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
- 10. • This week I have been focusing on experimenting with different techniques. I think overall it has gone quite well as I have stayed on track and tried to do my very best. At the start of the week I was initially confused with the difference between production research and experiments, I managed to come up with a solution. My production research links into my experiments. Things which I researched I experimented in this section, for example I researched how to take a good portrait photograph and then expanded on this more by using the tips in my research and experimented with taking portrait photographs. I think this was the major problem of this week as I just got really confused with and I didn’t know what to create. I think I still need to work on creating more experiments as I want to have as much experience as possible when it comes to my production. I don’t want to make something and then waste time because I don’t like it. Over the weekend and half term I will try do loads of experiments and google different tutorials, I would like to learn more about InDesign so this will be something that I will look at. This week I wanted to learn how to use graphics tablet, from the past I have always made my graphics using the mouse but I wanted to see whether it would be easier to use the graphics tablet. At first I could not work the graphics tablet at all until I looked at a YouTube video which explained everything, it turned out I had the tablet the wrong way round! After doing a few experiments I decided I didn’t like drawing graphics with it as a struggled not to have a shaky line but I would like to see if I when I do some typography experiments I might have handwritten titles for my fanzine. I also learnt how to make an image look like an illustration by using the filter gallery on Photoshop, something which I would like to try is using the stamp filter and colouring it so it looks more like an illustration. I think this week in general this week has been quite productive, but I want to do more experiments to see what works and what doesn’t. Next week I start planning, this is something which I generally look forward to as I can think of how I am going to conduct my interviews and what theme of fanzine I will create, I think my favourite part of planning is creating a flat plan as I can see what my potential fanzine will look like and how many pages it will include (this is something which depends on how many people I interview). I think by the time planning comes round I hope to be ready, I want to add more experiments but hopefully all of that will be completed by the time my planning starts. From today my website is completely up to date, the research PowerPoint which I was struggling to finish because of the production research is finally up, this means that my half term is dedicated to trying new experiments. I think the main priority is to finish all my experiments with detail and precision. WEEK FIVE
- 11. STAMP FILTER
- 12. • I think this week has been very productive but stressful. I think the realisation hit me on Monday at the fact that in two weeks I need to have everything ready to start my production. On Monday, I started off with creating a pagination, this took me longer than I initially thought it would because I wanted to have everything perfect. However, when I was drafting out my layout I noticed that I had no idea what I wanted to add, this was a major problem as I couldn’t carry on with my layout until I had done more research on what other fanzines included. I looked at ‘Debate’ and ‘Grit’. These included word searches, reviews and famous Instagram accounts which feminists should follow, I think these ideas gave me some creative hope, I decided to dedicate a double page spread of Instagram accounts which displayed the best poetry which would relate to my audience as well as creating a review page which would appeal to my teenage generation. I think after researching more I fixed my problem and created a pagination which was detailed and creative. After this, I started doing style sheets with celebrity illustrations which I could take inspiration of, I looked at different fonts and started to plan what fonts I would use in my fanzine. Today, I started to look at different colour themes, I used the coolors website which helped me generate some pastel colours. I also used the adobe website which used the illustrations which I collected from my style sheet and found the specific colours on the images. I haven’t set a specific colour theme yet but I would like to stick to my pastel colour theme to match the first fanzine. I have also started to plan my interviews out, I have messaged 3 people wondering if they would like to take part in my interview process as well as asking one of them if they could provide some poetry for one of my double page spreads. I think I still need to work on my copy, but that will be completed throughout the production period. WEEK SIX
- 13. • For my planning I want to create a second developed idea this will help me reach an overall judgement of what I would want to create. This week was for creating my first developed idea and next week I will complete my second idea. This isn’t a problem as such but I know if I don’t complete my planning by next week I will be going into production with unfinished planning work. To help my organisation for my planning stage, after every day I will create a list on what I still need to do, hopefully by next Thursday this will be minimal. I think from the past I am quite good at planning especially when I put my mind to it, I like the planning stage as I can plan everything and what my product is going to look like as well as the features which my fanzine will include. I think the reason behind me being good at planning is mainly because of my pagination, this is the first I complete in my planning document because then I can imagine what the articles are going to be like as well as the colour theme, typography and illustrations are going to be like. I think the difficult part of planning for me is writing the copy, I think the whole process of writing the copy is long and strenuous, sitting in front of a computer and typing the same thing can seem quite tiring for me but with regular breaks I hope it isn’t as difficult as it normally is. Luckily, my website is all up to date so throughout my planning period I don’t have to think about completing any outstanding work as it all has been completed. Next week, I will start creating my second developed idea. However, throughout my production I will always be planning so I plan to have a section in my PowerPoint for this section. WEEK SIX