EVALUATION

1. How does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?
3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?
4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

 For my A2 Advanced Production Portfolio I decided to create the first two pages of a local newspaper (front and inside page) together with a newspaper poster and website (two hyperlinked pages) as my ancillary tasks. I decided to do those media product because it will be completely different to what I did during my Foundation Portfolio and I know that by doing this I will be able to carry on using the knowledge and skills that I learned as well as adapt more media skills such as using Adobe Dreamweaver for instance.

This is an example of a real media product. This is South London Press' front page and inside page.

1. My products followed, developed and challenged forms and conventions of real media products. I named my local newspaper Lambeth Press, as people aren't aware of it yet I had to make an identity for the product. I had to establish the brand by creating its unique logo which was used through out all the pages such as the newspaper front page, inside page, poster and its website. This is to show Lambeth Press' brand identity and for the readers to be able to differentiate my products against its competitors. In addition, I had to choose a colour scheme and I decided that it will be blue and white because according to my research colour blue is very much associated with the borough of Lambeth.

For my newspaper's front page I followed the convention of having a black, big and bold headline to make sure that it’s attractive enough to engage the readers with the article. I made sure that the lead headline is also in bold and a little bit bigger font size than the rest of the texts; this is to summarize what the article is going to be about and indicate that this is where the article begins.

For all of the products that I created I made sure that the color scheme of blue and white is used for all the pages. I also added the logo with it so that readers can identify the brand immediately as soon as they see any of the media products. All the articles are written in columned paragraphs because this is a very popular convention of a newspaper that I felt I must follow. I made sure that necessary information are displayed on each pages such as the date, price and captions of the pictures.  As newspaper feature a lot of advertisements, I made sure that I dedicated a good amount of space for the adverts on each pages of my products. I made sure that the adverts are what my readers can relate to such as summer events.


This was when I was in the process of doing my original advert


I followed the convention of a newspaper layout however I decided to develop it by positioning the texts and picture quite differently in comparison with a standard layout. For the side bar, I added bullet points, which tends to lean in the middle of a newspaper and magazine norms. I took the risk of putting bullet points as I thought that it suited the page well and also some newspaper has bullet point in some of their front page. In addition, I challenged conventions of real newspaper by including modern story lines for a younger audiences as well as the norm article. I am aware that my target audience are not the younger generation however I came to a conclusion that those people are mostly parents or somehow related with someone that is included in the 'younger generation' today. For instance I added an article about education such as 'Tuition fees going up to £9000', I am aware that this will directly affect young people but I know that this will also generally affect other people in the society. 

2.  Narrative- My newspaper front page headline and the headline on my newspaper poster are linked together as they are both the same article. I chose to use the article on my front page because I think that this was the most eye catchy and interesting article in my newspaper. My inside page and websites links together as they have the same articles. However the articles are more explained on the website because the newspaper page has obviously limited space.

Genre- My genre is local news, I made sure that the news that I covered was all related to the Borough of Lambeth. However I wanted to feed my readers more information so I included other national/ worldwide news that will affect them such as tax rises, pensions and general health news.

Representation- For all the media products that I have created I made sure that I kept the colour scheme of white and blue.  I kept in mind that I should be targeting the same target audience, reason why I decided to not have too many colors on the pages as (colorful/rainbow colors are more associated with young people). I put the logo in all of them so that readers can easily differentiate Lambeth Press from its competitors.

This are the first questionnaire results that I got from people in general. It gave me an idea on who should be my target audience are, what will be the reasonable price for my local newspaper. As well as the preferred title for it.

 

 I had to choose a form of advertising from my product, I was thinking of either a radio advert or a website. So I then conducted a questionnaire and took the feedback into account. My target audience preferred a website as they think that it's 'more accessible' compared to a short  radio advert.

