2. Fanzine
I had 3 total drafts of the fanzine, the first one was
quite long and included a lot of invaluable
information such as: where his siblings went to
college, what his parents did and so on.
In the second draft, I somehow managed to bump the word count from 1221 to
1301 – this is mostly due to my own personal opinion included after writing a
particular statement or the fact that I included a lot of quotes that could be
seen as unnecessary.
The third and final draft was my most successful, I cut down the word count to
973 and managed to keep all my opinions, most of the quotes and a bunch of
factual information in there to really apply to the readers.
(Come back to Sources of information)
I feel like I really managed to capture the style that most fanzines use, this is a
mixture of fact and opinion – more heavily lenient towards opinion. When
comparing it to other fanzine articles - such as the ‘Dr. Who Titles’ written by
Peter Capaldi many years ago – there is definitely some similarities in style
and writing technique, the first paragraph is all about relating to the audience
and giving personal views on the subject at hand, i.e. Doctor Who with: ‘…Dr.
Who has become a familiar ritual for all of us.’ or Bo with: ‘…though I am a
young girl and one of the many that follow him…’
Like I stated previously, I’ve mixed fact with opinion (e.g. ‘first impulse to
create comedy came from him seeing it as a way to get girl, be liked and to
deflect his own self-consciousness’ – this starts off pretty shallow…’), although
the Dr. Who article didn’t really use this, it’s a technique that I have noticed in
other articles – especially when a bias opinion is involved.
Much like any article, including the Dr Who one, I have used quotes to further
highlight my points, for example: ‘Burnham applied for several
universities/colleges – according to an interview, he said, ‘I worked eight hours
a day so I could get in to the college of my dreams (Harvard) and say that I got
in – and I never went…’
3. Fanzine
I feel like I managed my time pretty well with this particular
part of the project. It took about half a day to collect the
right factual information to include within the fanzine article.
It took me about 2 days to fully complete the initial writing
for the task, I made sure it was quite bias and opinionated
with a lot of factual information to back me up. I feel like this
part went very well, I didn’t particularly set a time scale to
finish it within but I feel like I managed to finish the task
quickly and effectively with good results. (2 days altogether)
I feel this is similar to Task 4 in the Critical Responses unit –
I don’t think I had a particular time scale with that task either
but I managed to get it done quickly and effectively with
good results.
When it came to the production part, I feel I managed my
time very well – within the space of a week, I managed to
create two different layouts for the Fanzine article that were
both unique and effective – I’d even say they were quite
professional looking.
The first final piece (Left) took me under a day to complete
– the most time consuming part was putting the text in to
the selected boxes, it was quite hard to fit it all in without it
looking strange, misplaced or have a lot of white space left
over.
This is a lot like the second piece (Right) – it took me the
same amount of time to complete and the most time
consuming part was resizing the images on Photoshop and
placing them in, not just that but making sure the header
text was both in the centre of the page, large and clear but I
managed it.
4. Fanzine
Whilst I was writing the copy for my fanzine, I would send my work back
to my tutor to be assessed, it would then be sent back to me with areas
of improvement and I would quickly act upon them and use them as
guidelines to make my work more professional/to a better quality – with
fanzine, I ended up with 3 different end products.
The first draft (top left) was an abundance of factual information,
opinions and bias material bundled in to a full 2 page piece, the word
count ended up at 1221, I didn’t send this draft to my tutor, instead, I
tried again on a second draft (top right) using the same information but
adding some more in to it, more opinions, more facts and so on – then I
sent it to my tutor.
The feedback I received from my tutor further aided me in my creating my third piece – it
enabled me to create my final draft which was again checked and approved. I lessened my
word count down from 1301 (from the second draft) to 973 without getting rid of important
information, opinions or facts.
I feel like the reviewing went well, I am now very assured that I will get a good grade for my
written pieces.
This is the first time I’ve ever gotten my work looked at in this particular way – I found it more
helpful to receive advice on where to improve and which certain areas to look at, it made it a
lot easier to improve my pieces and get them up to a good standard. It was definitely a lot
more useful than getting it graded right at the very end only to find out that I got a low grade
because I got it wrong.
The only time it was sort of similar was during the Recipe Card project, before submitting final
pieces, I made sure with a tutor that it was right before continuing with another task.
5. Fanzin
e
I used In Design for my most of my
production. I had to learn how to use it
again as I did have some skill knowledge
from using it before during the Recipe
Cards unit.
I think I did quite well from a ‘technical
standpoint’ – I managed to effectively use
In Design without any help from my tutor.
It took a while, but I managed to find large
images that - even throughout the resizing
process – managed to stay clear and of a
good quality, for example: the image of Bo
Burnham with a book on his head, after
the resizing process through Photoshop, it
was added to In Design and it managed to
stay a good quality without looking straight
or disoriented.
I feel like I’ve managed to create quite a
professional looking piece – when I look at
other examples, such as the Doctor Who
titles fanzine article by Peter Capaldi
(Current Doctor Who actor) the designs
are usually quite compact but simple, I feel
that even though my design is pretty
complicated, it’s also very easy to read.
My piece has all of the text in neat portions
throughout the page, along with a variety
of photographs of Burnham which is very
similar to the example – and if that was
professionally printed, I feel like my
version is also quite professional.
