1. How did you use media
technologies in the construction
and research, planning and
evaluation stages?

2. Research and Planning
- Throughout my research and planning stages of my coursework,
one main technology I used was the iMac computers, they
introduced to a whole new world of design techniques in the form of
‘Photoshop’. Running through my research and planning there are
aspects of my research that involved primary research into regional
magazines by physically buying magazines to gain more
knowledge. Presentation techniques came from ‘Prezzie’ and
‘SlideShare’, both of which I needed to find tutorials for to use to
the best of my ability. Another aspect which I needed to find tutorials
for was the use of the digital camera and lighting techniques when
producing images for my final piece and ancillary tasks.

3. Research
• During my research stage into Regional Magazines, Magazine Websites
and Billboard Advertisements, I solely used the internet to conduct the
main bulk of it. After producing adequate research into the many regional
magazines and examples of web pages, I conducting primary research by
purchasing magazines and finding billboard advertisements in my local
area.
• Another aspect of my research would be from YouTube, I spent many of
my first lessons increasing my knowledge on the design of regional
magazines and certain editorial processes to increase the realism of my
piece.
• E-mail, Facebook and other social network sites also assisted in my
research as contacting my focus group through the web was a much easier
process.

4. Planning
• Planning my coursework enabled me to go through many stages of drafts
before settling on my final piece. In relation to planning using digital
technologies, along with sketched drafts, I produced drafts on ‘Photoshop’
and drafted my two hyper linked webpages on ‘Weebly’.
• The planning stages were constantly being altered throughout my
coursework as I encountered many problems. One of the key things that
effected the planning and overall design of my magazine was the weather,
this ended in me altering my front cover and entire issue to a winter
magazine instead of a summer issue.
• Creating many final drafts on ‘Photoshop’ of my billboard advertisement
enabled me to chose a final piece that would include
a level of professionalism and referring to my focus
group enabled me to do this.

5. Construction
• During construction of my final regional magazine and two ancillary tasks, the
introduction of my planning and research was key in enabling me to gain the
right ideas and plans for the magazine. Again, I used ‘Photoshop’ which was
my main production tool along with ‘Weebly’ when creating my two web
pages.
• As I produced a music magazine for my year 12 coursework production, I was
well introduced to ‘Photoshop’ as a programme already, but some aspects
such as creating the design of my magazine advertisement was new to me.
This new form of production along with creating my web pages, gave me the
opportunity to research tutorials in how to correctly use ‘Weebly’ to create a
much more professional feel to my website.
• To produce the high quality images used across all three tasks, I used a
Cannon digital camera to take the pictures needed. Once again, I had
previously used this camera in my year 12 coursework but gaining a more indepth knowledge of this piece of certain equipment was key to a successful
final piece so I once again looked at many tutorials and received advice.

6. • A display of my final regional magazine pages and the billboard
advertisement ancillary task, all of which were produced using ‘Adobe:
Photoshop’

7. Evaluation
• When completing my evaluation of my A2 coursework production, I used
programmes such as ‘Prezi’ and ‘Slide Share’ which enabled me to present
my questions in a more user friendly way. This created a more visual
evaluation which included many images of my final piece, drafts and creative
processes, allowing to see the many stages of production I went through.
• In the image below you can see the layout of my evaluation which I created
on Microsoft Word, also, this ‘Slide Share’ was originally created on Power
Point.