Evaluation - Question 6

EVALUATION ACTIVITY 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

 Adobe Photoshop

 I believe this was the most important piece of technology that I used throughout the whole of my media coursework due to its incredibly usefulness that ultimately contributed massively to my final pieces (Preliminary Task and Music Magazine). This is because I created the front cover and contents for both my School Magazine and Music Magazine entirely using Photoshop. It allowed me to create a realistic piece of work that achieved professionalism in areas such as the graphics of the front cover and the easy layout positioning of both pieces which is the standard met by real School and Music Magazines, using similar software to Photoshop to create authentic and professional-looking work. 

 Photoshop is, essentially, a graphics editing program with which I could create pieces of work including a fire planet (image above right) and a constructed blend of a cello and written music (image left). The most notable pieces of edited work in my final pieces are the title for my artist in my Double Page Spread (image below right) and the sticker on my front page (image below left). This advanced program also allowed me to construct my work using a simple layer style that could be used to arrange the text and pictures on my pages easily and efficiently.

  I was a bit apprehensive before using Photoshop as the most similar program I had used was Microsoft Paint, which actually contrasts to Adobe Photoshop massively. I was introduced to the program through simple lessons on colour editing, image transferring and cutting out images. I found it to be relatively easy to use after a few weeks and discovered it to be an extremely advanced piece of software with which you could create a professional-looking piece of work not unsimilar to what real magazines are created with.

Adobe InDesign

 Before I started using this program, I was confused as to why I couldn't use Photoshop to create my Double Page Spread. However, soon after using InDesign, I discovered that this program was far more adapt to creating a double page spread, due to the user being able to create columns of text with ease, as well as use tools such as text wrap (image right) to, as the name implies, wrap text around images to create a good-looking 2 pages of text and images. A similar program to InDesign I think is Microsoft Publisher, which enables you to create publications using text boxes and images, which could be argued that I could have used this program instead of InDesign. 

Blogger

 Below is a video which provides a simple guide to blogs:

 A blog-publishing online service provided by Google, it was considered the most effective way of displaying Media Studies Students' coursework, since all their work could be displayed, edited and marked online. I liked Blogger instantly because of its easy-to-use simple layout and design, and because I could look at my friends work and compare it with my own. It was easy to upload all of my coursework and display it online, which has lead to my teacher and peers giving me critical and constructive feedback. It also allowed me to access my coursework from home, and not just in lesson-time. Overall I found Blogger to be a good, different coursework experience to the usual written pages found in subjects such as English and History. I would also say that it has a more friendly, easier way of doing coursework, as I didn't have to spend hours re-writing written work like in English, I could put images and videos in my work and I could personalise my work, like using different fonts, colours and layouts.