I feel like my In Design skills have vastly
improved since I last used them for the
Recipe Cards project, as previously
mentioned, I can now easily create
guidelines and create ideas I’ve come up
with elsewhere – it also makes it easier to
look at examples - such as the Doctor
Who fanzine article – and effectively copy
that particular style.
I only really used Photoshop when I needed to
resize images, it was pretty straight forward,
however, I forgot how to actually do the whole
resizing part and I had to get help from my tutor –
otherwise, it went very well; I managed to do
every picture so that it was pristine and clear on
the In Design document.
The images I found to resize were
usually quite large – unless the
sizing was required to be quite small
– ensuring that the image is large
means that it’s easier to resize
without getting a bad quality in the
end, even if it’s for quite a small
image overall. An example of this is
one of the images I used for the first
made fanzine, it was a very large
image that was required for quite a
small space and it turned out clear
and high quality.
I also feel that during this process,
I’ve managed to improve my
Photoshop skills, it’s easier to resize
images and fit them in to certain
sizes now.
6. Fanzine I feel that my creative abilities have been tested in this particular
project, it gave me a lot of options to try out and a lot of different
scenarios to write for. Other than testing my ability, I also feel that it’s
helped me to improve – for example, I’ve never written for a different
variety of texts before, it’s always been fictional writing – now I’m able
to think outside the box and try factual writing, maybe even read some,
for this particular project, though; I feel I’ve done a good job.
I think I’ve done quite well in being creative, especially for factual text
which is outside of my comfort zone when writing.
I feel I’ve managed to be creative because even with a particular
scenario to aim at, I feel I managed to create quite an interesting
article/story. For example with the fanzine article, I included a lot of
factual information in to a particular paragraph, I also managed to
include a quote and my own, personal opinion – it’s interesting because
it manages to inform, make them think and persuade the reader to
consider what’s been said and influence their opinion, e.g. ‘this is
where we start to see the other side of Bo, or, one of many.’
Somewhere else I felt particularly creative was when creating flat plans
for production – I used shapes on PowerPoint to create the initial page
shape and I used different variations in colours to show what which
individual box represents – along with an annotation in the centre of the
boxes, indicating what they are. This was very helpful during the
production process and it didn’t take long to do at all, I feel most
creative because I’d usually come up with a few pictures and a chunk
of text rather than doing it this way.
I used a lot of existing examples to help me come up with some initial
design ideas, I used this website to help me look through different
fanzine designs.
http://brandnewretro.ie/2013/12/09/imprint-fanzine-dublin-may-1980/
There are quite a lot of intricate, unique
designs on that particular website – my
designs feel quite simple in comparison
to some, for example the ‘In Vogue’
article – it has quite a simple looking
design at first glance but it’d be quite a
complex task to get the writing in the
right areas and add in the images – If I
could improve something about my
designs, it would probably be the
images – I’d like to make it so that it
sort of interferes with the text – I find
that kind of design quite interesting and
aesthetically pleasing.
7. Fanzine
The idea was to create a fanzine article entirely devoted to Bo Burnham, I had to
aim at a certain target audience and cater to their needs and ideals.
Seems as Bo is a very well educated, satire comedian – the initial age should
have been aimed at an older audience, however, it still didn’t match the
requirements that, that age group would sort of go for, therefore to make it appeal
to a younger audience, I used simple explanations and simple sentences – this is
to apply to them and I feel I have definitely managed to do that, however, there
are a few larger words in there but thanks to the internet, it’s only a Google
search away to understand what the word means.
Because it’s a fanzine rather than an actual, professionally produced magazine, it
doesn’t really matter how professional the overall look is, however: I’ve tried to
keep it simple and interesting at the same time, using a lot of imagery that takes
up almost the same amount of space as the writing does – I’ve also created it so
it’s very simple and easy to follow, but if you’re a fan of Bo, it’s most likely that
you’ll be a well educated individual as some of his comedy is quite complex and
has many hidden meanings.
What I’ve made sure of is that the text is quite a biased, opinionated text, I’ve
definitely made sure of this as the first line is, ‘In my personal opinion…’ and I
also use lines such as: ‘I can always turn to him when I’m sad or in need of a
good chuckle’ and ‘This definitely pulls at my heart strings a little bit…’ the way
that I’ve written the piece is very chatty and basic, it also includes the reader, for
example: ‘I don’t know about you, but after the finale of Mr. Burnham’s, What. I
was left speechless…’ and ‘it’s a question – a statement – however you want to
view it, and that is: we think we know Bo.’ which is also a slanted version of a
quote from his actual finale piece.
I made sure to look at the examples on the link I posted in the previous slide for
reference, it helped me to come up with idea of addressing the audience and
including them within the text, for example: ‘so everybody’s favorite Ringsend 3-
piece re-recorded it…’ (from BLADES Hold Off fanzine article ) – it helps keep
them interested and when the first words are, ‘in my personal opinion’ people
usually keep reading – whether that’s because they want the banter or they are
actually interested in the writers views.
http://brandnewretro.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/p9-1100.jpg
Personally, I feel that I’ve managed to achieve what I set out to do – I’ve
addressed a variety of audiences (I think), I’ve made sure the overall look is
appealing and I’ve made sure it would fit in a comedy fanzine – I’ve also one
hundred percent made sure that it’s a bias, opinionated piece with no
discrimination and no false allegations.
