AOB1- Plan

Mr Haycocks

Room 41

The Thomas Adams School

Lowe Hill Road

Wem

20/8/11

Dear Mr Haycocks

I wish to convey some ideas for a What’s On magazine guide that we propose to make called, 'Around You'. We agree this is a good title as it is relevant to the subject of the guide and makes the reader think about the things going on around them.  To make this guide we have decided to work in a group of three, the group members being Will Storey, Ellie King and Tanya Steele.

The target audience is for someone who is aged between 12-35 years old who wishes to know about what's going on around them. We feel the magazine will target this audience as we will use colours and include relevant topics for this age group. On each of the pages we will try to ensure that none of the content is too young or too old of the audience. For example on the film page I will include films that I know people of that age are interested in watching.  

Each of the members within the group has decided to do two or three pages each and this will ensure that each member has an equal input into the project. Will will do a film page and scout page as he is in the scouts and enjoys watching films. Will is also going to compile the contents page, Ellie has agreed to do a music and a sports page while Tanya is doing the front and back page. Each person has also be given a set task to complete and this is to ensure all the pictures, writing and layout are done on time. Will is going to do the layout as he is the one who most enjoys designing pages and he has a Macbook with the essential software for doing this. Ellie is going to take all the photographs as she has her own professional camera and has a passion for taking photos. She attends a lot of sporting events and is able to capture some exciting images for the magazine. Tanya loves talking and likes getting it down on paper and we therefore think she would be best at being responsible for all the writing.

For the magazine, we will have 10 weeks to design and publish it. This is a long enough time as long as we ensure we are always working within the working hours as well as doing it in our own time.

As for the costs involved, we have decided a budget of £10,000 will be about right knowing the big price will be in the computers which we have set a budget of £4,500. We are thinking of working in a studio in Shrewsbury as this is a central location for us all and we know there are public transport routes.
I hope I have covered everything!
Thanks for reading,

Will Storey

Group Meeting 3

Meeting No.2

Date; 22nd March

Members present; Ellie, Tanya, Will

The team 
The team is sticking well to all their roles however there has been a slight change to them. One of the members has decided to no longer do a kids page as she thinks she will run out of time to do this. Most of the time all members are attending the meeting however due to illness some of the members are unable to attend all of the lessons and as such have been unable to completely keep up to date with their work. All members feel they are doing their best to complete the work on time however some of us feel we may be doing more their the others like working out of lessons etc. Some of the members feel there is one member who is dominating the talking in the group and not really listening to the others opinions on the subject. That member has now agreed to listen to everything being said and take on board everyone opinion.

The production
We feel the production is going to plan as we are able to complete the work on time and we feel the project will be done to completion by if not before the deadline. As for the layout we feel it is looking good and we are trying very hard to keep the page layout regular throughout the magazine. So of the pages at the moment we feel are a little disjointed but we are working on this.

Will's evaluation

Will Storey evaluation for unit 3

On completion of this task I think the group all worked well on the what’s on magazine called Around You. We all decided to have an equal input into the ideas and the making of the project in order to make a great magazine and get the best grade possible. At times, I found it difficult to work in a team and got very frustrated because we disagreed on many aspects, such as font type, size, layout, colours etc. We all had our own ideas and wanted to use them. Some members of the group are quite strong characters and so putting forward my views was very difficult at times. Things improved as time went by and as we all got on with our pages. I thought that I worked well independently however it was always useful to exchange ideas and look at the work of the others.

At the beginning of the project the group put all our ideas together and came up with a list of the content of the pages we would include in the ‘Around You’ magazine. I feel the group did this quite well as we were able to come up with the pages and who would do that page. We all have very different interests and so it was obvious who would do what page. As soon as we had decided who was doing what we got to work on it straight away. And although will had a few hic-ups along the way I feel we worked well.

