When looking back at my schedule, I set out this week in my lessons to:
a: For this lesson I will revisit my front cover design, and much like I
did with the University Blues, I will use the feedback I gained from it to make
any edits I need to and think will be effective.
b: For this lesson I will be revisiting my York DPS, and again looking
over the target audience feedback, making any final changes in terms of layout
and basically finishing off the DPS.
c: For this lesson I will not be there, as I have to go on a driving
course for the majority of the day, therefore I won’t be able to attend. So
what I intended to do will be moved into my homework.
d: Project Monitoring & revisiting the contents page. For this
lesson I will be writing up my blog and also re-reading it, making sure I have
placed enough information and monitoring in my uploads to gain good marks and
show a detailed progression of my production. I will also re-look over my
contents page, as at this point nearly all my work will be completed.
In terms of what I have achieved this week:
Unfortunately
this week I did not follow my schedule at all. Because of the work I had done
prior to the half term, most elements of my magazine were nearly finished,
therefore I spent much less time going back over them. This was a conscious
decision, as I tend to end up changing things that don’t need changing at all,
so I haven’t thoroughly looked over everything individually, as set out in my
schedule, but have skimmed over everything, gained some feedback, and have also
decided to change my University article. This was the one element I wasn’t
happy with at all; I knew it needed editing, and this became the main focus of
my week, alongside looking over my other pages briefly, and gaining feedback
from the target audience.
On Monday I made
the decision to change the University Blues article. After looking back through
all my work, I decided that it just didn’t quite fit. The side with the penguin
books graphic was taking up far too much room, and essentially was wasting
space. So during my free time I began editing up the DPS. I referred back to
the previous version of this DPS used as a mock up from last year, and pulled
some elements from that onto the current version. The most part of Monday was
therefore spent simply puling around different elements, from text placement
and image placement, to create a general template to then work from during the
week. This pretty much meant that I had created more work for myself, where before
this week would not have been spent doing this activity, but I want to ‘like’
my work, and be happy with the results, and the way the Uni Blues article was
looking before this week was not something I would have been happy to hand in.
So the decision to change it was the right one, and this was my main focus for
the week.
On both
Tuesday and Thursday I continued with the editing of the University Blues
article. I wasn’t in college on Wednesday, so no editing could be done,
therefore the majority of the other two days were spent on the University
Article. After I had pulled over the different sections I needed from the
previous mock up from 2013, I began creating a structure for the page. This was
where the page was by the end of Tuesday, so I had made pretty decent progress
with it.
The main sections I continued with on Thursday was the breakout box on
the right hand page, mainly gaining secondary images from Google, as well as
smaller measures such as moving images slightly for a better look,
and making sure everything fit well within the pages columns and guidelines.
I’m happy with the work I have done on this article, and it was 100% the right
choice to change it. I love the title within the circles, which I took from my
mock up and the general feel to the page is much better. It’s fuller, and there
isn’t any wasted space, which there was in the previous version. This meant
that by the end of Thursday the page looked like this:
It now fits
more with my other articles, and if I’m honest I’m really happy with the way
it’s turned out, which was my main goal for all the work I’ve done.
By Friday, I
began looking over everything again. After skimming through each part, I
finalized the contents page, the Cuts article, the Uni article and the front
cover, which just left the York article. With everything else finished, I began
re-visiting the York article, and with the deadline extended, I decided to
change some elements. I spoke with my tutor, who advised me to simply rotate
some of the text and images, and move the title text over, add in secondary
image, and just bulk the pages out a bit more. This was so helpful, because
although I did like this page, with the progress I had made on the Uni article
in a short space of time, I thought I could maybe move some things around, and I
decided to make these changes. These will be done on Monday morning, in time
for the hand-in.
So by the end
of production I am pretty happy with everything. Unlike last year, where I
didn’t like my product, this year I really do like what I have made, and I
think that may be due to it being targeted more at me, therefore I have been
creating something with myself and my friends in mind, which helped with the
design and layout.
For homework I set out to:
Homework 1: For this homework I will look over my Budget Cuts article,
the last one to check over, and continue just like my other ones in that I need
to check that everything works and that I have made it as effective as
possible.
Homework 2: For this homework I think it makes sense, that after
spending much of the past week looking over the work individually, I should see
how the magazine looks and reads together.
Homework 3: My final homework will be checking over everything and
getting some feedback before I start reviewing the work and typing up what I
have done. Therefore I will go over the entire unit, and blog and see that
everything is up to date, whist also asking some friends what they think of my
magazine.
Overall with
the homework I had planned to do, I did some things. I did look at seeing how
the magazine read together, and checking my blog, but as with the schedule for
the lesson this week, because I had made progress before half term, I didn’t
look over the budget cuts article as homework, but instead did in lesson time.
I basically spent most of the time looking back over the work and getting some
feedback. The target audience liked most parts, especially the general feel of
the magazine, and its branding and design, so this was reassuring more than
anything to know that someone liked what I had created. That was pretty much
the homework I did for the week, except editing the Uni article in my free time
on Monday and Tuesday. I think this is because with a schedule, you can’t
always plan things out fully, and expect to know that everything will follow a
certain time and pattern. So, I’m not too worried that I haven’t followed the
homework, as I think I can consciously decide for myself during the week what
really needs to be done, and what needs priority over something else.
