Factual page layout evaluation

Ashley Boyne

Time Management

Throughout the factual page layout project, work was completed at a reasonable pace. Some pieces of work however, took longer than expected and some lesser than expected.

My fanzine creation for example, was completed in a time quicker than what I had initially expected, whist retaining the quality of work that I had originally set out to achieve. This may have been achieved due to the extensive planning I had done before starting the work. As well as this I had had a clear image in my mind of what I wanted to produce before I started production on the fanzine.

The effectiveness of this extensive planning was shown during my tabloid production. The tabloid work took I lot longer than I had originally expected, a proportion of this blame can probably be attributed to the fact that I had did not have a clear idea of what I was trying to create with my final product. This struggle to conjure up an idea for what my final product would look like however, was not due to lack of planning. The planning aspect of production is something I feel I have improved especially when compared to something like my recipe card, production work. When working on my recipe production, certain parts of the production had to be rushed compared to others. This was due to poor time management and a lack of contingency time. A poor case of time management meant parts of my recipe card production had far too much time spent on it and as a result not enough on others.

On this project however, the two evened themselves out. Due to a good work pace at the start of my project, this left more time to be spent on the project in the latter stages.

Reviewing work in progress

Reviewing my work in progress is something I feel I did well. Despite this, I still believe I can improve on it further. I took a lot of screenshots during my project this allowed me to track my progress and make constant reviews to see whether or not the changes I was making was improving my piece or making it worse. As well as this I often sought a second opinion to the changes I was not too sure on myself. In my opinion these constant reviews definitely had a positive affect on my work, without them I would have a piece of work at a lower standard, as well as this I may have over complicated things and moved away from my initial plans.

Reviewing my work in progress is something that has probably stayed at the same level over the length of the course. To improve, I must take many more screenshots than I do at present, this will help me to review my work at a much larger depth. As well as this I should seek a second opinion more often rather than finish the work based solely on my opinion. Seeking a second opinion could help me amend errors that I personally had not seen.

The production work that probably took the longest was the tabloid newspaper. It is not a coincidence to see that the piece the took the longest to create also had the most screenshots and second opinions take place in its production. These mass amounts of screenshots and second opinions sought took place due to the indecision on what my final product was going to look like.

Alternatively the piece with the least amount of screenshots was the fanzine. This was due to the clear idea I had of what I wanted to achieve with the fanzine. Due to this not too many difficulties were met and thus; not too many second opinions sought. The downside of this, is that my fanzine as a result may have been done too quickly with little thought. However in my opinion it is the best piece of the three and if it does appear amateurish, it is only keeping inline with punk DIY ethic, that it has been created for.

Technical Competencies

One of the new technical features I used was inDesign CS6. With it being one of my first times using this program I was rather happy with the outcome. In the past the design of the tabloid or broadsheet would have been in Photoshop. InDesign did not take long to become accustomed to, the grids and guides were very useful for designing a newspaper and was a lot les time consuming than it would have been if I was using Photoshop, I imagine.

The use of inDesign helped to create, what I think to be, a reasonably professional and tabloid newspaper. The main reason for me thinking this, is the use of columns. In Photoshop the creation of columns is very difficult when compared to inDesign.

When I had a found a good quality image on the internet, I used a technique I hadn’t used before. I would use the rectangle frame tool and place a rectangle where I wanted the image to be. I would then see what the height and width of this rectangle and change the image size in Photoshop to match that of the rectangle. I would then view the display performance and change from a standard quality display to a high quality display. This allowed me to have high quality images on my tabloid and broadsheet newspaper.