We did really well at meeting the deadlines as we devised a production schedule in the beginning and regular reference was made to this. I always got on with the project within lesson time and sometimes outside of the lessons. Although I thought I had finished the pages a few weeks before the deadline, after asking others for their opinion of my pages, I still had a little work to do on improving them in order to reach the best standard possible. I feel we did very well using the resources and getting pictures together to use in the different pages of the magazine.

I feel the time management of the team was very good as we always got on with the task in hand which we were doing well and never got to distracted by other things going on around us. We never spent too long on each page and always made sure everyone got a look in and be able to put forward their views on making the page better.

I think my organisational skills could have been a little better because I did forget the photos I needed for the scout page but I remembered them in the end. Organisation of folders and work on the computer could have been improved as I have a tendency to save things to my memory stick and then lose it or forget to bring it in. Organising work in the correct folders in my area needs improvement and I need to delete items that are no longer required. My communication skills were very good as I always participated in group discussions and put my ideas forward. I also tried to listen to everything that was said by others within the group.   Within the group meetings I feel I got a say as to the direction of the magazine and that my comments on the groups performance were taken on board.

In comparison with the more professional work the magazine is not really up there with them. I think to get to a professional standard we would need longer on it and a lot more practice on the magazines. This was the first time for me designing a magazine other than the cover, which I did in unit 2. So because of this I had to look closely at another what’s on. When I looked at the sample I found they used a white background instead of a colour one like I did. I feel the colour I used made the page a bit more interesting, exciting to look at. However with the white space in the sample magazine it dose make the type easier to read. Other differences in the layout include the fact that I have crammed all my text into a small box without leaving space around the edge. The alignment of some of the graphics was less than perfectly placed, as a couple of the boxes of colour were not lined up and therefore looked unprofessional. But overall I feel I did a very good effect in the pages I did for ‘Around You’ and although I could have done a better job with the layout.

The images that I used in some of the pages I got from Google images, but the images on the scout page are my own images from home. I realise that if I was making the magazine for real I would have to get permission to use the images for the film or use the ones provided in a media press pack. I inserted my own film description to each film. I included the age certification rating with each of the film listings.

The magazine meets with the original plan in some respects these being; each member of the team completed the pages as we had planned with the exception of the kid’s page. We kept to the categories that we had originally planned as we felt these were interesting and provided more than enough content. We did not keep the colour scheme for each page as we decided to use different background colours to help each bit stand out. We kept to the planned typeface and size of text for the headings and body text as we felt that this was easy to read.

The techniques that I used to create my magazine pages are using a range of colours from the colour palette. This was used to differentiate the articles to help the reader follow the text and to see clearly the divide between items. We tried to use the colours that blended together but that also enabled the font to be seen. Throughout the magazine we decided to stick to the same font type, as it is important to make the magazine pages flow and look consistent. We researched typefaces by looking for a clean and easy to read font and after looking for a font we decided upon Ariel as this looked professional and fit for the purpose. We also devised a grid containing vertical lines as we felt that this would be helpful to each member of the group to help with the layout of the pages and keep them consistent.  

The only thing that we planned to include but failed to accomplish was the kid’s page and this, I think, was due to a lack of time. The kid’s page would have made a nice addition to the magazine and been of interest to young children. We would have to manage our time more effectively in future projects to ensure that everything is completed.

Contents, Scouts, Easter events and film page by Will Storey

Evaluation by Ellie King

 I think we worked well as a team and all decided on the idea of putting together a magazine to advertise things to do in the area. We decided to call our magazine ‘Around You.’  We felt that this was an original and catchy title and encapsulated what the magazine was about. This project allowed each of the group to work on subjects that really interested them and so this enabled me to work on music and a sports page. This left Will and Tanya to work on pages that interested them. We had some arguments, in particular our ideas on the lay out, typeface, colours etc, however we eventually reached a compromise and decided on how we would do things. I think each member of my group are quite strong characters and so we each had a tendency to want the work completed our own way.  Initially I was unsure of working in a group, however I now think that it was good experience for me and I would definitely consider group work in the future. It was also good preparation for the working in a real workplace as it is common to have to work in a team.