(I’ve answered the audience
question and the intention
question together)
8. These are the stock photographs I used for
my fanzine articles, the top 3 are the ones
used in the first created design and the 3 on
the side are the ones used for the second
design.
I decided to pick them all because they’re
aesthetically pleasing and some of them show
off just how goofy and interesting Bo Burnham
is – in a way, I feel like the photographs would
actually bring in more readers.
The only problem I really ran in to with these
was finding larger images that were easy to
resize without and pixilation or decrease in the
overall quality of the photograph – these were
just some of the few that actually had the right
format and size to edit without side effects,
otherwise it was quite difficult to find them.
I sort of went for similar styles when it came to the overall look of my
articles, I made sure they were different in some ways but ended up
overall quite similar in terms of appearance.
I kept using the half page idea for the start of the article, this went
quite well in terms of variation – the first design has half of it’s title
space dedicated to one of the stock photographs whereas the
second design has no photograph at all. I did keep the 3 column
design consistent throughout as I think it looks quite professional
and aesthetically pleasing. In terms of skills used, it was also very
similar – I created the same guidelines on In Design to follow, this
meant that all text boxes created were all the same throughout both
designs, only varying when it came to the title text.
The real difference is when looking at the second page of the
designs. The first design’s second page is very different in
comparison to the design of the second design’s second page. The
text boxes, photograph placement and use of quotes is completely
different. Where in the first one, it seems like the text is the main
focus, accompanied by the photographs – in the second one it seem
the focus is centered more predominantly on photographs as there
is more of them. I did this to take up a large chunk of space so there
wasn’t as much white space as the first design.
Skills didn’t really vary during the production processes of these
either, the only thing that changed was the amount of guidelines
used in order to create the final piece, although similar I needed 4
rows on the second design as opposed to 3 on the first, I also
needed to use the box tool to create more photograph spaces in the
second design compared to the first.
This, again, reminds me of the Recipe Cards project where I used
similar skills to create page layout designs – including the adding
photographs part.
9. With the writing, I feel
there isn’t that much that I
could improve.
Fanzine
I could have connected to the audience a bit more, by
starting with sentences such as: ‘I don’t know about
you…’ or ‘I don’t know what you think…’ – this would
have applied to my demographic as it would get them
more interested, it might also make them think
differently about a certain aspect such as: ‘Bo’s
comedy is unique in comparison to a lot of stand up
comedians…’
I think I’d like to add more quotes in there, especially
song lyrics that I feel the audience would find
intriguing, I’d like to talk about the hidden meanings
behind some of them. I think I’d also like to talk about
how it takes a few listens to really understand what
Bo is trying to say through the use of music – much
like I examined in the tabloid copy.
When it comes to the production pieces, I feel there are
a few things that could be improved, such as: I feel like I
should have used less images in second produced
piece (top and bottom left) or at least put them in
different areas rather than one below the other, I also
think I should have gotten rid of the border on the quote
it makes it seem quite amateur and childish, although
the format for fanzines is usually rather laid back, I still
feel that it makes it seem less professional.
The first produced piece (Top and bottom right) had
similar problems, I don’t actually like how an image
takes up such a large amount of the second page, I
could have added in more text or included quotes or an
advertisement.
10. Interview
I created two different versions
of the interview, one of them
was a long response with
explanations as well as
questions and answers and the
other was a question answer
format, very simple, very easy
to follow.
It only took me one draft for
each, there was a point where I
improved them but I didn’t
document it – it was small
changes like cutting out
invaluable information or adding
in more quotes.
I actually started out with the short question and
answer format, I included a short description before
every answer – I cut that out later on to turn it in to
the long response.
I also created 2 final production pieces for this task.
The first one I created was quite basic and straight
forward, it didn’t look professional – it looked quite
amateur and plain.
The first one was quite easy to follow as it had a very
straight forward format, it’s literally question and
answer, i.e. ‘Favorite Quote? (from
song/jokes/interview) why?’ and an answer was:
‘When asked how the weather is up there (he’s very
tall (6’5) he would say it’s raining and pretend to spit
at them’ – James Callum Liversidge.’
The second one looked like it belonged in a
magazine, I feel it’s quite a professional looking end
piece, the design is still simple but it looks a lot
clearer and easy to read rather than bunched up like
my first one was.
I feel that, within the first paragraph of the long
response, I wrote in more of a fanzine style with
sentences such as: ‘Bo Burnham is one of the very
few whose made it big and genuinely deserves it…’ it
then dives in to how Bo achieved his fame. What I’ve
done here, is basically take the questions I asked on
the short response copy and further explain
who/what/how/why/where. For example, the first
question is, ‘How/when did you discover Bo?’ and I
explained -
- it in a very long,
informative way, for
instance, the second
paragraph which talks about
how Bo became famous,
where his fans came/come
from and which sites he
used to achieve this, i.e.
YouTube.
11. I think I managed my time very well for this particular
task, I definitely managed to finish my short response in
time, even after receiving feedback and improving it – I
finished this task within a singular lesson.
The long response took a day to complete, that’s with
receiving feedback and improving it too, I definitely took
less time creating these in comparison to the fanzine.
Overall it took me about a day and a half to complete
the writing tasks, with the production, it was a little
different.