 

 



3. From the audience research I carried out for my final product I received both positive feedback and minor criticism. Few of my target audience criticized my newspaper poster; it was mainly because I was trying to challenge the convention of my newspaper by breaking within its color scheme. I added bright yellow on the newspaper poster because I thought that this would be a good idea, as it will subconsciously attract reader’s attention because of its brightness. For the reason of the criticism I received from my audience, I decided to change it and keep with the blue and white scheme. In contrast, the majority of my target audience thought that the use of text and pictures in all the products that I have made balanced so well together because it's doesn't feature a lot of photographs but yet it doesn't have too much text which makes it less boring looking. I was pleased as they described the pages as 'consistent' and 'professional'. They also commented how the pages are interesting, which is excellent as this attracts their attention. They said that the website is easy to navigate and it looks lively and definitely doesn't look cluttered at all as the articles are clearly separated from each other. When I changed the colours for my draft of newspaper poster the audience immediately thought that within the pages I created; the appearance looks well as it is simple, effective and colourful without it being overpowering.  In addition, they also thought that the headlines and the message on the poster was understandable, eye catching and easy to understand. I learned that having big gaps even on the side of the page doesn’t look nice as normal website usually have advertisements to fill those spaces. I made sure that important features was there such as the Lambeth Press’ logo and its colour scheme runs through in all my media products as my audiences suggested because it will be easier for them to identify the newspaper in the future. Also, they recommended that I should use HTML texts rather than having a plain text (from Photoshop or InDesign for instance). I done exactly what they have said and I saw the difference; HTML texts looks so much better and more clear.

 4.  I have used different media technologies in the construction, research & planning of my newspaper. For my research, I used the Internet which gave ma a lot of information on what I needed to know such as the conventions of newspaper itself, poster and websites for local newspapers. Internet didn’t just offer texts but also pictures, graphics, audios and videos that made me understand what I was researching for in more depth. The process of researching on the Internet is very fast, results are shown in seconds. However, I had to be sure that the websites I was going on was reliable as anyone can post anything on the web.
 For the images in my media products I used a digital camera and a professional camera (Nikon D5000), which made the picture, looks good as the pixels and quality of it is very high.



NIkon D5000

  This means that when I got to the process of using them, it was less hassle because I didn't need to amend them in terms of brightness, contrast and lighting effects. In order to follow a time scale to which task I should be working on and to complete my coursework before the deadline, I created a time plan using Microsoft Word. I also use this program for the re draft of my blog that I post in blogspot because this corrects grammar and spelling as well as suggest words that might be more appropriate to use (thesaurus). Microsoft Word helped to create a time plan I used Microsoft Powerpoint to present my ideas and products in front of my tutor and colleagues. The presentations were very helpful as I get feedback every time I present. It was also easy to work with the program because I have been using this for quite a long time. However, I explored certain features that I didn't know you can do before such as cropping a picture by just clicking one button and making pie charts for the results that I get. I used Adobe Photoshop through out the whole production. This is the program that I used for creating the adverts, draft of my inside page, crating Lambeth Press logo and most especially in modifying my pictures. In making my products, I used Adobe Photoshop which was very helpful as it enables me to do a lot of things such as amend pictures, rotate text, make shapes and it has a variety of texts, colours and styles. I was also able to work in layers which made it easier for me to move things around and helped me to position the texts and pictures nicely. I found Photoshop easy to use because I have already gained some knowledge and skills regarding the program through my Media Foundation Portfolio. I enjoyed using the program because it offers a wide variety of different shapes, fonts styles, size and colours. The colour palette allowed me to choose the exact colours I wanted. It also made it easier to resize and modify pictures, it was straight forward to use and it helped me visualize things in different ways because for instance as you work in 'layers' you are able to 'hide' them and instantly visualize what the outcome will be if u delete a picture for example or if you delete an article. There is also a lot of available effects to use; for the logo I decided to make the picture of it as black and white because I though that this symbolize realism as well as it will suit the newspaper more because having a high quality photograph on a logo seems unusual for newspapers.