Creative Abilities• On this specific project, my punk fanzines front cover was the project I most enjoyed being creative on. As well as this I felt it was the piece on this

project that had the greater creative aspect about it. In the grand scheme of the all the projects I have done, it is not on par with the creative of aspects of something such as my digital graphics work on Kes. However, for this piece of work I didn’t feel the need too exaggerate the amount of creative techniques I used. This was because I wanted to keep in line with the Punk, D.I.Y mantra the punk fanzines I was taking inspiration from had. The main fanzine I was drawing ideas from was Sniffin’ Glue, a fanzine that didn’t look slick and professional, but rather photocopied, jaded and faded. I am of the opinion that I achieved this. This was achieved by the image used, colour levels and typography. The typography used on the front cover was for the majority, typewriter themed. This helped the photocopied effect as the words already looked amateur and ‘D.I.Y’. As well as I have bolded particular letters in the majority of words on the front cover, this was to add to the faded effect. To add to the punk theme and amateur look, I moved letters of words onto different lines and made other letters different sizes than others. A possible negative to this is that I may have over-exaggerated this effect. As can be seen in the pictures below both the fanzines have a lack of colour as well as listing featured bands in the fanzine. Taking all of this into consideration, in my opinion my fanzine front cover stands up on it’s own merits when compared to that of Sniffin’ Glue.

To what extent have your intentions been realised?

Before beginning production, I made by intentions clear through extensive planning. Some became more successful than others, for example my fanzine turned out extremely similar to how I had imagined it. As can be seen to the left, my front cover was planned out well, with a number of possible plans made. The one depicted below as can be seen is the one I decided to use in the end. The structure of the front cover was not the only thing I had planned. Before starting, I had ideally wanted to create a fanzine front cover which had no colour as well as a faded and D.I.Y appearance to it. Looking at the final product, I fully believe my intentions were realised. I wanted to produce a product that of a similar style to Sniffin’ Glue, but without copying it completely. The large photo on the front cover was replicated, as was the list of bands. I liked the bordered rectangle of extra information at the bottom of the front cover and so used this on my front cover too, albeit for a different sort of information. Another thing I liked about the Sniffin’ Glue front cover was the tagline used: “and other Rock ‘N Roll…” and so I used by own “you are ill, this is the antidote” however again I made a slight change to it by putting it in a completely different position, as to not copy it completely.

Looking at the front cover if I am looking for an area in which my intentions could have been realised to a greater extent, then one area could definitely be highlighted. I feel as if my front cover cover could look a lot more faded and D.I.Y. In retrospect, I should have put my fanzine front cover through the photocopier a few times. This would have helped me produce a more faded and distorted feel. At the moment the front cover looks like it has been done on Photoshop as one off, rather than mass produced at low cost, with a faded punk aesthetic to it.

As well as that I may have drawn things on my hand with felt tip, similar to Sniffin’ Glue. Again this would have created a greater D.I.Y, punk aesthetic.

Away from my fanzine front cover, although I followed the flat-plans and used the fonts I had initially planned, my tabloid as well as broadsheet newspaper design did not turn out the way I had initially planned. I feel the two look fairly amateurish and if I were to create them again I would definitely used a different design. For example, I would definitely use a few more small images on my broadsheet newspaper design. I feel it would help the reader differentiate between the two articles more easily. Taking all this into account, I still believe that this is the first project where I have been close to fully realising my intentions.

Appropriateness of your work for the audience:

For my two newspaper design I made distinct changes between the two. This was done to make the two products appropriate for their respective audiences. Firstly the tabloid had more pictures and fewer words. As well as this the headline of the tabloid was made into a pun, this is something often used by tabloid newspapers such as The Sun and The Daily Star. Indeed the tabloid also had some of the ridiculous stories that are a daily occurrence in their publications. These are the type of stories their target audience enjoys and so this was why I included them in my design. I also included the colour red onto the masthead of my tabloid newspaper design, this was tie in with the traditional tabloid, red top theme. As well as all of this I used a McDonalds advert, this was after noticing that fast food companies often advertise in tabloid newspapers.

For my broadsheet newspaper, I used a green-top instead, this was to get away from the red-top of the tabloid. Not only this, but it also went with the stereotype of many broadsheet readers (such as The Guardian) of being left wing, tree-huggers. The typeface used for the masthead of the broadsheet was jagged on the edges, I believed it would give off a similar image to that of many other broadsheet newspapers such as The Daily Express, The Telegraph and The Scottish Herald. Unlike the tabloid design, the headline did not contain a pun within it. Fewer images were used meaning greater room for an increased amount of text from the tabloid. The advert used was more up market than that of the tabloid, instead of an advert for fast food like the tabloid, instead I inserted an advert for an antique jewelry road-show.

