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1. Factual Writing Copy: Evaluation
In this project I have looked at several different styles of writing copy and applied these into a
final product of my choice, which is my chosen article in a suitable format be it a tabloid or a
magazine. During this project I have utilized several different techniques to achieve my goals
including audience research, quoting sources, writing for a particular audience by selecting
language and structure and management skills such as timekeeping and keeping tabs on
collected quotes/research.
Initially I produced several drafts of the writing tasks including the fanzine and tabloid article
and emailed these over to have them looked over to receive some preliminary feedback. I
believe that this was important as my tabloid article was said to be unsuitable for purpose as
it was focused entirely on a niche subject and used a lot of complex sentences and language,
something that is not commonly found in mass-market tabloid newspapers. On my second
draft of the tabloid article I used much more basic language and structure, dropping sentence
starts such as ‘furthermore’ and ‘because of this’ and writing much smaller sentence that
were to the point and were of a standard that most people would be able to understand
without difficulty. The subject of the article changed from being focused entirely on my chosen
subject, Alcest, and instead was changed to a fictional story about a murder at a metal
concert, with Alcest being mentioned as the band that was playing at the time. Also, in
keeping with common themes found in tabloids, I used lots of emotive language within the
article in order to build up a feeling of bias against metal, labeling it ‘satanist’ and ‘barbaric’
which is a tactic used by tabloids in order to stir up emotions against a certain group of
people. I was well aware of the techniques used to create bias from the bias essay that was
done earlier in this project.
During this project I reviewed my work as I went, analyzing each piece and supporting parts
that worked, while removing those that were not up to scratch with the rest of the piece. In
particular, my final project of making a magazine article was subject to a lot of chopping and
changing as I experimented with different colour combinations and positioning of elements on
the canvas, which allowed me to try a lot of different layouts and be able to choose the best
one, building up on it further. This was a quite similar approach to how I tackled my Design for
Advertising work in which I tried a lot of different can designs until I was satisfied.
My fanzine was also subject to a lot of reassessment as my first draft initially consisted of a
lot of much more formal language that would be unfitting for the specified type of publication
that the piece would be included in. During my assessment of that particular piece of work I
rewrote a large chunk of the text into something much more casual, once again removing
more complex words and phrases and using short sentences and basic words just like I did
with my tabloid article. For example, a lot of my first draft of the fanzine was written in third
person, and deciding that this was perhaps too formal for a fan-made publication I rewrote
several paragraphs into an informal first person format, such as replacing the sentence
‘Although their ascent into a purer sound was mixed, many do believe that the French band is
much better off without the metal influences’ to ‘I’ll get it out into the open that I fully
embraced their ascent into a Slowdive-inspired territory of clouds and dreams simply because
I believe that’s where they belong, especially with the inspirational backing of Neige’s
childhood experiences.’ I believe that my progressive self-assessment was very useful in the
end as it allowed me to expand on my existing products and allow them to go in new
directions, experimenting with lots of different styles and layouts. If I was to improve on this I
would like to be able to be a bit more creative when it comes to taking liberties and changing
a large piece of writing into something more suitable for the intended task.
When talking about time management for this project I feel as if I have done well to keep on
track with only a few mishaps. In particular being absent on several days and as such missing
work or not being able to continue with an existing piece caused these. However, I was quick
to catch up the next day and continue on to a point that was the same as everyone else. I
have managed to complete most of my work slightly ahead of schedule which was quite
similar to how I worked on my Recipe Cards project cooperatively, as we both knew our roles
and we were quick to fulfil them, finishing the final products quickly and effectively. If I was to
say how I could spend my time better, I would like to remain focused in sessions and try and

2. gets as much as possible done so that I have time left over to go back and rectify and
shortcomings that may have popped up. If I happen to be absent on a certain day I will try my
best to still complete work where able, either on my own computer or by catching up the next
day.