 I used the Internet to create a blog on 'blogspot', which can be found on www.blogger.com. This was very helpful because it notes down what I have been doing and it shows how I've been progressing in all aspects of the coursework; research, planning and evaluation. It collects all the ideas that I had, my own research, creations that I made and my final products. Another program that I used was Adobe InDesign, which helped me to plan and create templates for each pages that I had to do including my website. It helped me to be creative as I was able to integrate texts and graphics. It helped me improve and simplify my work flow as it has features like collecting files, images and fonts.  It enabled me to create and continue to edit complex images and artwork once they are placed on the page using all of Adobe's familiar creative tools.  It also has a spelling checker tool that points out spelling errors as I type and it provides suggested corrections. Also, it makes it easier to create columns for the article and it can wrap around text, which is really helpful as it is less work for me, rather than creating separate text box for each paragraph of the articles. I again used the Internet for research and tutorials on how to use Adobe Dreamweaver because this was my first time using it. 

 At first, I found Adobe Dreamweaver very challenging because I had no clue how to use it as it looked complicated because of the codes and HTML that is involved with it. However, after doing my research I surprisingly found the program easy to navigate. I wouldn't say that it's simple and straightforward but fortunately I was able to do the basics to be able to create my own website. Dreamweaver enabled me to turn my standard fonts from Photoshop into HTML format. I had to change my fonts into HTML because it's more readable and it will enable my readers to do a few things with it such as copying the texts from the website. Overall, Adobe Dreamweaver allowed me to create my own website. The frames and templates make layout design quick. The HTML code and design view can be displayed separately and I was able to create pages in standard or layout mode for different design options. But the toolbar and properties provided too many options for me; this is the reason why I had to do a lot of research on how to use and work with the program.

Overall I very much enjoyed doing my Advanced Media Production Portfolio because not only that I gained new skills and knowledge but I was also able to use the ones that I already knew. At first, I thought that taking pictures for all my media products will be hard but I surprisingly had fun with it as it is going to be a local newspaper I was able to take pictures around my area and made them realistic by creating an article for the photos that I added on the pages. Through out the whole process I used my common sense, skills and creativity which I think works as I considered all my final products up to standard and professional looking. I am happy with my final piece, as I have done enough research and took them into account, all the details that I have on each pages are simple but yet effective. 

Lambeth Press Final Presentation

Denisse Samantha Varilla Lambeth Press Presentation

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Evaluation of second ancillary (Newspaper website)

This is going to be my final hompage for my website. My website followed the normal convention of normal newspaper websites; I have a banner at the top for the audience to easily identify the newspaper name which is going to be Lambeth Press. I added additional information such as the date/day and the weather at that time in London. I decided to make a box where members can sign in so Lambeth Press can update them immediately regarding the newest articles via email, members will also get certain benefits such as free delivery of their ordered newspaper  right at their door, which is going to be more convenient for them. The options of pages are clearly shown in a horizontal box and the the text are written big and bold enough for the readers to know that those are linked pages. As you can see, in this image the word 'News' is in different color because the homepage is linked to this certain page. I decided to do a link for the news page because I think it's the most relevant page to do as my product is a newspaper and my aim is to deliver news and have necessary articles that will affect my readers.  The headline is clearly is in bold and bigger texts that the rest in order to stand out from the rest of the articles and I added a photo with it so that readers can relate more to the article. It has a lead head line in bold to emphasize what the article is going to be about as well as to show that this particular part is where the article begins. The other articles are clearly displayed and divided with a line to separate the articles from each other. I again added pictures for most of the article to give my readers a better understanding of it. However, for some article I decided not to add any photograph because I didn't want the page to be full of pictures but yet not filled with texts, so I tried my best to balance both the pictures and texts. The texts are in HTML form so that it's more readable and clear.  I added few side boxes for some more article titles that readers can easily navigate, the link where they can contact us if they have any opinions or queries regarding the newspaper and I also put the advertisements in a box to keep up with the layout. The theme of blue and white is used through out all the pages for my website. 