I was able to meet the deadlines and I did this by working in some of my study periods and occasionally at home.  I was able to spend time working on the magazine in my graphics lessons and found that this extra work and getting my head down enabled me to keep to the time constraints.

My time management was really good as we devised a production schedule at the start and I found it helpful to keep referring back to this. A few full days were spent working on getting my sports page up to scratch. I also spent the occasional lunchtime and graphics lessons my media work. And at home I went through some of my football and rugby programmes looking for ideas for my sports page.

My organisational skills are not very good as I have loads of unneeded and unnamed pictures of rugby and football players in my folder.  It takes a long time to find my media folder which only has two pieces of work in and my graphics folder is in my media folder.  I need to learn from this experience and try to organise myself better and make sure that I save things to the correct folders and delete things that are not needed.  I am good at communicating with people and getting my point across however as I have a tendency to forget myself and wear my headphones during every lesson.  I have my music pretty loud and I don’t often hear Tanya and Will when they are talking to me.  They quite often have to tap me on the shoulder to get my attention.

I think our what’s on guide is fair in comparison to the other guides on the market and it is obvious that novices have created our magazine. Commercially made magazines on the shelves of our newsagents, are made by people that have attended university and who have had years of experience in this field so the quality of their work is a very high standard and the making of their magazine appears effortless. I think as a group we can all admit to having problems with filling the pages with text and images and lost heart when gaps appeared. Having patience to spend time rearranging and experimenting with layout was a must and something that we all lacked at times.  We tried to include a wide variety of articles and include something for everyone and has got a lot of information crammed in without being too cramped. I actually think it is better than your other ‘what’s on’ guides, as ours has a sports events page and the others don’t tend to have one.  This is more likely to get more people picking it up to read it as it has a bigger target audience e.g. men who typically like sport.  If we were to print out our magazine then we would have to use good quality, glossy paper as is typical of other magazines.

The original proposal was to make a magazine, which brought all of our own ideas and interests together. As a group we have very different interests and so the pages in our magazine are full of very different events and information. Like in my music page I put lots of different types of music in to try and please everybody.

We created our own spin on a what’s on guide. We followed the basic ideas of a what’s on guide and tried also to follow the conventions of this type of magazine in particular layout in columns, size of font, headings etc.  There isn’t a lot of color in usual ‘what’s on’ guides and we have put a lot of pastel colours on the background of ours to make it more pleasing to the eye. And as I said before, usual what’s on guides don’t have a sports page, so that’s another bit of originality for ours.

We used Photoshop to make our magazine and this is the software that would be used in making a magazine on a commercial level.  We didn’t use the filters , as they were unnecessary for our magazine. We used a layout/grid that we uploaded on to Photoshop and this ensured that we all followed the same plan. We used the fill for the backgrounds and lowered the opacity.  We researched the web for copyright- free images and also used some of our own.  We didn’t use any unnecessary techniques.

As we are using blogger, there is no paper being used and at a very low cost so it is ethical as well as being eco-friendly. We have used very small text size too so much less ink is used.  All of the requirements are legal.

We didn’t have any missing items as we are using Photoshop and blogger.  We have had the occasional problem with illness within our team and this has highlighted the fact that we did not always save documents where others could find them in our absence. The only problem that we could of come close to getting with missing items is no Internet connection and work not being saved in the correct place or not saved at all.  

around you

font size research

We researched text size for the min body of the text, headings and subheading. We found out that body text is very small and is usually 6pt, the headings are usually a size 72pt and sub headings 36pt. This shows our calculations for working this out.

meeting 2 for Around You

pictures for front page

Risk Assessment For Our Work Place

Budget sheet for our project "Around You" magazine

Our quote on Printing from NSPrint

As part of our research we contacted a local printing firm for a quotation for the printing of our magazine. The reply that they sent is above. We think that this quotation is competitive and have used this price in our budget plan. 

Email to NSPrint On quote for Printing