Giacomo Pisa's media studies log book details work completed from September to March on their foundation portfolio. It includes analyzing magazine covers, creating blog posts and surveys, developing research like audience profiles and mood boards, designing magazine layouts in Photoshop and InDesign, taking photos, and making corrections to draft work. The log book shows the progression of tasks to plan, design, and produce content for a hip hop magazine as their coursework project.

1. = St. Andrew’s Catholic School 64135
Candidate Name: Giacomo Pisa
Candidate Number: 3111
Unit G321: Foundation Portfolio in Media Studies
Schedule
Week Beginning Work Completed
Summer Holidays
Monday 5th September We ran through expectations in our first lesson of the media course.
We also analysed a Vibe magazine front cover and picked out the codes
and conventions such as mast head and headline and how they are
useful in successfully selling the magazine.
Wednesday 7th September In today’s lesson we created our blog page and wrote our brief of the
coursework and posted it on the blog page. Aswell as this we learnt
about Katz’s uses and gratifications theory, Hartley’s seven subjectives
and Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Thursday 8th September Today I completed a part of the planning and research task for my

2. coursework. This was the audience profile document stating the target
audience for the hip hop magazine that I am creating.
Friday 9th September Completed log book powerpoint for my planning and research
containing research of various publishers as well as analyzing codes
and conventions of two different magazine covers.
In addition to this we went through and discussed shot types and
analysed exemplar work and then updated my coursework blog page
by beginning to deconstruct Hip Hop weekly magazine
Wednesday 14th September Today I created a mood board for inspiration when creating my
magazine. These images were relevant to what I want my magazine to
look like therefore they will act as inspiration when creating my
magazine.
Thursday 15th September Started my powerpoint analyzing contents page and double page
spread
Monday 19th September Today I carried on with the powerpoint analyzing contents page and
double page spread of magazine of inspiration and was given
homework to complete powerpoint for homework as well as magazine
prop list and blog post 2
Wednesday 21st September Completed survey monkey questions for my classmates as well as
creating a questionnaire for another form of research for my music
magazine?
Thursday 22nd September Today I tidied up my cover, contents and DPS analysis on my blog page
including better media terminology. In addition to this I started to find
on “dafont” ideas for the masthead of my magazine

3. Friday 23rd September Today I continued to discover masthead font styles that I would like to
see on my magazine cover as well as writing the denotations and
connotations for each font style that I found.
Wednesday 28th September Started to complete magazine flat plan and got homework to finish
magazine flat plan and make corrections to audience profile,
moodboard and mindmap corrections.
Thursday 29th September In today’s lesson I started to completed photo shoot template which
details my project, the type of images I will be using in it, the model I
will be using and the type of clothes/props that I will use in my
magazine.
Monday 3rd October Today I continued to complete the photo shoot document which was
set to finish as homework. As well as this task we started the location
recce.
Tuesday 4th October Completed magazine flat plan and made progress on location recce
Wednesday 5th October Today’s lesson compromised of starting to complete the production
plan for my magazine which includes planning for each day of the
three week production, what will be completed in order for the
magazine to be released on time.
Thursday 6th October I continued to work on the production plan in today’s lesson but it still
is not completed so I will be completing it for homework.
Friday 7th October Today I took the data that I gathered from my ten responses on my
survey monkey questionnaire and started to complete the Primary
Research Reflections powerpoint and will continue to complete it over
the following lessons
Thursday 13th October Today I continued to complete the primary research reflections

4. document and using the questionnaires I had people to complete for
my homework. In addition to this I handed in my hand drawn drafts
that I had completed for homework.
Monday 17th October The first lesson of the week saw me learning skills on photoshop such
as bleeds and shortcuts on the keyboard. Then we started to complete
the mindmap for the preliminary task.
Tuesday 18th October Scanned hand drawn drafts into a powerpoint then continued with
preliminary task mindmap thinking of mastheads, straplines, articles
etc.
Wednesday 19th October In today’s lesson I took three images of Jude Munday for my
preliminary task and scanned them onto the computer. As well as
continuing with the preliminary task mind map.
Thursday 20th October Started work on photoshop for preliminary task front cover. Added
bleeds and barcode and social media images
Friday 21st October Today was a cover lesson wholly dedicated to making corrections of
errors I had from previous work to ensure my coursework is as
thorough as possible so my research is better, meaning my main task
will be better.
Wednesday 2nd November First lesson back after half term which included me inserting the issue
number, date and price into the barcode area.

5. Monday 7th November Today I created my background inserted my main image ready to edit
wrote the and main headline in the correct font and colour.
Tuesday 8th November Today I deleted my main image and background because my main
image had white edges and did not fit in with the background.
Therefore it looked unprofessional so I deleted them to start again.
Wednesday 9th November Re inserted main image and background using refine edge tool and
started inserting my cover lines.
Thursday 10th November In today’s lesson I finished off my cover lines as well as inserting a
better relevant puff promotion as well as a strapline and a small image
so there is not empty space on the cover.
Friday 11th November In the last lesson of the week I was mostly finished with my front cover
so I inserted a number of small images to eliminate any blank space on
my front cover.
Thursday 17th November Today I completed the checklist for the front cover and realized I had
not inserted a web address or any brand identity so today I added in a
web address and smaller masthead in the barcode area.