In terms of technical prowess in the final task I have used InDesign to create my document,
with some certain graphics and the background created in Photoshop thanks to it being more
suited for image manipulation. This was useful in creating a professional piece, as these are
two programs that are commonly used by real-life publishers to create magazines and
newspapers, as well as the content within. These programs offered the opportunity to use
several specific processes that are commonly used to create similar publications, such as
linking text boxes so that copy can flow freely in columns as commonly seen in newspapers
and magazines. Thanks to my previous research into metal magazines from the Critical
Approaches unit I was fairly familiar with the layout and style I wanted my article in, as well as
my choice of colours and fonts. I went through several iterations of my article before settling
on my final piece that has my band timeline stretching the entire length of the article, topped
off by a picture of Alcest’s fourth album Shelter, which is a large subject in my article as it
talks about the evolution of the band and how they came to reach that point. Because
InDesign is a program that I have limited experience in, having only used it once in the past
on the Visual Hierarchy unit, it took some time to get my layout right and as such the piece
went through several different iterations while still retaining the very basic structure.
What I do like about my final piece is the colour matching and the layout of the columns, as
well as the large background of the Ecailles de Lune album cover superimposed by the
Shelter album cover, showing the evolution of the covers and tying into the subject of the
article. Where I believe I could improve with the final piece is being a bit more experimental
with my structure and thinking outside the box. Instead of adhering to guidelines and having
everything be uniform and consistent I could try and experiment with the different elements to
create a more interesting end product, and also one that fits more into the metal theme which
is commonly known for chaos and being outrageous. I would also like to find more higher
quality images as both the background and header image of Ecailles de Lune are quite blurry
and could probably be replaced in a second pass. To help with the creation of this final piece I
researched a lot of existing magazines that cover extreme musical genres, such as Metal
Hammer, Terrorizer and Zero Tolerance, and in some cases I bought copies of magazines to
study further. I have used my findings to adapt my work as such into what looks to be a
similar format to those seen in these publications.
In a creative aspect I think that my project has succeeded well with each piece of written copy
appearing very distinct and not similar to each other in the broadest sense. In particular I think
that my interview and obituary were my strongest pieces. My obituary is fit for purpose
because it is professionally written and doesn’t use slang or informal language, keeping a
sense of formality and an account of the deceased person’s life in a serious yet poignant
theme thanks to its intended use (reporting on a band member’s death) which is what is
expected of real-life obituaries. My interview features some informal writing because it is
intended to appear in a magazine that reports on heavy music such as metal, and I
discovered this through close inspection of real life magazines, which use a lot of slang and
are generally informal. My final product was creative in its use of colour matching for the
lettering and headings, which matches the large background of the Ecailles de Lune album
cover that was used as the article’s header as this creates a unitary theme for the entire page
and helps it to all work together visually without loads of contrasting colours. However, I
believe that my page structure itself could have been created with more flair as it is very
geometric and follows the guidelines to a tee, when sometimes in metal magazines certain
elements - particularly photographs - appear slanted to give off quite an informal feeling and
in the case of photos, make it look like they have been pinned on the wall or scattered on the
floor. The overly dark theme of the final product is reminiscent of my Design For Advertising
and Digital Graphics final products, which are both in some way dark and depressing, using
techniques such as colour overlaying, burning and multiplying to create effects such as
flaking, distress and weathering which in turn makes the product seem gloomy and haunting.
This is a theme that is popular and commonplace in magazines that report on more
underground genres like metal, helping to make my final product look more authentic.

3. When talking about my final product’s intentions, I think that I have managed to partially
succeed with what I hoped to do with my product. Originally I had the idea to create an article
layout that was very informal and almost manic, which would have looked similar to articles
seen in heavy music magazines with lots of slanted/rotated elements and a lack of noticeable
guidelines. I also wanted to have a very strong colour scheme which would be seen
throughout the article and make it all work together, instead of having lots of different colours
that wouldn’t look too good in the article as a whole. However, as the InDesign program was
used to create this article it was difficult to portray some of the elements I wanted as
limitations in the program meant that it was tricky to get things out of the guidelines and into a
unusually structured article as I had hoped. If I was to improve this I would likely try and get a
better understanding of the program, which would be required if this was in a professional
situation, and rectify what I did wrong in an attempt to create an article that was similar to
what I originally envisioned. With pieces like my obituary I believe I succeeded well in my
intentions as I set out to make a fitting tribute to the hypothetical death to my chosen celebrity
by utilizing an extensive knowledge of his obscure career into writing, which would be
expected by someone writing an obituary for someone who recently passed away. I have
managed to keep it mature and sincere, which fits with the requirements of the piece being
that it is serious and not lighthearted thanks to its nature.
