Peer Evaluation.

Peer Feedback

 After receiving my printed magazines I decided to do a little focus group (as I had previously collected a lot of data from Google Forms) to gather some extra feedback that would essentially add to my evaluation of what I could be better at.

 The feedback I received was very positive, the one negative I noticed was to do with the layout of titles. For my 'May Trends' someone didn't like that the 'trends' went down the side of the page as opposed to across the centre. I decided to do this to make it more aesthetically pleasing and mix it up from having an ordinary title across the upper/ centre of a double page. I think it adds more character and allows my images to blend better than being so 'organised' on the page, as this was something in which I had done on the previous pages.

 Another thing I gathered was that people wanted more variety when it came to the images themselves, which I agree with. As discussed in previous blog posts, I got my model to bring around 5 changes of clothes to mix it up, however when it came to editing and picking out the final images, the ones that worked for me and the aesthetic I was aiming to achieve seemed to be very similar. Saying this however the model is pictured wearing different clothing and there is a variety of colours and editing techniques, however that is coming form my point of view where I have been looking and working out /planning these images, therefore I will of course see a large difference in them. This is really useful feedback to take on board as it not only means get more variety of images, but it allows me to open and expand my ides, outside of the studio. Next time I would like to do a mixture, photographs from inside and outside the studio, just to add some more interest and appeal to my target market/audience.

 Something I did notice was a lot of people liked the images where they crossed over, where red/blue lighting was used and the shutter speed was adjusted. This is interesting as it is one of the images which alone, don't look fantastic, however once layered and the opacity altered it really changes the image. This means that if I were to go for a similar aesthetic I would experiment further with the shutter speed in the photoshoot itself, then further when it came to editing it together.

 Overall my peer feedback was useful and a success. I decided to only add the major points in this post as I have gone more into depth in my last questionnaire results post. This discussing the points in which I can improve on and can clearly see for next time I make a project like this. I hope to vary my images and editing, and continue to experiment with things such as layout and size!

Self Evaluation.

Self Evaluation

 As briefly discussed in my evaluation (here) I have learnt a number of things through the whole FMP process, including experience in the whole process (the magazine / publishing industry) as well as experience in applications such as Photoshop, InDesign and Lightroom. I have done a number of things that I would change or alter next time I complete a project like this.
 Next time I would like to create a large product. Perhaps have more pages in my magazine and add a poster or advertisement. This way it can reach the audience on a much larger scale than it would currently by only having printed magazines. In addition to this it would also mean I could experiment with different styles, for example images and text better for larger products such as posters.

 As I become more familiar and use Adobe softwares more, I will be able to produce content to a much higher quality. In order to achieve this I can look at tutorials (like I did for this project, but in more depth) as I want to become better at using InDesign. This application in particular as I don't know how to use it fully yet and it would come in handy to know how to confidently create projects on it.
 I was happy with the photographs and editing in which I produced, however there is of course room for improvement. Next time I want to explore outside the studio and alter the camera settings (like I briefly did in my test shoot with the camera shutter speed).

 In regards to the brief we are given, I managed to fulfil all the individual assignments by the deadline. I think this is important as time management is something that should be superior when given a project, so that you have time to plan everything. I feel like I could have added more time for the pre production and less for actual production as the production and photoshoot only took me one day, this is interesting for when I look back on my Project Proposal as I had anticipated the production would take longer.

 To conclude, I believe the project was a personal success in regards to learning new techniques, softwares and information. It has allowed me to produce something using a mixture of my research and influencers, and original ideas. The use of the studio, lighting and equipment along with applications of Adobe were al interesting to learn to use the way I want to achieve the results I wanted, however I can see a lot of room for improvement. 

Evaluation.

Pre Production, Production & Post Production

As the project is coming to an end and I have completed my magazine, I am going to go through and discuss everything I have done, the reasons for those decisions, what I like, comparisons, key elements and what I can improve upon for next time. I have decided to split my evaluation up into sections, this will make it easier to read and blend together.