I created two different magazine layouts for this part of
the task, one was admittedly a lot more impressive in
comparison to the other, the first one I created (top
right) was very simplistic and straight forward, a few
columns, a drab title and an eye catching image – it
took me less than a full lesson to fully create and
complete.
The second layout (bottom
Right) I created looked a
lot more professional and
had a more complex
overall look. The large
title, sub title, array of
columns and large end
photograph made it look
like it was actually
supposed to be included
within a magazine.
Overall I managed to
finish all of my work within
the time limit with, what I
think, is to a high
12. Interview
Just like with the previous task (Fanzine) once I
had completed the task, I sent it over to my tutor to
be assessed, he sent it back with ways I could
improve.
I feel like because of this, I’ve managed to assess
my work very well, it definitely helps that there is a
second party evaluating my work – seems as I’d
personally feel there was nothing wrong with it
before the actual problems were brought to light.
I now feel that my work is of a high standard and I’ll
get a good grade at the end.
I also feel quite proud of myself,
especially when work came back without
a lot of errors or improvements, in a way
this way of evaluating made me work
harder to complete the task with as much
efficiency as possible.
Without sending the work back, I
wouldn’t have been given the idea to do
a long response answer too – this would
have meant that I spent almost a full day
and a half doing a whole lot of nothing.
The way that this is done is quite similar
to how our entire units are marked –
send the work over, get results and areas
to improve and then improve them, it’s a
good way of achieving better grades and
making sure that the work is right the first
time it’s sent as a final piece.
(An example response I received from my
tutor)
13. Interview The photographs I used within the
production process were definitely
high quality – I made sure that I
found large images that would have
been easy to stretch and shape in
Photoshop without any pixel damage
or disfiguration. I used the same
technique as fanzine to change the
size of the photographs and insert
them in to the In Design document.
The way I changed the size was by
using the box sizes from In Design to
create a new document on
Photoshop, I then stretched and re
sized the photographs of Bo to fit
them so that when I added them to
the In Design document they were
pristine and clear.
A lot of the technical tools I used for this task were
basically on par with the tools I used for the
creation of the Fanzine document. Most of the
tools used seemed to be included in the In Design
document, things like the text tool, box tool, use of
different fonts and using guidelines to create the
right end product, derived from my flat plan earlier
on in the task.
I feel like my end results have come out quite professional, the first design
(bottom right) admittedly, was quite basic in comparison to my second
attempt which I could seriously see being used in a magazine.
14. Interview
I feel like my flat plans ended up being my most
creative thing in the task, besides the actual
production. I feel they are the most creative
because I thought outside the box and used shapes
on PowerPoint to create a brief page overview – the
flat plans really helped me make my end products in
production faster. This is the first time I’ve used this
as a design idea and I think it works very well, along
the side of the flat plan was all of the tools I used to
create my production product; shown through the
use of screenshots.
I also found that my
writing ability was tested
in this task – I definitely
feel like I have really
proved my creativity in
writing through this.
I like the challenge that I
had, to make a writing
piece that had an initial
intention i.e. for a tabloid,
for a fanzine etc.
I definitely feel I was
creative with the
placement and font
style choices – I feel
that my work actually
looks professional, it’s
something I’d actually
see in a magazine.
I feel that the variation
in font types really
contrast and look good
rather than consistently
using one font
altogether.
15. I feel that, yes, I have fully Interview
realized my intentions.
Before creating my final design, I
researched in to previous existing
products – this gave me the initial
idea to create the large header
text and include the photographs
further down the page or (like the
first page) not at all.
Here are some of the examples
that I looked at before creating
my final piece. They are generally
straight forward when it comes to
the designs – it’s either columns
or chunks of text and a
photograph added in underneath
or above it.
The research reminded me of
various units I’ve covered in the
past, recipe cards was a big one
– I spent a lot of time researching
in to designs before I created my
final one, the same goes with
Graphic Narrative or design for
advertising, before creating the
final design I made sure that I
looked at existing products and
made my decisions based off of
what I found.
Although aimed at quite a
young audience, the choices
I’ve made for this task and
the final design I ended up
with looks like it belongs in a
magazine aimed at middle
aged women or would be
found in something like:
Chat.
I feel it looks like this
because it’s quite basic and
straight forward, there isn’t
any crazy colours or a
mixture of photographs, it’s
predominantly writing with a
black and white format.
I did try very hard to keep
the format energetic and
aesthetically pleasing which I
feel I have done, the second
page seems more aimed at
the right audience in
comparison to the first one –
maybe if I added a
photograph or added in
some colour it wouldn’t seem
so formal. I still feel like this
style is used in teen
magazines therefore I don’t
think it’s too bad.
16. Interview
I feel like I didn’t include a lot of content
in this particular task. The stock
photographs used, I found on the
internet, ensuring that they were large
in size to make the resizing process go
smoother (as already mentioned.) I
decided to use these photographs in
particular because one of them is from
a few years back when Bo was just
starting stand up (bottom left) and the
other is from his very new, recent show,
What. I like the contrast in time scales
so I used different photographs on
different documents. It was quite
difficult to find photographs that were
large and easy to resize without
disfiguration, even some of the other
larger ones ended up pixilated or blurry
in some areas. It took a few tries.