6. Monday 21st November In the first lesson of the week I worked on my preliminary contents
page by creating a background, masthead matching the front cover as
well as beginning to write the sub lines with an editorial. I also
inserted a screenshot of my front cover
Tuesday 22nd November Today was a lunchtime lesson in which I completed writing the sub
lines and stories for my magazine before changing them to my colour
scheme and font. Then I added in a gradient shape behind the writing
for a different effect.
Wednesday 23rd November In this lesson I added in some more sub lines as I did not have enough
and re arranged my page layout.
Thursday 24th November Today I inserted the image of myself for the editorial as well as social
media images.
Friday 25th November Re did editorial and resized title
Wednesday 7th December Today I added in shapes to put images over in the bottom left side of
the page as well as adding in another story. These both managed to fill
empty space on the page. In addition I used the pen tool to make
writing wrap around the side of an image to make it look professional.
The contents page is now completed.

7. Friday 9th December Started main task front cover. Did background and barcode
Wednesday 14th December Today I took the images for my front cover and inserted the best one. I
then re-sized it and used the refine edge tool to make it look
professional as possible. Following this I downloaded my chosen font
from dafont and wrote in my masthead however have nor edited it
fully.
Thursday 15th December In this lesson I changed the stroke size on my masthead so it was
correct to match my magazine of inspiration as well as adding a pull
quote to the front cover and changing the opacity of certain lines to
again match my magazine of inspiration.
Monday 19th December Today I wrote all the cover lines for my front cover and tried to find
the same font, which matched my magazine of inspiration.
Tuesday 20th December Today I was photographed for other people’s front covers and took
photos for others. I managed to also add in a couple more cover stories.
Tuesday 3rd January In the first lesson back after Christmas I rearranged page layout using
ruler tool and bleeds as well as continuing to find a font which I like for
my main headline.

8. Wednesday 4th January Today I worked on my puff promotion for my front cover and used the
arc tool to make the text bend round and fit in the shape for a
professional look.
Thursday 5th January Today I finished my Puff promotion as well as finding a font which I
liked for my main headline.
Monday 9th January Started contents page. Added in bleeds, background colour, title and
magazine logo.
Tuesday 10th January Went back to front cover and edited image so it looked more
professional. Also added in strapline as it was missing before.
Wednesday 11th January Today I finally found a good font for my front cover and contents so I
downloaded this from dafont, inserted it on both pages. I also added a
features box to my contents and started writing the sub-headings.
Thursday 12th January In this lesson I completely changed my background to the same pink
and green as the front cover and also continued to wrote my sub-
headings.

9. Friday 13th January This lesson was spent taking photos for my contents page and double
paged spread in multiple locations and angles to get the perfect shot
and I also carried on with my sub-headings and sub-lines.
Wednesday 18th January In the first lesson this week I inserted my main image for the contents
page and spent the lesson resizing and using the quick selection tool
and brush mode, 'white reveals black conceals' to ensure that the
image was cropped perfectly and no remaining colour from the
background was in the image.
Wednesday 19th January Today I completed all of my sub-headings and sub-lines and then
changed the font for all of them so it is different to the title and
therefore does not make my page look plain with the same font.
Monday 23rd January We started working on our DPS on InDesign today and this involved
pasting in our interview into columns we made on InDesign and then
making a drop capital and inserting a pull quote.
Wednesday 25th January Today I found a suitable font that was similar to my DPS of inspiration
with the letter E reversed, for my DPS title. I made it in Photoshop and
then inserted it into InDesign.
Thursday 26th January In this lesson I spent time taking various images, some for editorial
pages for myself and other members of the class and other time taking
photos for DPS pages. In addition to this I added in the page number,
edition number and web address into my DPS on InDesign.

10. Friday 27th January Today I spent time manipulating my main image in Photoshop
cropping out the background whilst keeping in the shadow, which was
a difficult task. I will continue this next week.
Wednesday 1st February I switched between my DPS and Editorial page in this lesson. I added in
social media images to my DPS on InDesign and then on Photoshop I
inserted a picture for my editorial and resized and edited it using the
quick selection and refine edge tool.
Thursday 2nd February This lesson I created my background for my DPS which I did on
Photoshop using the soft brush tool. I created two different documents
as there are two pages on the DPS and then matched and lined them up
on InDesign.
Thursday 23rd February Today was the first lesson after half term and mocks. I spent this time
completing any corrections from my planning and research ready to
upload via slideshare.
Monday 27th February In this lesson I completed my editorial as it was not completed to a
high standard before.
Wednesday 22nd March Today I spent time going back to all of my pages and making some
small adjustments to them to make sure they were all completed to the
best standard possible.