Pre Production

Mind Map

 The pre production for my FMP started at the beginning of March. We were given the brief of what we need to roughly stick to, and from there my ideas began to flow and expand the more work I completed. My whole initial idea was to produce a printed magazine, based on fashion with a mixture and strong influence of photography, that would inspire and show others fashion, but photographed in  a more interesting manner ( in my opinion) to the ordinary fashion magazines. To start off I gathered some inspirations I would base my magazine around, they consisted of publications such as Paper Magazine and Vogue. From here I was able to plan and put into action the thoughts and ideas I had. I decided to do this online, creating mind maps, consisting of inspirations, colour themes, photography styles, influencers and more. At this point my research was extending, every time I produced another mind map or blog post I had the idea to go more in depth to things such as layout as I found it intriguing. After this secondary research I decided to go on and produce my own primary research, allowing me to make it more specific and personal to my own project. By creating an initial questionnaire and sending it to my target audience I was then able to dive into the world of content. As I knew from the beginning my magazine wouldn't be very 'article' based this time around I was also able to put my focus on to photographers, lighting techniques and more.

 From this chunk of work and after looking at all the different fonts to fit my aesthetic, I could then put all this research into practice. Consequently producing a large number of experiments, all available to view on my blog. All of these came in handy as when it came to the actual production of my magazine I was familiar and happy with things I was going to do. My work continued on, me producing more mood boards and photoshoots, as well as sketches for layout and more, before the production began.

Behind The Scenes test

 Above explains my work from March to around April, all of which was a key element to producing a project that is successful. Taking inspirations from publications such as Paper and photographers such as Dean Sherwood, along with my own personal style and ideas, I was able to being my production. So before discussing this I wanted to pick the things out that were and were not a success. What I think did work well was my experiments in particular. By doing test shoots and playing around with editing, watching tutorials and more, I was able to learn all the way along pre production. My mood boards/ mind maps also communicated my ideas visually. It gives a good idea of aesthetic, style, content and personal pathway in the project, which is important to those that, for example, are not interested in this section of work I have done and perhaps can't relate, therefore by viewing my work I have included a lot of images and screenshots to try and portray my ideas and journey. In addition to this, by doing multiple experiments it enabled me to develop my idea further than I could have thought originally possible. For example, when experimenting with lighting techniques, I was able to see what would happen if I used two colours of strong light influence as opposed to one. Then what they looked light with natural lighting. That meant that when I later came to experimenting with editing my images, I could not only enhance and adapt the experiment shots, but I experimented by merging the two together, further developing my project and research!

Test Shot

Things that were not as successful, or perhaps helpful, were a few questions in my survey. By having such a wide variety of people in my target audience, I got a lot of responses from those whom would never in the first place find themselves buying a fashion magazine based around women! So when I got responses from them, it was difficult to try and interpret them, however despite this I managed to think about 'on the other hand...' and use their responses in a positive manner.  From this pre production I have discovered that I need to come up with some more challenging questions for surveys and try and send them out to even more people to get a larger response. Throughout the process I have also become increasingly better at Photoshop. I realised that I needed to know things I did not, so by taking that into my own hands and researching tutorials I was then able to delve into things such as the blending options on text to make them blend to the image, adding a glow and experimenting even further!
 If I could change something about my pre production side of things, I would want to look deeper into my own research with things such as focus groups, instead of limiting myself to a Google Form and sharing it on Facebook, from this I know that next time I will improve this. When I look back to the Statement Of Intent I filled in, I can clearly see that when I discussed research I would do, I talked about other pupils work and comparing my work to theirs. Upon beginning my FMP I soon discovered that for me, looking at other's work doesn't help as much as I had initially anticipated. This being that we have different ideas, and different ways of thinking, so although it it nice to see if you are 'on track' and roughly creating the same documents for example, the work itself didn't help. As we were given some guidelines I decided to take it into my own hands and everything I created and researched, to produce a blog and what ever else I found appropriate. However, by looking at others work it also helps you become better at critiquing. This being that if you are always looking at someone else's work you can notice things they may not have included, therefore hopefully meaning you can add this to yours to make it 'better'.
 Of course then on the other hand I did discuss that I wanted to research bloggers and influencers, this is something in which I have completed and am happy with. I went into a lot more depth than may seem necessary, but by doing so it really helped me find what I truly wanted to produce!

Production

 When it came to the actual production of the project I felt fully prepared due to the amount of research and experimentation and effort in which I had put in before hand, therefore not feeling any necessary 'pressure'. A large majority of my pre production experiments consisted of me using photoshop to create multiple mock covers and inside pages, again all things in which really helped my final production.  So I was then able to book out the studio, set up the backdrop and all the equipment, and begin my final shoot. Whilst doing this I took some extra pictures on my phone to create a 'behind the scenes' blog post in which discusses the process,step by step, of what I did and why, as well as what could have gone better and what I would want to do next time. In addition to taking over 200 new pictures, I was also happy because by keeping the images that I really liked from my test shoot in the pre production stage, it allowed me to have something to 'fall back on' which was somewhat comforting. Ironically I couldn't actually get the same lighting effect I had initially got in my test shoot, so I actually did end up using 2 images combined in my final magazine. 