In comparison to the fanzine, the final designs for this task ended
up quite simplistic and straight forward, with the fanzine there
was a lot going on in different areas – this included chunks of text
mingled with photographs and so on. This one has to be a little
less crowded as it’s for a professionally manufactured magazine
whereas fanzines are quite laid back with style.
When writing headlines or sub headings, I made sure to use
Dream Orphans and when it came to the main text, I used
Century Gothic. This was to create a contrast in fonts so
readers would be more intrigued – there is only a slight difference
when looking at it.
17. Interview
I feel like for the writing part, I could have done a
few things to improve. I could have worded the
beginning sentence better, or used the correct
grammar, i.e. ‘thanks to good ol’ modern
technology; some people deserve the fame and
others…well they don’t.’ rather than what it is now. I
could have also made it seem less like a fanzine in
the beginning paragraph, when I said, ‘Bo Burnham
is one of the very few whose made it big and
genuinely deserves it…’ it seems like I’m sort of
rooting for him and showing the readers that I am in
fact, a fan.
I feel like there isn’t much else I could do to improve the writing part, I think I’ve covered
most of the right content I needed to include, this is things like quotes from fans like: ‘the
perfect woman’ where they found it, ‘more harmful than it is funny…’, personal opinion, ‘the
way that Bo achieved his fame is quite impressive and inspiring…’ and facts, ‘little did 16
year old Burnham know it’d go viral and receive millions of hits and views and in the future,
he’d end up scoring a contract with comedy central and later on, having his own MTV
television show…’ I think the main things that could be improved if I went back and looked at
it, was some wording in certain parts of the text.
When it comes to the production part, I feel I did quite well, however there are definitely
some problems that could be improved. In the first draft – top right – the overall style is very
basic and simple – not that it needs to be complex but it definitely looks very amateur, I
could have included another photograph at the end for example.
With the second draft – top and bottom left – I feel like there’s a few mistakes I made – I left
quite a large chunk of white space on the first page where I could have included a quote or
some more information, I’ve also done the same on the second page at the end, although
this is less of an issue. I could probably do with more photographs or more quotes to get the
reader intrigued, maybe even include an advertisement to help fill in the space.
18. Obituary
Originally, I made the end of the obituary a little bit too much
like a fanzine, therefore I had to correct that error and try to
be factual rather than mixing my own opinion in to the
writing.
I also didn’t include any quotes, therefore, after sending it to
my tutor for assessment and receiving it with things to
improve, I added them in.
I made the writing as factual and informative as possible, it
includes all of the facts and sources that fans and non-fans
alike can read it and understand what an impact and an
asset to stand up comedy Bo really was/is.
Overall I feel like the end product came out quite well, it has
all of the facts and sources that fans would need during the
grieving process. I looked at Elisabeth Sladen’s obituary to
help aid me in the writing process – if you were to compare
the pieces, they are quite similar in the way that they are
written – especially with the beginning paragraph, if you
compare the two, they have the same structure just about
two different people.
I also started off the second paragraph with pure facts,
making sure that I was being very informative and using well
structured, well written points to further accentuate me
points, giving facts and quotes from songs twisted in to
intricate sentences that would only really fully make sense to
a big fan of Bo, quotes like: ‘A ‘born Bostonian’ (Bo fo sho’
EP) he chose to attend St. John’s Preparatory School where
he was on honor roll and involved in the theatre and campus
ministry program…’
It’s also very similar to how the Elisabeth Sladen obituary
goes more in to detail about her personal life and
achievements throughout.
19. Obituary
I feel like my time management went very well with this
task, I managed to finish the writing within the time limit
with some to spare and that was even after it had been
assessed by my tutor and sent back to me with
feedback and improvements. I spent quite a bit of time,
however, researching in to Bo’s life and tracing back the
sources – I also spent quite a bit of time looking for
quotes and picking out the ones that made it seem like it
was directed towards his death, the quotes were from
fans and the came from the answers I had received for
my long/short response from task 5.
Just as I did with Fanzine and the interview, I sent my
obituary to my tutor to be assessed and sent back to me
with improvements and I quickly acted upon it and used
the guidelines to help aid me in actually improving the
written piece. Without the information on how to make it
better, I wouldn’t have thought my ending was too
informal or fan written – therefore using this technique
definitely improves my confidence and work ethnic.
There wasn’t a lot of opportunities to use different tools
or processes in this task – it was pretty straight forward,
using all the normal tools anyone would use on Word to
create a document and write a large array of text. The
only time I actually used technical tools was to change
the text size or the font.
20. Obituary
I feel like the only part in this where I felt particularly creative
was when researching in to previously written obituaries in
tabloid newspapers – also researching in to his lifestyle and
putting it in to my own words, I was definitely creative with
that part. The obituary I was looking in to was the
Telegraph’s version for Elisabeth Sladen, when comparing
mine to theirs, there are some similarities in the way I
decided to structure it (How I started it, how I introduced him
and so on.)
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/
2011/apr/20/doctor-who-fantasy
I feel I have fully realized my intentions. I have definitely
achieved what I set out to do, which was to create an
obituary about my chosen celebrity (Robert Pickering
Burnham) – I have definitely done this and I’ve included
everything I needed to, i.e. back story, road to fame,
personal life, quotes from audience, quotes from him and so
on. I did sort of copy the style from the professional obituary
I mentioned previously, but I did it with good intention and I
made it my own – therefore I have definitely achieved what I
was trying to.
