The client provided feedback on the magazine created by the student. For the front cover, the client liked the festive Christmas theme but noted that some large spaces could have been filled. They also felt it was unusual to feature a group member on the cover rather than another student. The contents page was said to look more like a report and could be improved with more graphics. For the student's articles, continuity of the Christmas theme was lacking but layout and use of images was effective. Some photos needed improving. Overall, while many aspects met expectations, more could have been done to maintain the theme throughout and improve some visual elements.
1. Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation
Task 2: Client feedback of magazine
When getting our client feedback from our tutor firstly she picked upon that our front cover
established a theme which was centred around the Christmas time of festivity which was attractive
and alluring to people to want to have the magazine. This showswe are following codes and
conventions by including a creative theme to attract our audience into wanting to buy our magazine.
However, she pick upon the fact that there were some large areas of space featured within our
front cover which could have been filled in more but our argument was that we didn’t want to over
complicate our front cover which would have made our front cover look unprofessional as it would
have been messy with added text. When looking at the picture itself i.e. the main image she did say
that it really did focus on the deep empathise of Christmas . However, maybe it would have looked
amore realistic magazine if it had featured someone else other than a group member as the main
image within our front cover because it isn’t part of the normal code and convention used within the
magazine industry to photo someone from the team instead of using someone else. The client also
stated that she liked the colour scheme which looked sophisticated and professional. Withusing the
choice of colours it was continuing continuity with the cover lines while the use by having the drop
shadow really helped the name of the magazine Inbox became a brand which meets the code and
conventions of magazines. She did however express that she liked the selling line for the magazine
“providing students with a voice” saying it was effective as we were making a student magazine
therefore she was able to see that in that one small yet vital title it was paying homage to our target
audience which are students as well as our genre and niche of magazine.
When firstly looking at contents page our client said it looked more like a report and that it didn’t
clearly have the codes and conventions to make a professional student magazine contents
page.Therefore, I added previews of our articles to break up the text .Still this didn’t look effective
so the client said that if they were making the changes they would have more graphics to make use
of the contents page to look effective rather than look like a report, which comments I do agree
with. However, I feel that if we were include more graphics within at Photoshop I think they the
graphics itself would look tacky and unprofessional as I not good in creating graphics with Photoshop
which wouldn’t look professional and be an amateur contents page.
My articles:
When looking at the articles in question she did notice continuity within the two layouts of the
articles with the use of effectively laying out my pictures which looked effective and professional as
the text and pictures really illustrated the point I was making within my within my article with
needed the full attention of my audience. However she did feel that the continuity of the Christmas
theme was lacking through my articles due to the fact the subjects I was doing was serious and not
the context of Christmas, but I tried to reiterate the Christmas theme through having a strapline at
the end of the page along with the date and page number which reiterated that it was a Christmas
theme magazine. With one of my articles in particular i.e the exams the client expressed that the
colour scheme wasn’t to her satisfaction because she preferred one lighter colour as it looked on A4
much more darker however on the computer screen when I was making it looked more vibrant so I
decided to keep the colour scheme as we found out the target audience liked the vibrant colour as it
would attract them to the magazine therefore I chose to keep the colour the way it is.
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2. Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation
Other articles:
Other articles such as Omar , Brad and Zashia needed total restructure in order to make their articles
look professional and meet codes and conventions to meet the clients satisfaction .So in the end
there was vast improvement and the end quality of the magazine was vastly improved. To whether
the magazine looks a student magazine the client said that what let us down was the continuity to
the Christmas theme running through our articles as we only had really one true Christmas article
due to the fact the audience wanted purely education stories with hints of Christmas as education is
more important.
Task 3: Q1: What is the quality of the overall composition?
Well I think the overall composition is high standard from the front
cover to the double spread ,if we look at our front cover which is
shown right. The layout from the front cover is set out professionally
with clear and precise effective cover lines which makes the
readability clear to read and see we are establishing characteristic
used in magazines through an effective theme. We done this from
using the concept of our main picture of the magazine as itself i.e the
colours from the Christmas tree gold and green are also the colours
used for our coverlines .This is effective as it creates continuity
through the magazine front cover which is very effective and
important process when making a professional magazine.I hope we
have achieved this.
However, when looking at our articles themselves I don’t think we
continued with the continuity of the Christmas theme because more
of our stories are educational based with only one exception of a
Christmas story theme which focused on who switched on the lights in Solihull town centre.
