Project Management and Monitoring Production

Since completing and submitting all five Unit 5 products two weeks ago, I have conducted a focus group and started writing up my Evaluation E assessor/peer review for Unit 6. The focus group was conducted on Friday the 18th March with five peers and lasted approximately 20 minutes. In that interview, I presented each of my campaign products individually to the group and asked them questions related to the products, such as what they thought about the colour scheme of each product, what they thought of the slogan and title choices, what they thought about the layout/positioning of each element on each page, and how effective they felt the imagery was in delivering the campaign's message clearly and capturing the audience's attention.

As a result of conducting the interview, I received detailed constructive criticism, both positive and negative, on which elements of each product the group felt were effective and complimentary of the campaign's message, and which elements could be improved in order to meet the standards and requirements of the campaign's message. For example, I received complimentary comments regarding the magazine cover's text font, as well as positive feedback regarding the magazine article's layout and how "professional" it's presentation looked, but a peer in the group felt that the poster and email's message was not clear in what it's trying to convey through the imagery, and suggested ways in which the statistic information at the bottom of the page could be worded differently so that the imagery makes more sense to the audience.

Similarly, I received an assessor review from my teacher and gained a detailed insight into which elements of each product could be improved. For example, adjusting the brightness/contrast of various imagery to make them clearer, as when printed, they were darker than they were supposed to be and as a result weren't as clear as I'd intended for them to be and looked too "black". Therefore I plan on making these corrections and acting upon the criticism I have received from my peers as well as my assessor in order to produce more professional-looking products that serve the purpose of engaging the audience well and conveying the message more successfully and effective stylistically.     

For the remainder of the week, I intend to complete my assessor/peer review for Unit 6 in lessons and free periods, which I started earlier today. For this review, I am required to write up about the feedback I received from the group, which involves including quotes to show the detailed criticism my products received, as well as discuss ways in which the group felt the products could be improved/what I intend to edit or re-do. In Monday and Tuesday's lessons, we are required to write up Evaluation C in exam conditions which refers to the relation between the products we made for Unit 5 and past and current professional work, therefore I plan on working on the review until Wednesday or Thursday, and hand it as soon as possible so it's completed by the time we are required to write up Evaluation E in the lessons on Monday and Tuesday.  

     

Project Management and Monitoring Production

Last week, I was required to finish creating my magazine article and start work on the email outlet of the campaign, as well as iron the T-shirt design onto a T-shirt and fit the badge designs into three bade cases. I worked on my magazine article during the free periods I had on Monday and continued working on it through to Wednesday in free periods and in lesson, to which point I had just about finished it. I then decided to move on to creating my email outlet for the campaign as I only had two more days to hand the entire campaign in for marking and started to feel pressured to get everything completed and handed in as a result, therefore I worked a solid hour or two on it to get it to the standard I wanted it at and looking the way I intended it to look in my treatment.

Fortunately, it only took me an hour to two hours to create the entire email outlet as my confidence and ability to navigate around Photoshop and find the appropriate tools needed for the product had immensely improved over the last few weeks due to the experimentation and practice I carried out on other campaign products and my own graphics (as discussed in previous blogs).

Regarding the T-shirt and badge elements of my campaign, I printed three small images of my badge design and placed them into three badge cases I purchased from the art shop in Richmond, which were completed on the Thursday night and ready to hand in the next day. Regarding the T-shirt design, I took the T-shirt design and a plain white T-shirt to "Jack's" printing shop in Darlington to get the design professionally ironed onto the shirt in order for the outcome to look as professional and effective as possible, as when I tried to iron the design onto a T-shirt myself, it ended up looking unprofessional and tacky and started to peel, therefore I felt it would be better to get it printed elsewhere. However, the earliest the printing process would be completed and ready to take away is today (Monday), therefore I intend to pick it up from the shop during today's lunch break and present it to the focus group I'm going to conduct in Wednesday's lesson.

Regardless, I uploaded the T-shirt and badge design onto Moodle with the three other campaign products as I felt it would be necessary to do so in order for the examiner to physically see both designs as well as their physical form on the T-shirt and badges. Here is a screen dump of the finished badges.