I’ve made sure to include as much information as possible that
would both please and cater to the needs of Bo’s fans, I’ve
definitely ensured that all the language is quite simplistic and the
copy is easy to follow as it’s mostly aimed at adolescents and
upwards – I’ve also included the cause of death, but ensured that
it’s a very brief summary of what happened rather than go in to
detail, I’ve also included quotes from fans at the bottom – this
would attract the younger audiences as the whole obituary would
anyway, it’s a way of saying goodbye, finding out what happened
and reviewing his life in a full and interesting way.
21. Obituary
The only content included in this is the research I found prior
to actually writing the copy for this task. There are no
photographs, only because it was an after thought – I should
have actually included one as the obituary for Elisabeth
Sladen also included a young photograph of her, I’d ensure
to find a decent, nice one rather than the humorous ones he
seems to take – maybe a still from one of his shows or
something like that.
I ran in to some problems when it came to the research part
– some of the quotes didn’t have a source to them so I either
couldn’t include it, even if it would have made my work better
or I had to dig deeper to find it which was rather time
consuming.
I think the way that I could improve this piece would be to
further explain the whole, ‘challenges to the form’ part – it
may make sense to some people, especially fans, but if
someone was quite a mediocre fan, they might find it hard to
understand quite what I mean by that.
I’d of liked to include more quotes from songs and mix it in to
sentences, a bit of word play that would get the fans
remembering – however, again, not as big fans could find it
difficult to fully understand the point I’m trying to get across.
I feel like I should have tried to find some quotes from
famous people, during an interview or a web article and
included those, not that it matters too much but it would
have improved the quality and readers would be able to
recognize a famous name and possibly look in to Bo’s work
too. Something else I could have done is included it within a
production piece – like a tabloid page or even within an
article.
22. Promotional
Task 6.1
I actually ended up with two drafts for this task – the first
one (this one) had a lesser word count and didn’t include
any quotes whereas the second draft (next slide) had just
a few more words and ended up being the final product.
I feel like I’ve done quite a good job with this particular
writing piece, it has all of the information that a potential
consumer would be interested in.
I’ve used a mixture of large words in simple sentences so
it shows that the product is quite sophisticated, however it
still aims at a young audience – or I find that it aims at a
wide variety of audience.
I’ve included comparisons to famous poets such as, Shel
Silverstein whom Bo Burnham even gives a special
thanks to in the acknowledgements section of the book,
Bo’s poetry is also compared to Silverstein’s in an array of
interviews and reviews from places like, Good Reads.
I do feel like I referred to my fanzine style a little bit when I
read over the fourth paragraph, ‘There’s also the fact that
it’s actually a book – it’s not a video or an audio clip – it’s
fine, genuine literature…’
I also explained where Bo most likely got his inspiration
from for the title of the poetry book – I feel like this
information would particularly interest fans as it’s
something that personally relates to Bo. There’s also
information on how he came up with the poetry and where
he got his ideas from, even a quote from an interview
where I got most of my information from.
23. Promotional
Task 6.2
I feel like I managed my time very well within this task –
like the others, I managed to create a final draft, send it to
my tutor, get it back with ways to improve and make a
second draft which ended up being the final product.
It took me about a day to complete this task – this was
due to writing, deleting some and attempting to write it
again in a different style or using different techniques
such as: adding in the part about Shel Silverstein which
gives other readers, older readers a chance to sort of
understand and create that comparison. I feel like I
managed my time very well throughout the entire unit,
everything was completed and in on time, the writing
tasks especially, took a lot less time than I had expected
them to.
It reminds me of a lot of previous projects e.g. graphic
narrative, recipe cards and so on – I always manage to
get the tasks completed either on time or before the initial
timeframe.
Just like with the previous tasks, obituary, interview and
the fanzine I used the same method for ongoing
evaluations – sending it to my tutor, getting it marked,
receiving it and improving my work to a better standard –
which vastly improved my work, ensured I got it to the
best quality I could and made the whole process a lot
quicker and easier.
24. Promotional
Task 6.1
Like the obituary, I only really required using skills I
already knew when it came to the writing – I only needed
the knowledge and tools in Word to create a document
and change the writing size or font.
With the creative abilities, I feel this task managed to test
me – the first draft I created was more suited for a fanzine
and I didn’t really know how to approach writing a
promotional piece, after researching in to different
promotional products and reading through the brief, many
times, I finally created a piece that efficiently sells Bo
Burnham’s poetry book to the public. I’m quite proud of
myself that I managed to turn it around from a fanzine
entry in to a promotional piece with a few changes, such
as: adding in quotes from fans, review websites and
online magazines.
I feel I have fully realized my intentions for this task, I’ve
created a promotional piece of writing with every aspect
that aims at the right audience (plus some) and gets the
point of the book across without revealing too much!
There’s even quoted from Bo Burnham himself about it –
what’s expected, what it’s like and I’ve also fully explained
what the term ‘Egghead’ means and hypothesized about
why he chose to use that as the title of the book.
25. Promotional
Task 6.2
I feel that I’ve aimed for a variety of audiences with this
piece of writing – it’s very informative and factual which is
what the fans of Bo would be interested in, his fans can
vary in age from 16 and under to 20 and over, they are
more predominantly female too.