However, we as a group found when asking our target audience that although the Christmas
magazine would seem an effective student magazine a large amount of the target audience
argued and highlighted within our research that a Christmas issue would be fun ,but education
comes first .So we as a group then took on board this decision and decided that a serious comprise
had to be made therefore this directly had an impact on our overall continuity within the magazine
articles as well as the magazine overall. The masthead is positioned at the corner of the magazine
because we didn’t want to take too much room and overpower the audience which would take too
much information way from the theme .
If you look at the particular masthead on our front cover we have used bold effective tones of
green and also white colours to make our title become a brand which is an
effective part of the code and convention used in magazines such as the National
Student Magazine and magazines to establish as a brand, as you can see on the right
which changes depending on it each issue. We decided that we wouldn’t position
our logo Inbox spread across the top part of the magazine in order not to overstate
the logo presence as it will take too much attention away from the magazines
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3. Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation
mainpicture which needs a deep analysis and keep the audiences full attention.So as mentioned
within our proposal we said we would pay homage to our college we have done through using within
our masthead colour scheme white and green.
When choosing how to layout the main coverline we wanted it to be effective and have a strong
purpose which our target audience highlighted with our initial research so we positioned the main
cover line in the middle of the front cover to allow the audience to take in the front cover and
establish that the theme Christmas which is warm ,inviting yet festive. In relations to establishing
this asa student magazine I think we have done this through a simple yet effective selling line for the
student by providing students with a voice which is symbolic and relates to the genre of the
magazine. We also have continued this theme of the students stories through their education
journey i.e exams and how to write personal statements.
What didn’t go well?
However I don’t particularly like the front cover because it actually features me which I didn’t really
want to do as within proposal we highlighted we wanted students other than ourselves so that is
what I would rather have done rather than me be featured which would been more professionally
done within the magazine industry as they would pay a model rather than the team to appear in the
front cover.However this picture was a last minute decision as I did instruct the team to sort the
front cover when I wasn’t in so that the production would be ahead of schedule however this wasn’t
to happen .So the lesson we as a team have learnt is that we could have spent more time in
creating an effective front cover rather than rushing the cover . As I have said the other coverlines
are positioned in neat and aligned positions so the audience can visibly see and read the magazine
in a professional manner rather than cluttered cover lines which would be unprofessional which
impacts on the readability. We decided that we would fill in the left third whichis unusual to the
normal codes and conventions which magazine follows because we had large spaces. However if I’m
going to critically analyse the magazines front cover I would say there is too much white space that
could have been filled i.e the top half of the magazine and the front half.
2. What is the quality of the pictures ?
When looking at the quality of the pictures for both the front cover
andall the articles I firstly had to discuss with the senior
photographer Brad how I wanted to position the camera and the
type of shot I wanted. So he gave me feedback about what I should
be aware of within the location as it may impact on the shot and we
chose a medium close up as the major frame shot because it was
able to capture the emotion of the person which was needed to
reflect the tone and feel of the articles itself.
The problems that I faced while I was getting the shots I needed I did have problems getting images
from the internet i.e peoples exams timetables which I needed within my exams article and UCAS
video to personal statements for my personal statement article which when I tried to print screen
first it became blurry . Also one of the UCAS videos of a personal statement looked amateur as I
took it while it played which should have been paused when I had taken ,but the problems that
occurred were that you were able to see the pixels then which distorted the pictured .So when I
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4. Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation
tried the using the camera I was still getting distorted yet darker pictures so I had to do further
improvements through Photoshop through making it brighter which helped the readability and
make it more clearer to read and make the captions easier to understand the purpose of the
pictures. The connotation why I used pictures from the internetwas because I wanted more
resources to illustrate my point to show the organisations involved such as UCAS and the resources
in college I.e ILP exams timetable which parents can access and reiterates my article which is
effective as the picture speaks louder than words. The weakness of this process was that maybe if I
should have spent more time and effort within taking the pictures
and instead of rushing it I like did I might of more colourful and
brighter ratherthan some that didn’t feel or look professional and
dampened the mood of the article.
3.How readable is the article :
For both articles I had decided tohave double page spread free
flowing because I wanted it to be informative through creating an
in-depth discussions with revolving subjects such as how to write a
personal statement and the examination process as this is what our
audience wanted when conducting our initial research into our target audience. Therefore I didn’t
want to any way under achieve this through having singular articles which would mean that certain
aspects of the article itself would be cut down . This wouldn’t make an effective article because it
would mean that all the relevant information wouldn’t be there and
the message wouldn’t be as effective as I would like. The reason why
when looking at the article there is a massive main title which is white
because I wanted it to be clear and precise for the audience to read
rather having smaller text which would be effective. Looking back on
the title itself for my second article exams are here!!! I could of really
put more time and effort into coming up witha catchy journalistic
convention i.e sarcastic titles which have made the magazine more fun
and exciting towards our target audience. But when it came to my
other article for the personal statement it had to be formal as I was
aiming it at parents and students so I had to be very forthcoming as this subject is serious and
needed to be sophisticated to meet my target audience so I made the personal statement big and
bold yet effective to be heard.