The appropriateness of my work for my intended audiences is mostly down to the type of
piece and the language that was used, as well as formal or informal sentences and the usage
of slang in the text. For my fanzine, since I was aiming to an audience of older
teenagers/younger adult men (who are the primary demographic of metal music) I used a lot
of informal language and conjunctions to present my piece. I also wrote the article in first
person as to address the audience personally by using clauses such as ‘And you know, it’s
completely fine’ because I felt that third person would be a little too formal for a fan-created
publication. However, I used a formal structure and vocabulary for my obituary as I felt that it
was appropriate given that it was dealing with someone’s death and had to be serious. But
looking back I believe that I could have experimented with an informal yet still sincere style for
the obituary because the person in question wasn’t very well known and so would not have
appeared in a common, mass media publication that uses such a formal style. For the tabloid
article the audience was the masses, who often do not read the story in detail and will mostly
likely skim it to pick up information from the get-go. To cater to this I used a lot of short
sentences that were straight to the point, such as my opener, ‘Three young men have been
apprehended by police after a 19-year-old reveler died after a vicious and unprovoked attack
at a Paris concert last night.’ Because of tabloids’ tendency to be biased to a certain political
side I used a lot of emotive language to slander the attackers and metal in general, using
terms such as ‘barbaric’ and ‘satanic’ when these are not necessarily true or deserved labels.
In terms of content used for final products, most of my sourced work was for my final article,
where I gathered several photographs from the Internet to accompany my copy. In particular,
I used a large, cropped shot of one of Alcest’s albums as a background for my article’s
header, which was then expanded by including an inset shot of the most recent album’s
artwork. I decided to use these two as my main images so that the difference between to the
two could be clearly seen and distinguished, which is a main theme that is discussed in the
accompanying article. It also helps to act as a visual aid and those who do not notice the title
first will be drawn in by the two recognizable images should they happen to be fans of the
band in question. The overall style of my final piece is quite dark, mysterious and ominous,
which is a common and fitting theme for a lot of publications that report on this style of music
which links back to its own themes such as lyrical content. For example, in Terrorizer articles
there is often a dark and textured background that helps to offer depth to the page’s visual
style and tie it in to the themes involved in the copy, such as death and destruction. As well
as this it is common to include pictures related to the artist that is being covered, particularly
album covers, as they are usually the most prominent references to musicians in a scene
where not many identities are fully known. During this process the skills I have used included
research into existing products and analyzing results, different Photoshop filters to construct
my article’s background (multiplying, colour overlays) as well as visual hierarchy. These skills
were also used in the similar Design for Advertising project where I did a lot of research into
existing energy drinks to construct my own brand, following similar practices into how they

4. organized their colours, fonts and themes in order to make the brand seem unitary and
organized. I have also used InDesign and Photoshop in this project, InDesign being a
program I do not have much background in so with some initial difficulty I managed to get a
grasp of the column and text box tools in order to create my article’s structure. I also believe
that during this project I have improved in collecting and analyzing research thanks to the
research task near the beginning, which involved gathering quotes and other segments from
sourced articles.
If I was to choose some areas to improve on in this project, I would like to experiment with
some more interesting layouts and perhaps produce a range of different drafts so that they
could be easily compared and analyzed during the project’s evaluation. I would like to do this
because some of the feedback I received from peers related to the fact that my final article
was quite geometric and didn’t really try to break barriers in terms of placing different
elements, such as either rotated or slightly slanted and not aligned to the grid. It is likely that if
this product was being produced in a professional environment the publishers would prefer
something that has a certain degree of creative flair and thinks outside the box when
structuring all of the elements. To achieve this in the future I would mostly likely try and get a
better grasp of the tools involved and brainstorm more ideas when it comes to structuring the
layout for the final piece, and in a professional situation it is likely that I would be giving
training in all the programs involved.
I would also like to work quicker and produce more drafts for my written pieces, so that I am
able to receive quick feedback and improve upon my work to achieve a higher grade than
what I would have achieved had I submitted my first draft. To do this I will try to remain free of
any distractions and work faster to achieve my potential.