The document provides a self-evaluation by Emma Garthwaite of her research, planning, production, post-production, and final product for a project creating a magazine and clothing brand. She found her research and audience research especially helpful. Her planning could have been more detailed. Production went well overall despite some challenges with models and photo shoots. Post-production editing took longer than planned but turned out well. Technical issues prevented her from creating the clothing brand as intended. While her final product did not fully meet her original intentions, she was ultimately happy with the magazine she created.

1. EVALUATION
Emma Garthwaite

2. Research
In terms of method for my research I looked at context of
behind the scenes of brands to get an idea of what these
brands are like and how to create my own brand. I think
research actually really helped me realise what I needed to
do as a whole for my project. It really gave me some
experience with the industry and gave me a chance on a
learn to try and get in the mind set of the companies I was
researching. The research moment of looking behind the
scenes of everything really helped me with realising what the
industry is like. I researched brands like supreme and
thrasher that work really well. This was to give me the idea of
what I wanted to create my brand with inspiration from
these people. This really did make me realise what I was
doing and taught me a lot about the industry. I think I could
have done a little bit more research and looked more into
things like how to design clothes and how to make the
clothes look more real. Because one of the issues I had was
that the transfer paper. Therefore more research into more
specific things would have helped a lot more. As for audience
research I looked into Instagram polls and did them on my
own personal account to find out my audience through
primary research. It worked reslly well and I think that this
was the best way that I could of thought of to find out things
about my research. I was really happy with the way I looked
into my audience research and I think it was a unique way of
researching.

3. Final Concept
My final concept was to make a magazine and a clothing brand. I think although
it seemed like an amazing idea at the time and I don’t think it was too much for
me to do at all. However I think that it was an achievable goal to look at but I
think because I hadn’t done enough problem solving I think it didn't fully work
out in hindsight which was my own fault. However over all comparing my final
concept and my final product I am happy with it I just think if I had managed
things a little better then maybe it would have turned out a lot more like my
main idea rather than half of my main idea. I think it was something I was
passionate about therefore the concept was something I was excited about
making but I think I could have had more things written in stone and like I said
planned things more solidly.

4. Planning
I think over all my planning was okay. I think it could
have been more detailed and I could’ve written more
for this part alone. I don’t think it was too bad and it
went okay. I planned a fair bit like aesthetics and
locations. However one thing I think I could have done
to improve my planning is make some mind maps
because I think that would have given me a bit more of
an overview of what I was planning to do and might
have helped me make some real, set in stone plans
because I didn't’t have anything majorly planned. I
think at this point I hadn’t seemed to of made many set
decisions and I was finding it hard to find things to look
into and plan however I think I should have looked
more into planning and think this was one of my
weaker points because I struggled to find things to plan
because I wasn’t sure what plans were written in stone
at that point in time. I think it just seemed like a
extension on ideas rather than really setting up set
ideas that I wanted to do in production which left me
winging a lot in production, which I think I managed
well with but I think my planning was definitely my
least strong point.

5. production
Within production I think my main idea was good that I
wanted a mainly image based magazine and I stuck to that
within the first week or two of production. In the end I am
proud of but I think I could’ve improved it but a lot of
factors weigh into the fact that it could’ve been better. For
example I didn’t make my own brand because the transfer
paper I bought didn’t work but I think over all my
production work ended up working out in the end and I did
well with what I had available to me at the time. Shoots
were difficult because of models being unreliable and
falling out with them, Therefore I had to delete photos that
I had of these models and find new people to fill in for the
models that I wasn’t using anymore. Shoots were hard to
organize because of people and I ended up doing most of
them at college. This was because it was the only way I
could organize everything to be easily done in one place. It
was working well over all though and the picture don’t even
look like they have been taken at college because of the
locations being chose. I think that my production went
really well except leaving the making of the clothes so late
and not having the correct fund to purchase more transfer
paper when the first one that I bought didn’t work. That
was a large issue when it came to comparing my project to
my concepts. Overall though looking back my production
worked well when id got over the few bumps in the road
that I had to face.
Photos that
didn't work
Photos that did
work