On Friday the 11th March, we were required to hand in all our completed campaign products by the end of the lesson at 16:10pm. Although I felt pressured in that I decided to make further finishing touches to my magazine article in the lesson in order to get each element of the article to the standard I wanted it at, e.g. I felt the the positioning of the text and the title, as well as the quotes extracted from the article itself and the colour/stroke of each quote and finding a background design to be placed behind the quotes using the text wrap tool (in the end I used an image of blood drops from Google to place behind each quote), needed to be altered slightly, I managed to upload all five of my completed products onto Moodle by the end of the lesson for marking, therefore I feel satisfied with the fact that I was successful in getting the products finished and handed in to the standard I wanted them at and everything ran smoothly and according to plan. These are my products in their completed form.

Magazine cover.

Magazine article.

Poster.

Viral advertisement - email.

T-shirt design.

Badge design.

For the remainder of the week, we are required to conduct focus groups with several peers in the class in order to gain constructive criticism, both positive and negative, regarding the campaign to determine how effective it is in terms of appealing to the target audience of teenagers aged 16-19, and ways in which the products could be improved, which may result in slight alterations such as a different colour scheme, a different font, alternate positioning of text, brightness/contrast of imagery, or may even result in the creation of an entirely new product altogether or another photoshoot. As a result of the focus group, I hope to gain useful feedback regarding factors such as the ones mentioned, e.g. different colour schemes, different font, alteration of the brightness/shadows of the imagery etc, to aid me in making my campaign or a particular product even more effective than it already may be.   

Project Management and Monitoring Production

According to my scheduling document, the work I was required to finish this week was making finishing touches to my completed products. However, as discussed in previous blogs, I'm a week behind schedule, although the only outstanding work I have to complete is finishing creating my magazine article, ironing the finished T-shirt and badge designs onto T-shirts and badges, and creating my email outlet for the campaign, which I intend to work on during lessons, in free periods and after college throughout the next few days to get them finished, therefore I'm not too far behind. This is what I've completed so far regarding the magazine article.

The deadline for handing in all completed projects is Friday the 11th, so I feel confident that I'll have all my products completed by then, particularly as everything ran smoothly this week and it's taken me less time to create some of the outlets such as the magazine cover and article than I thought it would. I expected the creation process, particularly for the magazine cover and article, to take at least three or four weeks due to the fact that I was extremely rusty when it came to navigating around Photoshop a couple of weeks ago for the first time in months.  

I feel the reason for my products taking less time to create than I thought they would is because I downloaded Photoshop onto my computer at home and was able to navigate around it and get myself re-familiarised with its tools and resources, which ultimately made the creation process of my products quicker and more efficient as I knew which tools to use in order to make each aspect of the product look more professional and effective (such as the de-saturation tool, the blending options tool to adjust the colours/shadow of the image and text etc.) and where they were. I also created graphics on Photoshop for my own personal use to get myself even more familiar and confident with the tools and resources for the campaign outlets, therefore I feel this has also been a major contributing factor to the quicker and more efficient completion of my products.

Similarly, through the continuous use of adjusting the shadows and saturation/altering the brightness and contrast to create a darker, edgier look on the graphics and campaign outlets, as well as gaining skills regarding suitable, effective fonts, the text positioning, the font effects in the 'blending options' tool etc, I definitely feel I've improved in using the tools provided on the program and can use them to a fuller extent than I would have if I didn't experiment with graphics and pictures or didn't possess Photoshop on my home computer.

This is an example of the graphics I created in my free time to help improve my skills and confidence in using Photoshop in order to produce better overall campaign outlets. By creating graphics such as these and experimenting with several layers in terms of their colour, shadowing, brightness/contrast, and transparency, as well as cutting out several complicated images with the polygonal lasso tool, I feel I've also become more confident is using this particular tool as cutting out imagery has always been something I've struggled with due to the fact I don't tend to have a steady hand when it comes to doing intricate things like that, therefore it's been an extremely beneficial process.

      

So far, I've finished creating my magazine cover, poster and T-shirt/badge design. I completed the magazine cover and T-shirt/badge design almost a week ago now, and made finishing touches to the poster two days ago. Below are the finished products, although I may decide to make further finishing touches or slight alterations to them at some point during the week. These are screen dumps of what I've completed so far.

Magazine cover.

Poster.

Badge design.

     T-shirt design.