Content, the style and the skills you have used:For my fanzine front cover, I trawled through many images on Google to find the best image possible that was related to my fanzine article. The image I used was of punk rocker GG Allin. I used this image as he is an significant figure within the genre of Punk. As well as this the graphic image draws in a potential consumers attention and also the article inside is on GG Allin. I also saw good potential in the image with an obvious place to put the title of the fanzine.

The stock photographs I used for my tabloid and broadsheet newspapers, also related to articles on the front cover or within the newspaper. For the front cover of my tabloid newspaper I chose to put the lead singer of the Sex Pistols; Jonny Rotten as the headline image. This was different to the broadsheet newspaper design on which I chose to put Bill Grundy as the headline image. I did this because I thought it would tie in with front pages of the time. The Daily Mirror at the time chose to comment on the vulgarity of Punk Rock itself, running with the headline “The Filth and the Fury”. This was something I obviously tried to replicate on my design. This was in contrast to the broadsheets of the time, none of which decided to run with the story as their main headline. This I felt showed how the event may have been reported more fairly in a broadsheet newspaper and so I decided to replicate this by running with the real headline that the presenter himself: Grundy, faces losing his job.

I encountered many problems during production of my newspapers and fanzine. One of the biggest problems I faced was finding a stock photograph of an advert that was time relevant to the article. This was because the article from the 1970’s. Eventually I used a McDonalds as they were a company at the time, although the advert itself was from a different decade, changing it to black and white, meant it didn’t look out of place.

One of the biggest problems with the broadsheet newspaper, is something I have only just realised whilst writing this evaluation. In the headline states that “Grundy facing sack from BBC”, whereas after further research it turns out the program he presented was actually on ITV.

One problem I overcame was that relating to the images I used. Initially my images were stretched and warped. However, eventually I learnt to size the images correctly in Photoshop and move them into InDesign. This was something that would have improved previous project production work, paramount.

How your skills have developed:Over the course of this specific project, I have used the program InDesign for the first time. As I designed more and more, I became more confident in using the program. When working on the newspaper grid designs I started by using a simplistic newspaper design set in a 3x3 grid later progressing to a more complicated 6x3.

Another skill I developed over the course of this project was the way I used images in my work and specifically how I resized them. Unlike previous projects I decided to try and prevent the stretching effect that has blighted many of my other projects. This stretching effect has worsened the quality of my final; images on many occasions, reducing the quality of my final product. To combat this I used the square tool to make the guidelines of where I wanted my image to on my piece. From these guidelines I was able to take the measurements from the top of the page to give me the information of what resizing needed to be done to the images. To resize the image, I put the image I wanted to resize into Photoshop. From here I selected the image in Photoshop and went to the drop down menu, using image then image resize. This opened a pop up menu where I was able to change the image measurements to match the ones of the original guidelines in Photoshop, this was measured in millimeters.

Another skill I developed that I had not used in previous projects was the skill of linking columns of text together. This skill was developed entirely using the InDesign program. The skill came in useful for when I had a large overrun of text in a column I had set out. To execute the skill if I found the text was overrunning a column, I would insert a second column. Then I would press the link columns button, this button is towards the bottom of the screen. After clicking the button a red mark would appear and move with the mouse, simply by selecting the 2nd column the over-run text would then move into this column, therefore linking the columns.

Areas for Improvement• Their a number of areas for this project in which I think can be improved. The biggest area

that must be developed is my level of reviewing work in progress. The amount of screenshots I took during this project was paltry and is definitely something that needs to be looked at improved on any future projects. If I were to improve this aspect of my work it would help me when evaluating my work and would give me a better understanding of the timeline of my work and how it progressed.

• Another area of my work that needs developing in my opinion is my initial planning. Whilst not a problem for my fanzine design- which I am happy with outcome of, my tabloid and broadsheet designs have turned out to look amateurish and not the way I had envisaged in my mind at the start of the project. This problem can probably be attributed to my planning, where I obviously did not plan out my design out in enough detail to perfectly replicate what I had imagined in my mind.