This is my final 'News' page for my website which will be linked on to the homepage. As you can see, the articles are displayed clearly. This page is a news page so the intention of it is to display articles, therefore this page is more text based. However, I didn't want the page to look boring so I decided to add some pictures relating to some of the articles. The texts used are HTML to make it easier for readers to read the texts. I added a sidebar to summarize the other articles that didn't fit on the page. The theme of blue and white is used through out the whole page.

HTML texts for newspaper website

This is how my News page looks like. From this picture the text may look fine. However when you are viewing this in a website format the text is basically a picture as you can hardly do anything with it;  you won't be able to zoom in, neither can you copy any of it. This are the main reason why I decided to change the text into a HTML format. 

Adobe Dreamweaver allows me to change the normal text into a HTML one. This is the process that I did; I selected the texts and re-typed it on Dreamweaver itself rather than importing it from Photoshop.  Here, you can see the difference of a normal texts to HTML, the normal one looks rather pixelated and stretched whilst the HTML format looks nice and clear. In addition, if you view this on the web, you can now do things with the text such as, zoom in and copy and paste which you wouldn't be able to do before. 

Creating my second ancillary product- newspaper website

My second ancillary is going to be a website. I will create the homepage and this will be linked on to the 'News' page. I decided to do a website to advertise/inform/promote my newspaper because according to the research that I have conducted; my target audience prefer a website rather than a radio ad because they find this 'less appealing' and they don't always listen to the radio.  In the process of doing the pages, I used the combination of two programs which are Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I used Photoshop because this allows me to move things easier, it offers a lot of things such as font styles for instance and Adobe Dreamweaver is the program that allowed me to create a website page.  After doing the texts and pictures on photoshop, I had to 'slice' each of the boxes (pictures, ad) on its own as this will make it easier for me to import the page on Dreamweaver. I then adjusted little things on Dreamweaver such as changed the normal texts to HTML texts.

This is how my homepage looked like before. The boxes that I have done are guidelines as to where I'm going to be placing the pictures and articles. I am working on Dreamweaver as you can see from the print screen, there are different options at the bottom of the page such as create text and which font size and style to use. 

This is my final homepage for my website. As you  can see I added a HTML texts rather than having a normal text from photoshop because HTML texts are especially use for websites, so that it is clear and enables readers to do things such as copy an article by highlighting it. In contrast, you wouldn't be able to do this with a normal text imported from photoshop. I also added pictures that are related to the articles. I made sure that my headline is written in standard big, bold font which will hopefully attract the readers attention. I managed to create the page without it looking over crowded yet not too empty. 

This is the 'News page' that is going to be linked with the homepage. I took the chance to be as informative as I could with this page, reason why I decided to add a few articles. I added pictures on the page to make it look interesting and not full of texts.  I made a line after each article to inform the readers where the article ends.  I kept my color scheme of white and blue as much as possible. This is the reason why I decided to make the background for the sidebar color blue; this also goes well with the banner and the link pages . I used plain black text over the blue background because I found out that all newspaper website has this standard black color for the body of the article. 

The previous picture (above) has a big gap on the sides. I decided to put in some of the advert that I originally created on this page.  I am happy on how the second (hyperlinked) page came out, I managed to make it look neat and professional yet not too crowded with texts. In addition I also have an advert and a side bar to make it easier for readers to see the overview of the news on that day/week. 

Ideas for my second ancillary and creating advertisements

I decided to create my adverts on Photoshop because the program allows me to move the text around very easily as I am working in layers. It also offers a lot of choices in terms of font size, style, colors and shapes. 

Firstly, I had to visualize what kind of size I will be creating such as if it's going to be a box advert, long portrait or a big landscape advert. The first one is a square advert, I decided to fill it in with a neutral color for the background because as I said before I don't want the page to have too many colors as I want to keep my color scheme going and by having a neutral brown allows me to do this while giving a little touch (hint of a different color apart form blue and white) on the page. 