I’ve decided to make it as factual as possible, adding in
information about the title, the overall view of what the
book is expected to be like, quotes from Bo himself plus
fan quotes from reviews, how he came up with his poems,
where he came up with them and why he decided to do it.
I feel this would definitely apply to the whole audience, no
matter in what way they vary (gender, age etc.) I also
made sure that the wording I chose was both complex,
simple and had an explanation after it so that both the
younger and older audiences would understand, for
example: ‘Egghead is an anti-intellectual metaphor
(mistrust towards intellectual individuals)’ or, ‘Egghead it’s
considered the same as ‘boffin’ which is also the
equivalent of calling someone a ‘nerd’. This is quite a
clever play on words on Bo Burnham's behalf…’
The only content I needed for this task was the facts that I included
within the writing – I found most of this from Wikipedia and news
stories or online magazines which is also where I acquired most of the
quotes from as well – there is no photograph but I suppose I could
have included one of the actual book – maybe even a sneak peak at
some of it’s content, for example: on the Amazon website, there’s a
‘look in’ option where you can look at the first few pages of a book and
Egghead is one of those that you can do that with – might be worth
including it in this task in particular, even if it’s a spoiler.
26. Promotional
Task 6.1
The second paragraph is very informative, which is great,
but I sort of blab on a bit and give a lot of examples – I’d
change that by getting rid of some things, for example
change, ‘break ups, religion, suicide and death…’ to
‘break ups, religion and death…’ which seems like a really
simple thing to fix but it might vastly improve the overall
copy.
Then third paragraph almost seems meaningless until you
reach the end where it states, ‘it’s why this book is so
unique.’ which I think is quite an important explanation of
the book, otherwise I’d trim down that paragraph – it’s
informative and has points and quotes to back it up but
again, it seems as if I’m sort of blabbing on a little bit.
Maybe I should have included some sort of quote or
example from Shel Silverstein to compare to one of Bo’s
poems – especially one that might seem to contrast.
I should have included where I got the term ‘anti-intellectual’
from, although if I remember rightly it didn’t
actually have a source to trace back.
I’d of liked to include some more quotes from major
magazines or online reviews from Amazon – this would
give me some good quotes to work with – maybe I could
go a step further and explain them or include my own,
personal review.
27. Tabloid
I feel particularly proud of my tabloid designs – not only
do I feel very good about the copy I managed to come
up with but I also enjoy the designs I’ve made on In
Design.
There was improvements to be made on the copy part
of the task, however, I didn’t manage to document this, I
know I needed to cut the writing down a little bit and
make it more serious – towards the end I almost made
it too chatty and created it as if it was for a fanzine
instead of an article, this changed however, for my final
draft.
I made two different types of designs – one of a front
page (top left) which I found went very well, I feel it
looks quite professional although admittedly, it could
probably do with a more complex layout or include
more advertisements or something like that within the
design, I could even overlap some boxes to make it
look a little more aesthetically pleasing as it’s a tiny bit
plain. I think that the overall design works very well and
if not for a few errors, looks quite professional.
I also made another design as if it was a page within
the tabloid, I did really enjoy this one, I think the layout
is simple but nice, it’s also quite aesthetically pleasing
and looks quite professional, in my own opinion. It could
probably do with a different advertisement or no
advertisement at all and let the photograph at the
bottom take up the whole bottom section.
In a way they almost look like magazine articles but
there is a distinct difference – the layout for magazines
don’t usually fit all of a story on one page and if they do,
there would be a lot more colour and a different
variation in text sizes and fonts.
28. Tabloid
I feel like the time management went quite well for this
task considering there was quite a lot of things to do.
The writing task took a day or two to complete – this
was mostly because I missed a day and when I sent the
finished piece to my tutor to be reviewed, I received the
improvements later than expected, the final piece was
therefore not actually completed in my desired
timescale.
The front page of the tabloid took a full day to complete
– there was a lot of stock photographs to find, designs
to place in certain areas and coming up with a quick
overview of the story that was told for the main story. It
was also quite time consuming to place writing in
certain areas, I had a bit of trouble keeping it clear of
any vital part of the photograph, i.e. Bo’s face.
The most time consuming thing about the tabloid page
(bottom left) was adding in the text directly from the
document (right screenshot) to the columns I’d created.
It was time consuming because I had to fit it all in, in a
certain way otherwise it wouldn’t have worked – I also
had to improvise with my design a few times and
change a few key aspects such as: adding in a
photograph between the advertisement and end of
copy.
29. Tabloid
A lot of the tools I used for this task are exactly the
same as the ones I used for the rest of the tasks –
this was my last task therefore it was last on my
agenda –which meant that I’d already learnt most of
what I needed to know without any problems.
I feel like, from a technical standpoint, I’ve done very
well, especially during the production process. I feel
I’ve managed to make very good layouts and
effectively created a high standard front page and
inside page.
The photographs that I used for these designs are of
a very high quality, I ensured this – I also ensured
that they were large and able to stretch to the right
size, I found this particularly difficult with the front
page stock image, this is because it’s quite a large,
odd shaped box and the photograph was quite
difficult to morph in to the size that I got it to without
any disfiguration or pixel damage, the same goes for
most of the other stock photographs – the
advertisements were also quite hard to resize as the
boxes were usually an unusual shape and I was
unable to cut any of the advertisement out.
