Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I tried as hard as I could in order to stick to the codes and conventions of a media project. My school magazine front cover contains one main image which also uses direct address as the main person on the image is staring right into the camera which connects more with the audience. This is used in a lot of other magazine front covers in order to attract attention and to connect to the audience. I also used different effects on my masthead in order to make it look as original as possible as magazine mastheads are usually completely original. I stuck to one colour scheme as I didn’t want any colours to clash or look out of place. On my contents page, I set it out into columns to keep the writing organised and so it is easy for the audience to read and follow along with. Magazines always set there writing into columns so I used this idea in my own work. I included more than one image on my contents page in order to show the audience what else will be appearing in the magazine, almost like a sneak preview.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction of your media product?
For some of our presentations on our blog we were asked to use a wide range of different websites in order to present our work. For example I used Sideshare.com in order to upload a PowerPoint presentation onto my blog. This worked incredibly well as it shows the examiner I was able to use different ideas for my work instead of making it look like an essay each time. We also used a new programme called Quark in order to create our contents page. I have never used Quark before this day but I found it easy to work out and easy to use very quickly. This has helped me to set out my contents page in columns in order for it to look neater. We used Photoshop in order to create our school magazine front cover. I really enjoyed using Photoshop as I have previously used it so I knew what to do and how to do it. I also used a site called Picasion, this site allowed me to add photos onto my blog as gifs. This helped a lot as it allowed me to show a number of photos I had used but as one blog entre.

What are your strengths and weaknesses of both the product and your use of new media technologies?
As I did try my best to stick to the codes and conventions I unfortunately didn’t stick to it for a lot of things. For example my main cover line to go with the main image should not be at the top of the magazine. If I was going to put it in a more suitable place I would place it along the bottom in order for the audience to know which cover line goes with which image. I ended up changing a lot of things on my front cover that I had originally planned to have on it. For example I decided that it would be best to have only one image on the front cover. I also changed a couple of my cover lines in order to fit with the magazine more. My strengths would be that I did stick to a certain colour scheme to add consistency to my front cover and contents page, I also used images that matched with the cover lines.