1. 2nd
Year Prep Document
Throughoutmy time in education I have struggled with many subjects and
whether I enjoyed them or not, however when it came to design work Itcame
naturally to me and I instantly got hooked on it becauseof the rangeof
possibilities that you can do when designing so many different topics. This is
one of the reasons why I enjoy making magazines so much because I can mix
the two together using both words and images to express how I feel about the
topic I am talking about as well as being able to test a range of different ideas
and increasemy skills in both these topics. I have mainly made basic designs
for print magazines however over the next year I would like to try make more
interesting and complex print magazine designs that involve morein depth
peace’s of photography, moreinteresting and creative styles and techniques as
well as moving onto making online magazines designs which will give me a
larger variety of both new ideas that I could do as well as giving me more
obstacles to overcome. I think this will be good for me because I feel that I
have become too complacent with my currentmagazine designs and they are
slowly becoming very similar so hopefully trying something different such as
making an online magazine will push me to make differentideas and will allow
me to get a larger variety of skills on more programs then justPhotoshop and
InDesign which is whatI have been using for all my other projects.
In high school, I studied Maths, English, Science, History, Geography, CIDA and
Design and Technology in 2017. Atthe time my main interest was English
because of how I was able to express my feeling and thoughts about topics in
such detail. However nearer to the end of schoolmy main interest changed to
CIDA. This was whereI firststarted getting interested in design becauseI had
to make a range of different websites for different target audiences from
scratch which helped to teach me how to make my products appeal to certain
audiences, the basics of using programs such as Photoshop, adobeillustrator
and adobe Dreamweaver, how to make colour schemes that work well
together and help to increasethe effectiveness the colours haveon the
audience as well as many other basics of design. At this point a lot of my
designs werevery basic and wereat an ammeters level because of the lack of
materials I had available to me at that time and because of my limited skill in
this topic. However, becauseI had learnt all the basics in high schoolthis
meant that once I got to college I was able to startworking on and testing
more detailed and different ideas. At college, I was also able to overcome the
problem of not having the right materials and equipment once I started my
firstyear of college which allowed me to do ideas which I had not been able to
do before becausecollege also gaveme a chance to use high quality cameras
2. and other equipment. At first I was taughthow to make films and the rangeof
different angles and shots that are used in the film industry, this eventually led
to me testing photography and becoming interested in it. Because of my
interest in this I started to do research on the different types of shots and the
different type of photography thatthere is, as well as looking at existing
professionalphotographers to seewhat they do, how they do it and what I can
do to make my photography higher quality. After doing this research I
discovered that my favouritetype of photography Is landscapephotography.
Because of this I decided to do a travel magazine for my first-year projectI
decided to make a travel magazinebecause I can add both a rangeof different
landscapephotography as well as being able to write a large amount of
information about locations and topics that I’m passionateabout. For this
travel magazine, I talked about a range of locations in the UK cover different
environments such as the coast, the city and the countryside. I did this so that I
could not only take shots frommultiple locations across theUK giving me a
chance to test my ideas in a range of different environments. I also talked
about a location abroad to add moreverity and becauseI had collected some
shots in the past. Doing this project taught me so much more about layouts,
colour schemes, techniques, information and picture ratio as well as many
other aspects of making magazines which will result in my year 2 projectbeing
of much higher quality.
For my second-year projectI wantto make a projectinvolving magazinedesign
as well as possibly an online magazine design. However, I’m stillnot surewhat
topic I want to talk about in my magazine. Because of this over the holidays in
my sparetime I am going to do research on topics that I am interested in and
could possibly makea magazine about. I am also going to continue to improve
my photography skills and possibly collect shots that I could use in my year 2
magazine design. This will not only help to save time in my production stage
next year but will also allow me to have moretime to make sure I’m getting
the highestquality shots that I can get because I am determined to get a
distinction in my second-year projectsinceI got a merit for my first-year
project. Pushing myself to get this gradewill hopefully help to improvemy
skills in all aspects of design as well as pushing me to try new ideas and
experiences so that I have skills over a much wider range of magazinedesign
which could help me in my future. After college, I intend on taking a gap year
so that I have moretime to decide if I want to go to university or not and what
I would actually like to do at university as well as after. However, during this
gap year I intend to make my own website on WIX whereI am going to display
all the photography that I think is from high quality from now on or that has
3. taught me new skills. I will also talk about in detail on these websites why I
took the photographs that I did and whatthey mean, as well as other topics
that I am passionateand interested in. I will also talk about me and how I first
became interested in creative media as well as magazine design and the skills
that I have learnt throughout the years. I will usethis website to not only help
improvemy skills in design, photography and other design skills but I will also
use it to show university’s and employers in the futuremy work and skills to
give them a visualexample of my skills in design and showing them that I am
truly passionatewhen it comes to design and that I am constantly trying to
learn new skills to improve my work and make sureeverything that I make is
the bestquality that it can be.