The second page almost had the same troubles as
the front cover – though there was less. I found it
quite difficult to put the text over the picture of Biebs
and Gomez but otherwise it wasn’t that difficult to
find stock photographs or advertisements for this
part. The only other thing that was a bit of a
challenge was the title text – it’s quite hard (even
with a text box) to get the writing in to the exact
placement that you want it in. After a few attempts,
however, I finally managed to get it to a good place.
30. Tabloid
I feel like I’ve really managed to express my
creativity throughout this task (through the whole
project too) which reminds me a lot of the graphic
narrative project, which also pushed me to be more
creative and come up with interesting ideas and
designs I wouldn’t have even thought of before.
I do feel my abilities have improved though, I think
that these are some of the highest quality products
I’ve ever come up with – I’m very proud of them.
I like to think I managed to push myself and be quite
creative – especially within the writing, I feel I
managed to create unique and interesting pieces
even though it was following instructions, I usually
write fictional stuff so writing non fictional, factual
pieces has really helped me to feel like I’ve improved
in the writing aspect.
I do think I’ve managed to create good, creative
products – such as the front page (top left) with it’s
array of photographs, advertisements and writing. I
did look at professionally produced articles and front
pages in newspapers such as: The Guardian and
The Telegraph which is actually the main inspiration
behind the designs for these end products, same
goes for the article I created.
31. Tabloid
I feel like my intentions have been fully recognized in this
task. I’ve created a front page including all of the vital
information such as: the main story (Bo kicking pop music
whilst it’s down), advertisements that entice the viewers,
traditional font for the title, the price and other stories related
to the main one which, in this case is comedy. Not only do I
think I’ve realized my intentions, but I think I’ve done them to
a good standard, I especially enjoy the overall look – again, I
used previously existing products to base my design off of
and I think doing this extra research really helped me create
a good end product.
With the article, I’ve included all of the story in columns as
it’s the common style, I’ve included photographs to help
further aid the story plus entice readers, I’ve also included
the title text in quite large, bold lettering which would also
draw attention straight to it. I also researched in to
previously existing articles and based my design off of some
of theirs, this also fulfills my intentions.
As my audience varies in age, I made sure that I came up
with quite a snappy title that would at least catch the
attention of both – if the photograph of Bo alone wasn’t
enough to pull them in. I’ve also made sure that the design
and format is easy to follow and understand – I included a
lot of photographs which would appeal to younger
audiences, I also included all of the text from my copy which
was aimed at both of theses audiences anyways. Another
way I’ve appealed to them is by including advertisements
and other stories that would interest them, for example:
other comedians like, Tim Minchin for example in the beige
advertisement on the left hand side of the front page.
32. Tabloid
I used my tabloid copy as the text for this task, I did this
because that’s what it was intended for and I wanted to see
what my copy would look like in a ‘professional’ sort of
setting.
There was quite a few photographs I ended up using for
this task, the advertisements are what takes up most of
these. I made sure that they were all high quality and large
so that during the resizing process, they didn’t become
disfigured or suffer any damage (go blurry etc.) the same
goes for the photographs I acquired of Bo and the other
one of Selena and Justin leaving Bo’s show.
I really enjoy the overall style of my designs, I feel that this
time I’ve really strived to make interesting, true to the form
designs – by this, I mean I made them similar to layouts
that already existed but I made it my own. I like the images
I’ve used as they include the main person and the others – I
enjoyed looking for advertisements that linked to music and
comedy.
I think there are some improvements to be made within
production, the tabloid cover could do with some little more
attention – I feel like I should have tried harder and used
different techniques to make the picture – of Bo – and the
text overlapping it look a little more professionally done –
for example, I really wanted to use techniques I’ve seen on
other tabloids where the photograph seems to pop out of
it’s box and appear in another one – it would have been
quite hard to do with the photograph I picked but I could
have changed it to one of Bo performing – I could also
include a quote rather than a short description of the story,
along with a snappy headline.
33. How my Skills have Developed
I feel like my skills have developed throughout the
project – I feel I have become stronger in my ability to
come up with creative ideas such as: the PowerPoint
flat plan ideas, it made it a lot easier for me to follow
those guidelines and it made the whole process
quicker – I’ll definitely be using that again in future
projects, if needed.
I also feel I have become stronger in my writing ability,
going outside of my comfort zone for the writing of this
project really helped me to express myself in a
different way – I really enjoyed writing this fanzine, it
was quite enjoyable to write about my favorite
celebrity in a factual sense – it helped me learn more
about his work and it changed my opinion on him a
little bit.
I also feel like it’s improved my research skills, I feel
like they have seriously improved throughout this
project – I’ve managed to find loads of interesting
facts about Bo, even things I haven’t heard of before –
it makes me feel a lot more confident about
researching for future projects.
I also feel like I’ve improved my technical skills – using
Photoshop and In Design more than I usually would
had broadened my horizons on the thing’s I’m able to
do/create in them – I also look forward to testing these
skills in future projects.
Although previous projects such as: Recipe Cards,
Graphic Narrative and Critical Responses have given
me the same opportunities to improve these skills, I
don’t feel like they’ve aided me in the same way that
this project has.
