how well does it meet your original intentions?
initially, my intentions were to have a newspaper with a true cultural feel - picking up on the most off-the-radar things out there - music, film, art, photography etc. but in the end, a lot of people wrote about things everyone already knew about (as mentioned by our teacher, Nick), for instance many people were up for just talking about Twitter, Facebook and Myspace - so many magazine have already talked about this. It's been done to death and everyone knows what they can be bothered to know. We could've have found some very cool things by pushing our research as much as possible - just through websites like Vice.com or even wikipedia you can skip constantly through hyperlinks always finding something new and un-covered by anyone else, taking you to new little blogs and other pages with a very cliquey following - if magazine like Mixmag, ID and Dazed can easily find out about things going on underground why cant we? we may not find any way near as many cool things but we'd definitely find some - i think we were trying not to voyage out of our comfort zone but most of the time that is very neccasary - if I do something like this again, i'll bare this in mind and make sure something i write about is completely fresh.
When I presented my ideas for a visual they were accepted with open arms. by the end, our magazine bore no resemblance to those intentions at all. I don't know what happened along the line to make it look so studenty. it must've been people overruling others - this seemed to happen a lot. not maliciously however, just by lack of communication (i'm guilty too) and people just seemed to forget what they had planned... Shame considering I was constantly told that i'd be doing the art direction too. In earlier posts I have documented visual styles that would attract our student demographic and fit with our media magazine/newspaper genre.
How does it look?
I think it looks poorly composed and generally shabby. it looks as though it has been created on Word. It was. But surely it shouldn't have been - i think we should have been taught how to use real layout software (which we had access too as well) and been made to stick to it. There is no colour cheme, no gradients, no changes in text color, hardly any regard to measurements/placements (spacing/padding/borders etc.) and that has created an un-ironic looking product that genuinely does look incomplete.
The logo could have been better - i think it was far too DIY and needed more professional flair, coming in different sizes for places among the magazine other than the front page. The exam tips at the bottom are completely un-noticeable. they should've been placed elsewhere - maybe across the page like a stand out quote..
Overall, if i was a student that this magazine was marketing to, i would not be motivated to read it. I probably would avoid picking it up, fearing the inevitable layout issues and odd/bland color scheme.
How pleased are you with your contributions?
I'm pleased i guess. I got people to actually take in what i was saying about layout and imagery and demographics/target audience etc - i think only a bit went in though, but i suppose that counts on some level.
Giving advice and proofing people articles was probably the biggest impact i had in the end and maybe helping to arrange where the articles went too.
I was pleased with my article. It was fun trying to write something that forecasts things to come - it required a lot of research into new and up coming aspect of media e.g. practitioners, software, methods, conventions, etc...
How effectively do you think YOU worked in your role and others worked in theirs
I tried to write as best as possible to allow pretty much any reader to understand what the article was about - i had to scrap a lot to get it on one page but fortunately it was only a fairly small part. Doing so changed the overall meaning of the article though, meaning it needed to be renamed. Others worked well too - their articles could be narrowed down very easily due to the content - mine needed as much detail on conventions/eras as possible to paint the picture needed as it was all very visual.
What could be learned from this experience?
Dont swap a final film project for a newspaper one. HAHA joking!jfdkbne
To be honest. I haven't learnt much. I wrote what i pretty much already knew and everything everyone else wrote I had a brief knowledge of too. As for layout I gave Adobe a go but no one wanted to use it so that was to no avail. I found out about some interesting looking authors on Zeitgeists and some great musicians and artists - however, left to my spare time it wouldnt have taken long to find them anyway, i'm frequently sourcing out new material for inspiration in my own artwork and film making, OR blog writing.
However I have also learnt about the vitality of communication and democracy in situations like this one so everyone gets a fair say - at first we all voted people into various groups but shortly after it seemed that our communication stopped and we weren't told when ideas put fourth were scrapped.
what had been learnt from previous experience?
Time management skills have increased
Comunication skills have increased
I have learnt about the structure of a newspaper company and also how to work more professionaly within a working enviroment
I have also learnt how to get a product finished on time for a client
No comments:
Post a Comment