Sub title / first paragraph:
The reason why I inserted an opening paragraph within my article was that I wanted to give my
audience a flavour what my articlewas beforehand because I wanted them to understand what the
article was about because I would be referring to technical language / organisation involved with my
article, in which I included a serious tone as I was covering a vital subject regarding peoples future
whether in education or not. When looking back at the content of my first paragraph it looked too
pushedtogether and too overpowering which I could of cut out of the irrelevant information so next
I must be more considerate of the quality rather than quantity as if I do this, this makes a big deal
as when looking at the text in itself was a mini article as it was taking too much attention away from
picture and article.
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5. Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation
Drop line/ captions and page number
The reason why I decided to use a drop capital size 4 because I wanted to establish this as the start
of the article which begins the journey for the readers as they venture through my two articles .This
decision also reflects our proposal we indicated as we did decide we would use this which showed
we have met on one of our many promises we made to the client. After deciding the pictures I
would use within in my magazine article an important matter needed to
be decided upon such as how I would use captions. The reason why I
needed to use captions was that I need to clearly illustrate the
significant connotation of the pictures I.e I used a picture illustrating
ILPtyber for how parents can use the service to find out information
such as exam timetables and how the parents can clearly see how the
students are getting on in college which was important to illustrate as I
was talking about this within my article. The troubles that I came across
was that when setting them within my article was that it disrupted the
rest of my article which didn’t look professional.So I tried my best to rectify this too and make it
look effective which my first article did compared to my second one which looked a bit shabby.
Page numbers was positioned on of the one pages on the left hand bottom corner because this is
one of the many codes and conventions used within media industry in order to identify the page
numbers with print publication. So therefore I decided that it needed addressing therefore we as a
group decided to put the Christmas issue i.e the month and the website as the magazine national
student magazine provide the contact details for subscription purposes which would make our
magazine look and feel professional. Another reason why we decided to say the Christmas issue was
to reiterate the festive genre of the magazine to provide continuity as well as trying to set out a
professional magazine the whole way through our magazine through bringing attention what is the
whole purpose of this magazine is about i.e Christmas and other education stories.
How interesting is the article?
Using the group initial research we found out that the audience preferred educational stories so I
used important yet relevant stories such as exams as they would be coming up which is very much
relevant to students as this is there future has great importance as we are making specifically
student magazine made for them using the stories they want. Another reason why the stories has
relevance to student magazine is that it consists of both educational and fun stories if we take into
account the other articles within our magazine. However I lacked fun stories as I could have done
one hard news subject and one light-hearted subject but I decided against this because our audience
wanted important subjects that mattered as they said they wanted education stories such as exams
and personal statement as these are important life stories that need to be discussed so that they
the students need to know how best to approach this decision with caution and choose the right
decision.
How attractive colour scheme?
Well we aimed to go with a vibrant yet affective colour scheme such as I was doing guided on what
a personal statement was which wasa answer and question article in which required a strong yet
effective questions so I used the colour red which is bold yet effective as I was making an important
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6. Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation
point that meant separate questions and answers that looked easy to read and establish the
important information such as the meaning for personal statements and how to successfully write
one to get into university as the students needed guidance on to how to get into the university
they want. So when deciding the general colour scheme for the two articles I used purple and grey
which looked vibrant and effective .As the impression I was aiming for was a sophisticated yet
effective article because I wanted the audience to be drawn into reading the magazine article while
trying to make reference to the particular articles which tone is sophisticated yet informative which
will be very helpful in making the correct decision regarding their future which is bright.
How far did the article look and did it meet the original proposal?
Compared with our proposal we have made several changes such as creative decisions have been
made along the way due to various reasons I.e when getting the pictures for the magazine I wasn’t
expected to get the emotions and responses I got from the camera which had a direct impact with
the theme of the article and front cover which should have been different due to the fact that in
particular it was other peoples responsibility to get moreimpressive impact I wanted for the
magazine through taking the shots I wanted within the proposal I set them when I wasn’t in
.Nevertheless the main front cover is okay but should of originally been as highlighted within the
proposal been of students other than one of our own group celebrating Christmas. I did ask people
to undertake this job instead it was down to meto sort the front cover out. I think it did look a
professional magazine. Eventually we did persevere in all the rest of our articles taking our time
with each article to through hard work and dedication to get a professional high standard
magazine which included face to face interviews which provided more content to our magazine
which compared to national magazines made our magazine be on the same wavelength.
