Development diary
- 2. WEEK ONE • This was the first week of my Final Major Project, the first day of this project was focused on the context of our project. I had already created a pre-proposal with some ideas of what I wanted to do before Christmas, this week was just extra information on this. I wanted to create a carry on feminist fanzine from my past project but this fanzine to be focused on role models from all over the world. I believe context is the best way to get to the roots of your project so I decided to research different role models as well as products which would suit my project. On Monday, I had started to research Caitlin Moran and Fem magazine. I had enough knowledge about Caitlin Moran by the end of the day with two PowerPoint slides full of information about this author, broadcaster and journalist. I like to research as looking back at my other projects I would say that research is my strong point as I like to know lots about my project before creating it. However, I would like to conduct further research on Caitlin Moran as I want to know what has driven her and why someone should admire her compared to other role models like Michelle Obama. I have just started to research Fem magazine so naturally I need to research further and find out what inspires them as a magazine and why they decided to create a product with this particular topic. That being said, I need to create further research as I want to at least research 3 projects/ people to make my product the best it can be. When I am in projects, I tend to prioritise tasks over other tasks, this week this is shown perfectly as I prioritised my proposal over finishing this context. From other projects I have liked creating a proposal as it makes me feel as though I am organised with my work and I know what I want to achieve and how I am going to make it to this point. I think the only problem I have when I create a proposal is the rationale, over two years I have learnt so many new skills to the point when I can’t remember what they are until I hit my production when I need them. This is what I could improve on, when I come back to correcting my proposal and proof reading it I would like to redo my rationale and make it more reflective from the past two years. Overall, I feel as though this week has been a learning curve, I didn’t create enough work considering that my deadline for this work is the 28th but on Thursday I will knuckle down, complete the
- 4. • This week was mainly focused on my research. I started with finding things about feminist theories to use in my analysis. This was most of Monday morning when I was in the library trying to find different books which had something about feminist theories. I ended up finding the book ‘Feminist film theory’ by Sue Thornham. There was a chapter in there from Laura Mulvey explaining the Male Gaze, this was incredibly useful as I want to have the best research I can do as this is normally my weakness on projects. I then started googling feminist fanzines, I came across a fanzine called ‘Debate’, and this was created by Auckland university students every two weeks they create a new fanzine on different subjects. This definitely caught my eye as it was the type of layout which I want to create for my final major project. I am currently analysing the front cover, two double page spreads, a contents page and the website. I am adding as much detail into it as I can so I have only researched one existing product at the time being but I hope to analyse 3 existing products and hopefully more. After I have completed this existing product I then want to try research a professional magazine, I want to research a magazine instead of a fanzine to see how they are different and which style I prefer. With a published magazine I will most likely find out more about the brand and what audience it appeals to rather than guessing that I have had to do with ‘Debate’. Looking back over the past two days, I would have hoped I would have created more work than I have done, but when you take into account that I had been to the library on Monday for most of the day and how I want to make a detailed existing products I think it is going okay. By next Monday I want to start with my audience research so by the Thursday I will have finished my research and will be prepared to start my idea generation. I don’t think I can improve the work which I have completed this week, I just want to work quicker so when I come to my deadline I don’t have loads of things to complete. WEEK TWO
- 6. • This week I carried on with my research. From last week I had only completed one of my existing products with the help of feminist theory books. I wanted to add as much detail as I could in the few days which I had. On Thursday, I finished analysing ‘Debate’, realistically I felt as though I had enough research in without analysing the website. I think just from this bit of research I learnt how to create a professional format for my product, ‘Debate’ has a clear and simple layout this is something which I felt like my last project didn’t have. Over the weekend I went shopping to see if I could find any feminist magazines which were published. As I previously stated last week I wanted to look at a magazine and fanzines, I found a teen magazine which was very empowering for women, this was called ‘Teen Breathe’. I also researched ‘That’s what she said’ fanzine. I think these products challenged me this week, I felt as though I struggled to analyse all the different features of the products, I knew I needed to take a break from analysis on Monday so I decided to create a survey for my primary research. I created 8 short and simple questions and sent it to people my age (17-24 is the age I want to target for my product). I have done surveys before, the only thing which I was a bit worried about was if I would get sensible answers which were relevant to my work. Luckily, all my answers were very relevant when it comes to my planning and production I will refer back to the survey and see what people are more attracted to. I think what would also be helpful in my primary research if I could contact a feminist club and see what they find more appealing, I think this will develop my idea because these are the people who I am wanting to appeal to. From the 3 existing products I have looked at, I know what style of illustrations I want to try create, I know what contents and what colour theme I want to aim for. My research has been very helpful, for my client project my illustrations were all completely different styles of graphics and this is something I want to try fix, from looking at different fanzines with art work in, I know what I want to achieve. I don’t think my research has changed the way I approach my project but I think this time I will think more carefully into what my audience would like, this seemed to be the recurring theme in the existing products. Through the research which I have produced I hope I don’t come across any problems which will need solving, I feel as though I have tried to think of everything which would appeal the audience. I think the most successful section of my research would be the existing products, I have put so much effort in and detail into this part of my research, this is something which I feel is crucial in research as I like to see what is popular and how I can beat that with my product. In the next few days, I hope to finish my research all together, I have to write up my survey as well as research some secondary research and production research. On Monday, I would like to start some production experiments and learning new skills for my final major project. WEEK THREE
- 8. • So far in my problem solving work, I have identified a wide range of problems. These vary to the software not working, my solution for this problem was to reload the software and if this doesn’t work then I would move onto a different computer. An extreme theoretical problem was not having the money to print my fanzine, this would have to be an unforeseen problem but it is something which I still wanted a solution for, my solution wouldn’t be the best outcome but I would just print it on normal A4 paper. I don’t think my problem solving issue has influenced my project but I think it has made me more careful of my project. From my other projects, I have noticed that when I try interview people they either take ages to reply back or they simply don’t after saying they would. I added this into my problem solving work, I think this is something which has influenced the way I will interview. I want to see whether I can do it face to face, this will probably be easier and I will be able to record the conversation, if they come back and say they never said this I will have proof of them. I also think it will be good practice for when I go to university as I would need to go out and interview people face to face. There are quite a lot of different experiments I could do to solve potential production problems, one of these would be practicing with a recorder, and this will help as when I come to conducting my interviews if I have any issue with my interview it would mean that I knew how to solve it. Another issue which I may experience is if I am going to take my own images or just create some graphics, this is still unknown to me so to solve this problem I am going to try practice with photography as well as a graphics tablet. I think these experiments will help me if I come across any problems like this. Throughout my project, I will keep a weekly diary on the pros and cons of the day, this will include any problems which I have come across and what have I done to fix this. From the past if I have come across a problem in my project I soon find a way around it, this is why I think I am good at solving problems. I think if I was really in a bind with a problem I could talk to my tutor, Dave, or speak to one of my classmates and they will help me out. Next week, I am going to start on my experiments and learning different ways of creating my fanzine. WEEK FOUR