 Just before I had done my final photoshoot I briefly research the printing options available to me, this helped as I knew after I had put together everything I was confident with the final look I wanted to achieve.
 Once I had my photographs I uploaded them to my computer and edited them using Lightroom. This was one of the things through the whole project that was really interesting as I had no experience with using it, therefore by doing some research and playing around with the application I was able to successfully find the things that worked for me and the images I took. I was able to bring out certain tones and shades to enhance them, without it coming across too strong. However saying this there were some images that looked a little bit 'washed out' even when enhanced, so I tried changing the colour of the whole image, this however did not work for me and is something for me to learn from.
 I decided to use Photoshop to write my articles and put together my pages as I was able to use the tools and effects to enhance and really make the magazine look how I want to. I initially did try using InDesign to make my whole magazine, however I could not get the right text effects that I could in Photoshop, so opted for that instead!

Behind The Scenes of shoot

 Once my photoshoot was completed and I had put it together I decided to do a print trial. I decided to do this using my printer at home, this was so that I was able to see what my final version would look like and any alterations I would want to make that I thought didn't suit. Soon after I made my alterations, some of which included adding things and taking away things that were unnecessary. Therefore I had my final magazine on Indesign to the standard I was happy with. At this point I wanted to create a questionnaire to gather feedback from peers and my target market to anything they would prefer to see or have changed, however as I did not have a printed version and couldn't include all the screenshots on the Google Form I decided to publish it online, therefore viewable to others online easily.

  Something that was successful was the editing and actually photoshoot itself, I was very pleased with it, however did realise that if I were to do another one I need to keep in mind that for things such as a front cover I need to change the orientation of the camera so that when I stretch the image to fit, we don't lose half of the person in shot! This is really important as I realised soon after I needed to have taken more portrait images to fit my A4 portrait magazine, again this is something I will learn from and ensure I will change for the next project I do. The only minor thing that went slightly 'wrong' was when I had completed my magazine on photoshop, then exported it as a photoshop file, consequently meaning that the quality was poor when I added all the pages to InDesign. Despite this I was able to rectify this by going back to photoshop and exporting them as PNG, meaning that the quality was high on both images and text, and that when I later sent it to print there would be no quality issues.

Post Production

 Lastly, the post production side of this project wasn't as large as I had initially anticipated. The last few stages once my magazine had been sent to print was to gather feedback on my final product and evaluate my work. Once the magazine had arrived I was really happy with the choice of paper (coating and thickness) as it really gave the effect I wanted it too! By photographing the final piece and asking my target audience questions, I took down some notes and was able to produce some data on their opinions (see this blog post). This was helpful as I could then evaluate my work purely based on others opinions of it.
 The last stage of post production I have to complete is my evaluation that you are reading. I decided to split my evaluation into this blog post, as well as as a self evaluation on the tasks I did and what I want to do next time, and finally one evaluation using the results from my focus group and peers, evaluating my product from a different point of view.

 As a whole, the project has been a success in my opinion. Looking at what my idea started as and now looks as a final piece I think it all ties in together. I feel like my work has been consistent and the fact that I enjoyed the process also helps as it pushed me to do more and make it even better. I would say that if I were to be set the same task again, I would want to expand, both in my articles and in actual size. I think I would like to do it based on something a bit more 'me', less fashion based, but still photography based! This would be really interesting to expand the articles as I would have a better voice over the subject matter if it was something more personal / had more experience with.

Final Magazine.

Final Printed Version

 Once I had completed my progression of work, I received my printed magazine in the post. See below:

Update of social media account

Progression Part 3.

Final Stages

 As the deadline approached I was on schedule and happy with my work. I was able to complete the individual assignments within the given time frame and to a quality I think is good. So after I had uploaded all my files to InDesign from Photoshop and I had my final product, it was time to send it to print. As discussed a few blog posts ago, I uploaded that version of my magazine to Issuu.com and produced a questionnaire to further push my product and abilities within this project. I then collected the results and reviewed them here. 

 

 So after I had done all the reviews on my digital version that was possible and I had amended anything I wanted to, I sent it to print. I used the website Mixam.uk as after doing all my research (prior to any production) this was the best option for things such as the print itself (amount to order, paper type, delivery etc) compared to the other sites. To do this I needed to upload my PDF documentations to their site and order them.