Final evaluation
Over the course of this project I think I have managed my time well as I have had come in my own
time plus college time to meet deadlines before they are done so that I didn’t leave it to the last
minute as it will be rushed not professional . But what I have had to do when I wasn’t in on a
particular day was rely on others to do the tasks I set being layout manager as well as trying to
catch up on the following day and workwise to still be ahead in the production. What I found out in
this experience working in groups and being a layout manager was that I had to step back quite a lot
because it was not my responsibility to lead the team as it was the editors job role. Which I found
really difficult to do and I tried my best. But when I’m a manager of a department such as layout
designer manager sometimes I would become like the editor trying to be in control of the group
which wasn’t helpful as it was down to the editor to help enforce deadlines other than me to make
sure people were doing their jobs. For communication skills with the group if anything I did help
them with trying to understand and establish how they wanted things whilst also having respect for
their viewpoints in allowing how they wanted their article to be with frequent meetings attended by
group members to discuss any problems they had which helped as we could help each other.
Did we meet our group deadlines and agreed timescales? No, because some people worked faster
than others which meant there was division between the group of how people wanted things done
such as more people were stuck on how to write their articles . Whereas , some people were getting
to copy their articles InDesign when as agreed within deadlines all of the articles would have
proceeded to this stage. This also meant being a layout manager I was still chasing people for their
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7. Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation
Production schedule : Deadlines
delayed and missed.
initial designs for their magazine so I could
approve it before starting this , which was
stressful and annoying . Because people were
saying they would get it done in that day or
lesson but they did not get back to me so I let
the editor have a word and told her the
production was slow. What I should do next
time is relax and allow other people to worry
about deadlines and push people to do the work
on time.But we did meet the final deadline set
by tutor which was important as it had to be
done because if it hadn’t then we would done
our project successfully or professionally.
What went well was that we all pulled together
at the end when looking at each other articles to
give each other advice i.e criticism to improve
their work to meet a professional standard.
Another thing that went well was that we as a
group and as individuals we did produce a professional magazine in the end through being creative
and using initiative and listening to what the client wanted in the brief as well as what our target
audience wanted within their official student magazine “ INBOX”
How could you ensure better outcomes in the future?
To ensure that we have better outcomes we as a team must be equal in an ideal world and make
realistic deadlines and stick to them because within the group in this project some people were slow
and this had a knock on effect slowing production down and not attending meetings. This hada
direct impact on the team at times which caused stress as I didn’t think we were going to meet our
final deadline.So for next time don’t be stressed and consider that people work slower than others
and accept it.
What new skills have I developed?/ am I mutiskilled?
I have further increased my understanding of both InDesign and Photoshop through developing an
effective front cover and using various tools I used within the MIxmag project such as drop shadow
and laying magazinewhich increased my confidence in exploring both InDesign and Photoshop
features more with less tutor support from when in the Mixmag project instead I used my initiative
to further make my articles even more effective. The skills Ihave learnt most are to have more
patience with the group . Such as when dealing with people , let them get on with their work and
focus on trying to still do my job of layout manager to the best of my ability. I thinkI have become
more mutiskilled within this project as there have been times when I have had to do other roles
within my two articles such as layout manager, photographer and writer which have required my
attention to detail when needed to make the production run smoothly and deliver a worthy article
for the student magazine and meet the audience needs using my own initiative. I think another
reason why I was mutiskilled was that when particular group members weren’t in or late I was able
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8. Amy Poole Unit 5 LO4 evaluation
to clearly give instructions which required me to show clear communications skills .While I do think I
did this too much which I tried to avoid doing but tasks weren’t being done.
Write down the constraints experienced by you individually in finding the information. Being
objective, list the reasons why you had difficulty or why you found it easy to obtain the
information.
I did have minor difficulties when making a production budget because I went over the actual budget
which didn’t show an effective or realistic budget sheet. This happened because I tried to get best
deals from the internet . This took along time on the internet which I do regret that I took the
first number at that particular time rather than looking at other alternative special deals with the
budget of hiring the equipment like macs and cameras to get a more realistic approach for this
particular task. I found easy the legal and regulatory issues because it required simply to use
common sense as wellas there was a lot of case studies from the internet to clearly highlight how a
journalist must consider readability when writing the article and should be incorporated within our
articles to make them professional . This is achieved through understanding that the purpose of
legal issues and readability are important regulations as we are becoming professional journalists
when making the student magazine therefore it was important to have easy access and know the
meaning of these too, to make our article clear and precise.
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