would help you in the
future to improve your project?
I have gained more knowledge of my target audience (18-24) whilst working on this project. During the research stage I looked into what social
media our target audience uses the most and what type of platforms they are more attracted to. This will help me to improve my projects in
the future as I already have this established knowledge so that if I was to come back to this project and carry out more detailed research, I
already have that established knowledge that I wouldn’t have to learn about and I could investigate more about social media habits next time.
I have also developed my skills more in Photoshop and After Effects so that next time if I was to improve my work, I could be more creative
with adding a variety of products and I could also work on creating more detailed animations as I have already established basic knowledge
with After Effects software. Further advancing my skills in Photoshop will give me the confidence to be more creative when creating products if
I were to improve this project or create something similar in the future.

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 were making a similar project in the future, I would firstly create a schedule for planning/research before creating a production schedule so
I will be able to plan out exactly what aspects I would need to research so I can be organised and know what to find information on. This means
that I will be able to provide primary and secondary research, as well as audience research so that every aspect of my project has enough
detailed research before starting production. During the experiments stage, I would most likely experiment making products in other software
such as Illustrator or After Effects as I feel that I am familiar with most of the tools on Photoshop and just have to improve my creativity for that
software. Experimenting on new software would allow me to create a wider range of different products for the website. Then, for the website
as a whole I would add more pages that each follow different themes so I could show the audience how digital art can be presented in a variety
of ways and there’s lots of room for creatively and individuality within the digital art industry.

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.
For future projects, I could develop my technical skills by experimenting making products in different Adobe software. As this current project
has allowed me to develop the basic beginner knowledge of After Effects, I could follow tutorials on YouTube to help me gain more experience
creating more in-depth visuals so that in the future I could create content of an improved quality and add something different to my work
along with my Photoshop work. For research, I could look into more statistics of various audience age groups so that when I am working on
future projects, I will already have previous knowledge on different age groups and their interests which will help assist me in my research.

32. What personal attributes could you develop to ensure you are
working at a professional level?
Personal attributes that I could develop is my time management and organizational skills. To be more organized, if it is helpful I could create
more schedules so I know what I am focus on throughout the different stages of a project whether that is research or production so I can
remain focused. Being more organized will allow me to improve my time management skills as this organization will make sure I am on task
and know what aspect of the project I need to be working on throughout the time limit. This will help ensure I am working at a professional
level as the media industry can be very fast paced so I will need to make sure I am organized and good at meeting deadlines to allow me to
keep up within the industry.