I decided that the advert is going to be advertising beads, decorations and jewels, therefore I chose a more classy looking font rather than using a standard one such as Times New Roman or Arial. I changed the font style of the second line because it didn't look good at all because the texts was over the top and definitely too decorative.  I added a picture to make the ad more eye catchy. 

Lastly, I filled in the gap below by adding additional information about the company such as their email, phone number and website. I used the same font as the one below the company's name (Jade Jewels) because I wanted the advert to be simple yet informative and eye catchy. 

other adverts:

Again, I created another advert but this one is more of a simple and straight forward advert. As you can see it has a black background and has a standard text font (Arial). I created this advert because the square advert was small for the rectangle gap that I have on the side of the homepage. I didn't want to ruin the square shape as the advert looked stretched when I tried. I also realized that website features a lot of advert so I decided to add some more rather than just having one. 

I made another one, as you can see from the print screen I have been using Photoshop. It is such a user friendly program as the options and choices are positioned clearly . There is also a 'Help' tab to click on, which I found very helpful because for example when I typed in 'How to import pictures?' the instructions came up clearly. 

Different layouts for my second ancillary- newspaper website



I decided to do a website for my second ancillary because this is a good way to promote my newspaper as well as it would be a good media product for the readers to view as it is accessible anytime they want. I was going to do a radio advert but I changed my mind because I thought that I can target more audience by creating a website and it is less likely for my specific target audience to listen to the radio.

This is the layout that I decided to use because it follows a few convention of a newspaper website such as having the logo of the brand (Lambeth Press) as the banner situated at the top alongside with additional information such as the date, weather etc and also a search engine to make it easier for the reader to access what they are looking for in a much quicker way.  I decided to section the pages in different categories such as News, Business, Travel, Lifestyle and Arts. This is to help the website to have a friendly user effect as well as to make it look clean and professional rather than different types of news scattered over the page. I decided to have some pictures on the page because I don't want it to look over the top with texts and also the photographs can give more in depth information about the articles. I will have a one top headline which will be written in a black, bold and bigger than the other texts, this is so that the headline can stand out and grab reader's attention. Below that, I will be writing an article about the headline that I have chosen and this will be in two columns because like I said I don't want the page to look too busy with texts (so much going on). The homepage will also have a side bar which will contain more latest news, I will do this so that readers can easily see or have a quick overview of all the news and to be able to find out what's going on in general ( local, nationwide and worldwide).  When I was doing my research , all the newspaper website has an advert on their homepage therefore I will follow this convention . I was only going to have an advert on the side of the homepage. However, while I was trying to construct this layout I felt that there  was a big gap at the bottom of the page. I realized that it will be hard for me to find a landscape picture and fit it in the space, because there isn't a lot of space the picture will then look stretched, deformed and pixelated. So I decided to just make another advertisement to fill in this gap. 

Before deciding which layout I will be using for my website, I created different ones so that I can have a better understanding on which one looks the best out of all of that I created.  This one (above) is quite different from that final one that I have chosen. This layout is more crowded and busy. The (menu) name of the different sections of the pages are in a horizontal box. After looking at this final layout I decided that I immediately didn't like it, the main reason is that:  the page looks crowded and the positioning of the pictures and texts aren't nice. For instance, the article for the headline is divided into two columns just like my final layout that I will be using but in this layout the articles are not next to each other which might create confusion for the readers as they may think that it will be two completely different articles. 

This  is a similar one with the final layout that I will be using.  The only difference is that instead of the banner right at the top, it is now below the date, weather and search engine which is fine but I still prefer the final layout because I think  the positioning of that one is  better.  Also, this one will contain a video which means that I need to input extra effort as I will need to record my own original video for it. 

This layout (above) is also good because I think it also looks professional just like the final one that I have chosen. However, I felt that the advertisement space at the bottom of the page is too stretched and it will be hard to fit one within this amount of space.