Friday 2nd September:
Today is the first day I have used Blogger, and I have set up this site to put my AS Media Coursework on. I have been looking at what you can do on Blogger and what will be particularly useful for my coursework. This means that when it comes to me uploading my coursework I will find the site easy to use and be able find the best way to present my posts.
Friday 30th September:
Today I have been updating and finishing off bits of work ready to upload them to my blog. I have been focusing on pieces of work to do with target audience and how magazine covers are created to specifically appeal to their target audience. I have also been looking at representation on magazine covers and how this directly relates to the target audience.
Friday 7th October:
Last night I spent the evening finishing up bits of work and making sure I was up to date on all my tasks. This means I spent the beginning of this lesson uploading all my work to blogger so it's ready for the deadline on Monday. I have now blogged my 5 magazine cover analysis, 500 word analysis of a magazine cover, Glossary and my Essay on a magazines responsibility for the social ramifications caused by their representations. The next thing I did this lesson was update this diary. Finally I got on todays task which was researching IPC, a magazine distributor. The task set is to create a double page spread on IPC's history, publications, current portfolio of titles, structure of company and current news. I only got a chance to start researching and jotting down key points. I will finish this task at home and ensure it is uploaded to Blogger for my next lesson.
Friday 14th October:
In this lesson I finished off my IPC case study. I made sure that all the information that I had gathered at home was typed into a double page spread and posted to my blog. I had trouble uploading to the blog though as the font is different to the rest of the page disrupting the continuity meaning that my IPC case study looks odd. I can't find away around this at the moment but will continue to try and change it to make sure there is continuity in my blog and work. This is all I was able to do this lesson as it took me a while to type up all the information and I spent quite a lot of time trying to sort out the irregular font on the IPC case study, when I uploaded it to my blog.
Friday 21st October:
I started my preliminary brief section in this lesson. I started to think about initial ideas for my cover and started to draft my proposal and design my flat plans. I finished the initial ideas in the lesson as I already had a couple of ideas on how I wanted my magazine to look. I also did my flat plans as I was able to draw inspiration from my initial ideas. Unfortunately I didn't get any further and I set myself the preliminary task and making sure everything is up to date as homework for over half term.
Half Term:
Over Half Term I finished by Preliminary Brief tasks by making sure my proposal was done. I also uploaded it to my blog a long with the other tasks. I made sure over half term that I was completely up to date with everything so that when I got back to college I was ready to move on and start designing my actual cover.
Friday 4th November:
In this lesson I started actually making my cover. I had an introduction to In Design and how to use the basics, ready for when I need to use it properly for my designs. I also went and took my pictures around college to use on and in my magazine. I went around different locations in college to make sure that I had a variety of images to use, although I had an idea on what type of picture I wanted. I wanted a range in case they worked better than my idea. I came out with some really good images that I can use. I will start to work these into a range of drafts that I can then develop and expand into my final piece.
Friday 11th November:
In this lesson I continued designing my drafts to make sure that I can progress into my final piece and meet the deadline for my finished cover and draft contents. I have a lot to do so I just got on and designed and will do some at home and in my own time to make sure I come up with the best ideas and to meet my deadlines!
Friday 18th November:
I realised in this lesson that I had a lot of work to get through before the deadline next Friday. In this lesson I finished my cover and started on my contents page. The work that I did in class was all my work that's based on In Design as I felt more comfortable doing it in class. At the end of this lesson I also made sure I had a detailed list of other work that needed to be completed before next lesson. This included making sure I have put all my work so far on to my blog and that my blog was completely up to date so that next lesson I can concentrate on finishing my contents page and adding all that information to my blog next lesson so that I get all my work done on time!
Friday 25th November
Today I made sure that everything was finished in time for the deadline at the end of this lesson. I had to make sure I had all my tasks completed and on my blog, I had made sure this was done prior to the lesson but needed to check that everything was uploaded correctly and more importantly I had to make sure my cover page was completed as well as my contents page. I completed my contents page mainly today and then uploaded all my drafts to my blog and briefly explained each one. I also uploaded and perfected my final copies of my cover and contents page and explained them and why I was happy with them and had chosen them as my final copies. I finished everything in time for the end of the lesson and am happy with the end results.
Friday 2nd December
Today I moved on to the Music Magazine task. I started researching into music magazines this lesson as part of my research and planning. As I have to do 4 research tasks I started off by analysing an existing music magazine cover to identify key elements. This took me the whole lesson as before I started analysing this cover I looked a little bit into we know about music magazines which I could refer to in later research and work.
Friday 9th December
Today I continued my research into Music Magazines. I made a questionnaire in this lesson which I would hand out to people who are around the same age as my target audience. I did this so that I could get rough idea of what my target audience would expect from a magazine and what they actually like to read about. I also analysed my results this lesson and made presentation which shows clearly what people most want from and think about magazines.
Friday 16th December
In this last lesson before the christmas holidays I started another piece of research. I started to make a prezi detailing a case study of my target audience. I didn't get very far with this as it was the first time I'd used prezi and was still trying to get used to it. I managed to get the basics down but will have to finish this and the rest of my outstanding work over the christmas holidays ready to start in the new year.
Christmas Holidays
I did a lot of work over Christmas to make sure I am ready for the new year.
I: Finished my Case Study Prezi
Completed my final research task which was research into the conventions of music magazines
Came up with my initial ideas
Wrote my magazine proposal
and designed my magazine flat plans.
Friday 6th January
In today's lesson I uploaded my prezi and powerpoint to my blog. I did this today, instead of over the holidays as I need a bit of guidance in how to embed them onto my blog. This took me the whole lesson as I had to give it a couple of tries to convert and embed them. I finally got this done so I can move on next lesson.