6. Post Production
I think overall as a final project my post production went really well
as a whole. However I left a lot of editing to last minute because I
wasn’t editing at first. I was putting the photos in Photoshop and
adjusting the levels but I wasn’t doing anything interesting to the
images which I regretted towards the end and I ended up spending
the last two weeks editing all the photos that I wanted in my
magazine. I think I should have done that earlier within the process
of post production and I think it would have been a lot less stress
however I think overall the final product looks good at the end of it
especially because of the editing I did. Everything in post
production really worked out in the long run and I was quite proud
of my overall post production because it went really well. I think
things like editing photos is an easier thing to do because once you
get a certain style you want to go for then you know what you want
your images to look so you can get the aesthetic you want when
you have a pattern of editing. Laying things out as well was a
struggle fore me because in the peer feedback I got mixed
feedback on my layouts and some people liked them and some
people didn’t. I think it was a tough thing to do right because id
looked at so much inspiration I think I confused myself because it
was hard to put them all together and I think I should have just
taken one specific look that I wanted to have but over all my final
decisions for my layouts looked simple and the right amount of
minimalistic. Therefore over all I think after some work and
realising what I wanted within post production the whole process
went quite smoothly.
Beforeafter

7. Technical problems
For technical problems they were quite minimal as for things like equipment
not working or software crashing I didn’t have any of this. The only real
technical problem I had was the fact that the transfer paper that I bought
didn’t work therefore I couldn’t create the clothes that I wanted for my own
brand. Therefore this was an issue and because I didn’t have the funds to buy
any more therefore It was something that had to be put on hold and just
didn’t end up happening because I was struggling with finance. Therefore my
final product ended up just being the magazine because I couldn’t afford to
make the clothes that I wanted to because of this issue. Howver because of
this, I made sure that my magazine was the best that it could be to make
sure I got the grade that I wanted from that piece alone because I didn’t have
anything else.

8. Management Problems
Some of the management problems I encountered were again very minimal.
I found it hard to manage everything together and manage my time correctly
because of other things that were going on behind the scenes. I found it hard
when working with friends to really take that managing role on trying to get
things done in a set amount of time. As much as I enjoyed working with
friends I think it would have been easier to make it more of a professional
environment with people I wasn’t close to. However I enjoyed the process
never the less. I like to think I was a good person to work with and I will be
getting feedback from the people that I worked with so that I can have a real
idea of what I was like as a management figure within this project especially
within photoshoots. I just wanted creating everything to be enjoyable so I
took a more relaxed approach to this project.

9. Emotional problems
I had a few emotional problems that I managed to overcome. For example I
ended up falling out with one of my models because of them being
unreliable. Therefore I ended up having to delete all of the photos I had of
her that I’d taken previously. I was lucky it was so early on with the project
because if it was later on it would have been a lot worse. I think the biggest
issue was the stress I was handling with everything going on during my
project, such as getting a new job within the first two weeks of the project,
which I ended up leaving because of it affecting my attendance and work at
college and my ability to go out on do shoots with people. Therefore I think
the way I handled it was beneficial because I looked at my priorities and
made my education and my project my top priority for the time being and
that helped me lower my stress levels because I tried to make this project an
enjoyable, relaxed project to create because it is based on something I
enjoyed so much I didn't want it to become a chore to made which I think I
achieved.

10. Did your product meet your intentions?
I think the fact that I didn't create my clothing brand
means no It didn’t meet my intentions completely
because I was planning a bigger project than what I
ended up with. However when I managed to finish
the magazine I became very happy with my final
product and I think although I didn't manage to do
everything I wanted to, it gave me more time to
focus on my magazine as a main project and I think
that now looking at my final piece I am way happier
with my product than what I would have been if I
had of been made to rush everything because I had
too much on my plate as I was going on with the
project. So although I was upset with the fact that
my transfer paper didn’t work that made me unable
to make the clothing brand I wanted to. I am very
happy with my final product. I think one of the
biggest issues I had with meeting my intentions was
that I had lost a lot of motivation towards the end of
this project and I think I wasn’t as happy with what I
chose to do at the end. I lost heart in what I was
doing but I think I pulled through and produced a
final piece that I could be happy with.