This is what the site looks like and how it was to upload them!

 This was one of the key points to the project as I decided on having my magazine printed as opposed to an online version, as discussed in my research. However despite this I did upload a version online, purely for access for those to view to answer my questionnaire!

Here you can see all the specifics and points in which I selected for my magazine : 

  

 I was really happy with the options this site had to offer, as I knew I wanted an uncoated paper, but that was sometimes difficult to find that wasn't really expensive, or needed a large number of copies to be printed.

 This is the final progression post in which I will create as from here I will just need to gather some constructive criticism when my physical copy arrives, and then do my evaluation! In this project I have been able to learn things, both within the publishing industry and within applications such as Lightroom, Photoshop and InDesign. It has enabled me to become even more familiar with the applications, whilst really enjoying the project and work I complete. In regards to the industry to be more specific, the FMP has allowed me to complete a number of tasks that have broadened my horizons to the media industry, more so than ever before. With the work I have complete and feedback gathered, I have been able to compile a list of things that I can improve on (for next year and further education/career). 

  My peer assessment / evaluation will be more in depth in the final evaluation I will produce, however briefly I think I have succeeded in this project. This being that I am happy with the amount of research I produced, experimentation (with images,fonts,applications, layouts and more), the production and critical side of things. The one thing I want to go more in depth with is self critique. This is something I am really focussing on for my final evaluation, as it's easy to gather feedback and opinions from others but it is also really important to be able to highlight things from the point of view of the creator. It will enable me to pick out the things I like, don't like, could do better next time and more.

 

Questionnaire Results.

Results...

After producing my questionnaire to gather feedback on my product I received a number of responses for me to reflect and analyse. The initial idea was to aim this questionnaire on things that could be changed and or improved so that any amendments could be done before I sent it to print. I did in fact change slightly my article 'High End vs High Street', this will be discussed later.

 So, after looking at my results I now know what my target audience like and would change! So far I got a positive response towards my product with only a few responses saying they wouldn't read it/ didn't like the overall aesthetic. The question in which I can take the best constructive criticism from would be 'What improvements would you make?' this being that because it was an open question and people can say what ever they want. From the way in which the answers are presented it's difficult to see here, however I got a mixture of responses, some saying 'more text' then on the other hand some requested 'more images'. This was interesting to me as in my research prior to creating anything, my target audience said, roughly 50/50, that they prefer text based and image based. This was difficult for me then as roughly half said they prefer reading text whilst the other prefer image based magazines. 

 This questionnaire was not as successful as I anticipated, although the majority of the comments were positive and that people liked my magazine, it didn't give me much to build on and change!

 This next question was interesting as a lot of people liked page 2, although this wasn't necessarily constructive criticism in terms of helping me change and alter my magazine, it will help when it comes to my evaluation as I can use these results to discuss my project and the outcome of it.
 


 In terms of written content I gathered useful feedback from the question 'what are your thoughts on the articles'. The majority of the responses said they looked interesting, colourful and informative. What I did realise is that due to the online version having to be a screen recording for me to insert it into the Google Form, the quality dropped slightly, consequently meaning they were hard to read. This was my fault as I couldn't find another way to link the articles in an effective and easy way for everyone to have access too. Regardless, I was able to gather a few comments regarding them, upon reviewing this I am able to know that when i produce my final set of results I will do a focus group/ something more 'personal'. This being that I want my last bit of feedback that comes from peers and my target audience to be more relaxed, like a conversation. I plan to show a number of people my physical version and gather feedback from that, making notes as to what they say! 

   However something I did do was change the layout very slightly of one of my articles as mentioned before, I decided to do this as when I looked at the preview of my magazine I found that there was a lot of 'blank' space that I personally didn't like the look of. 

   

 To the left, shows the change in my layout for one of my articles, after seeing the digital version layers out with the rest of the spread decided that the first version seemed empty or a bit blank so I decided to add another rectangle with the opacity turned down, down the centre of the page. I think this makes it look a bit more 'put together' and will also help blend with the the other purples used in the magazine.

 So despite this questionnaire not being the most successful, I have learnt that in order to gather more critical responses, it may be best to talk to people and converse, discussing the project as opposed to having a set of questions that may be difficult to answer due to how the magazine is being presented to them. On the other hand, this has been a success as it has taught me that in order to progress and get better advice, I need to alter the way I gather the feedback, consequently teaching me that for my evaluation I will do the process slightly differently.