Friday 13th January
In this lesson I started to think about actually designing my cover and thinking about what pictures I would need. I spent this lesson not only thinking about my photo set up, I started to plan what I was going to write in my double page spread. I started to type this into a word document so that once I had set my double page spread up I could just paste the article in. I also looked at old music magazines to see what types of pages and features they had so I could get a couple of ideas for my contents page. I also put these onto a word document so they are ready to paste in. I am planning to take my pictures this weekend so that next lesson I can start my design work.
Friday 20th January
This lesson I started to actually design my double page spread. I managed to set up my page and columns. I also imported the image i would like to use and used this guideline to put a title in. Once I had done that I started to paste my article from my word document in, so that it fit into the layout I'd set. I had to keep altering my text so that it all fit into the columns and also so I could put some drop quotes in. I will have to finish this next lesson as the information that I have on my double page spread is a basic outline that needs to develop into my final piece.
Friday 27th January
Today I set out to finish my double page spread. I finished inputting my text first, then I had to do some altering to make sure that everything fit on the page and so that it resembled a real music magazine. I finished putting the text in, then changed the colour of my drop quotes, I had to re size the image and some of the text so that I could fit all my article in. I finished my double page spread and made sure i exported a jpeg of the final image, ready to upload to my blog. I also ensured that I had all the copies of my drafts as well.
Friday 3rd February
Today I started on my contents page. I put down the brief outline of where my text and images are going to go first before adding in some images and the main part of the text. I didn't get a lot done today as I did a lot of moving around to ensure everything was in the right place, but as I went along I made sure I had jpeg copies of all my drafts. I will attempt to finish my contents next lesson ready to move onto my cover after that.
Friday 10th February
I managed to finish my contents page today. I added in all the missing information first before adding colours and effects to improve the page and make it look more sophisticated and like a music magazine. I tried to use bright pop colours that complemented the images and the theme of the magazine. I also added in shapes around the text to make them more unique. As I went along I made sure I saved jpeg images of all my work, ready to upload to my blog. I also started my front page today, although I didn't get it all done. I made sure I had the brief outline down and also my Title and Main Image. Over half term I am going to make sure that I complete the front cover by adding in the rest of the detail, ready for next term.
Half Term
Over Half Term I have completed my Front Cover of my music magazine. I added in the rest of the coverlines and images and then used all the information to edit and move the cover round to bring the cover together and achieve the right style. I also used the style that I had created in my front cover to make tweaks to my contents page and double page spread. I made changes that brought the whole magazine together and to make sure there was a consistent style running all the way through. I added in page numbers and edited some fonts and colours to bring each page together. I have made sure, over half term, that I am completely up to date with my design work and blog, ready to start again next term.
Friday 24th February
In this lesson I double checked everything that I had completed over half term and made sure that everything had uploaded okay. I also showed my work to my teacher so that she knew where I was, in terms of progress. After I had checked everything was okay I started to look at the evaluation section. I didn't get very far with this as I just read through the questions to try and get my head around what the questions were actually asking. Next lesson I will start to actually plan what I want to say and what format I'm going to put it in.
Friday 2nd March
I carried on from last lesson by looking at the Evaluation and starting my first evaluation question. I didn't manage to finish it today as I had to look back at the question and remember what the question was actually asking me. Then I looked over the work I had to done so that I could evaluate it. I did manage to do three quarters of my first question and I will finish this at home so that I'm ready to start a new question next lesson.
Friday 9th March
As I finished question 1 for homework I moved on to my second evaluation question. This took me quite some time as I hand wrote my analysis of my work before presenting it on the computer. I analysed how I was attempting to target my audience, how I actually targeted my audience and how my audience were represented in my design. I made sure the analysis was presented clearly, before uploading the jpegs to blogger.
Friday 16th March
I started my 3rd evaluation question today looking at the best company to distribute my magazine. This question didn't take me very long as the question was pretty straight forward. I also had a lot of the information needed because of my earlier research in my research and planning section. I presented this question in a powerpoint and discussed who I thought would be the best company to distribute my magazine and why that was. I was happy that I managed to complete this question and upload it to my blogger.
Friday 23rd March
In todays lesson I moved on to the fourth evaluation question, which looks specifically at my target audience. I felt that the best way to present this, and show lots of clear detail, was through a Prezi. I felt this because I could incorporate all the images and text that I wanted while still making it fun and interactive to read about. I managed to finish this evaluation question in the lesson because I used the target audience research that I had collected when researching into the most suitable audience for my magazine.
Homework:
As I only managed to complete 4 out of the 7 evaluation questions in class, and the deadline is next lesson, I completed the outstanding questions at home and in my spare time at college. I first completed question 6, in an essay format, looking at the types of technologies used in the magazine process. I found this interesting to write about and I looked back at all the important programmes that I had used and how they actually influenced in the magazine industry. I then moved on to question 5 and question 7 as I decided to present these as videos. I firstly wrote out a script that I would read in my videos then recorded them one after the other. This took some time because I made mistakes and had to re do them. I finally got these done. I decided on question 5 to include some supporting images, so I spent some time putting these in and incorporating them into my sequence of work. Once I had done this I set up a YouTube account, to enable me to upload my videos. Once I had done this I embedded them into my blog.
Friday 30th March:
Today is the deadline day for all the coursework! As I had finished my evaluation at home and in my spare time I spent this lesson reading through my work, checking it was all there and correct so that I am fully ready to hand my coursework in. I am happy with the outcome of my work and am ready to hand it in!
