Promotional Research on Target

Before creating any mock ups of potential designs to fit my re brand, i wanted to do some audience research on what they wanted, how much they were willing to spend and if they knew of the British Influencers I was going to use as part of my collaborative re brand. To do this i created a survey through google surveys, asking questions on top those previously planned things like if they were employed, to ensure i had all of the information necessary to allow my re branding to reach my target audience. I shared my survey through my 'friends' on facebook and got a fairly good response, I shared the post with nobody over the age of 30 to know my survey was reaching my target audience, this was fairly easy to do, i just ensured that my mum or grandma answered the questionnaire. My marketing strategy involves three main ideas, created around the five main p's of marketing;

• Product
• Price
• Promotion 
• Place 
• People  

For me, using this strategy fell into place quite easily.  My product is five sets of 'revamped' Town & Country wellington boots which will be individually designed for a British influencer, after everyone had answered my survey and most were employed and willing to pay £20-30 for wellingtons, I will market my wellies at £25 per pair, my promotion will be done through snapchat geofilters at main festivals such as Glastonbury to promote through word-of-mouth, another way I will promote my wellies is through pop up shops during the main festivals to really push the exclusivity I am aiming for, as this and buying online will be the only way to buy the wellies. Another way I will promote these wellies is through billboard and social media work with the five influencers together in one space, I also feel this will be effective as it is scene alot with other influencer X brand collaborations. As said previously, my product will mainly be sold during the festival season as this is when wellington boot sales really rise in the UK, with my collaborators Harry Styles, Jordan Bunker, Rita Ora, Cara Delevingne and Alexa Chung wearing them at the selected festivals to promote, allowing paparazzi to shoot them wearing the wellingtons and also using the promotional Snap filter together.    

Visuals to communicate concept

To visually showcase the products I have created for my brand I have created mockups of what each wellington boot could look like. I wanted each design to be slightly different from the other in order to give myself the variation that the public could potentially want, therefore I created visual mood boards to under which aspect i was going to incorporate for each celebrity and how each design would differentiate from one another, as you can see from the mood boards I selected an individual stylistic piece and put focus on it and similar aspects they have worn. Once designing mood boards to have a solid understanding of how I would design and differentiate between each style of wellington boot, I went about creating mock designs of the shoes.

After having mock ups of designs down, I created potential marketing mock ups of how I would like my product to me sold. This included a logo, a billboard mock up and a n Snapchat GeoFilter. 

 

 Lastly, I created an infographic to visually represent my survey findings for my presentation. To do this I created a Prezi presentation account and used a mixture of graphics and visual representatives to show my findings.

Logo

For this assessment in the brief, I wanted to create a logo which was simplistic and monochrome yet still image based, As i have a large flower piece tattooed on my shoulder that distinguishes me I wanted to incorporate some of this into my logo design, as i believe this accurately represents me. To do this, I began researching into small flower wild flower designs to maybe put under my logo as an inlining or something, however I stumbled upon a twisted wild flower image that really stood out to me as an 'L' shape therefore I exported the image into photoshop and traced around it. After finishing the 'L' to incorporate the image based idea I wanted from my tattoo, I found a font i really liked and exported it into Photoshop also. Ensuring that the font fitted with my wild flower 'L', i was happy with my overall design and thought it expressed myself in a minimalistic and effective way to add into any portfolio work or online websites.

Interviewing a media industry professional; Anthem Publishing

Overall, my experience with visiting Anthem Publishing was a really positive one. The women who gave up their time to educate and inform us seemed to want to encourage our knowledge not only their company but the publishing industry itself, it was really refreshing to have a warm welcome as students intruding on their workday, no question was too big but they also wanted to ensure we had all the information needed to carry out our write-ups. Three of the most important things I learnt whilst speaking to the digital edition and marketing assistant were probably not about the industry itself, but how to get into their position. One of the main points was that a portfolio or work experience was very necessary in order to get onto the job ladder, two examples they offered to us were that blogging allowed the digital editor to gain her position as the company through being able to prove her tech-savvy skills, another example offered was the marketing assistants work experience through the company during the summer which then allowed her to gain entry into a full-time position for the job she is in now through the same company, which was the best outcome for her. Another interesting piece of information I learned was that although a university degree isn't demanded, it is really helpful in order to climb the job market at a faster pace, they also told us that if any of wanted to work overseas in the US for example; then it would be expected of us to have a degree therefore in order to not limit myself I must pursue a degree. Finally, the last thing I found interesting from our interview was that their sales of print magazines are doing better than ever, which really surprised me as there is such an emphasis on print 'dying' but that Anthem publishing are constantly evolving their online presence when it comes to digital magazines, personally i would like digital magazines to becomes more interactive with the readers such as through video content and hyperlinks to other sections of the magazine, etc.

Finally

PT 1

PT 2

Display Board Concepts

For this display project we have decided upon three original ideas sourced from other creative members of our class to created a visually pleasing display of the quote 'It doesn't get easier, you just get better.'  with the main focus of the brief being that the idea must be 3D or at least able to be translated into 3D once the artwork is finished. Before selecting our finale ideas to work with, each individual member of the class needed to create their own interpretation and idea to suggest to the class. My Idea was to use images sourced by those within in our class from our projects from the previous year however whilst i waited for those images to come through, I created a mock up of my potential idea. My influence for came from my research on the graphic designers Craig and Karl who use modern pop art for different cliental, overall i really liked their use of bold colours and imagery to portray their imagery therefore i incorporated this into my own ideas. After reflection on what i had created as a mock up, i found it difficult to think of a way to tie in the 3D point from the brief, therefore my idea was not chosen.

As a class, after finishing our designs, we tied together what we had learnt to decided on three main ideas we liked the idea of. First was Oscars who incorporated Imagery into photography and typography into one main idea, i really liked this idea as it was similar to mine. Brandon's Idea was the second idea we had chosen to work with as he used different forms of patterning and shapes to manipulate typography in a pop art way, much like that of Craig and Karl. Finally, the last idea we decided to work with was Angel's who wanted to incorporate textures into her lettering to ensure it would stand out on the board, using train tickets as use of material of choice because that is how most people get into college.  

Marketing Strategy

Five P's of marketing

• Product (What are you selling?)
• Price (How will you market your price, research price ranges?)
• Promotion (Where, When, How and Why?)
• Place (Where?)
• People (Who will best fit your brand? Who will reach your target audience?)

My Product is the re design of Town and Country wellington boots, i will research how much to sell them for through my audience research in which i will ask questions such as are you employed and how much would you be willing to pay for a style like mock ups i have created. In order to promote this revamp of wellies i will use five well known British influencers that are known on the festival scene where i would like my collaboration to be sold as well as fashion and music icons for a younger generation of sixteen and older. As for where my wellies will be promoted, as spoken about previously, i will sell my wellies through a stream of pop up stands at well known British and American festivals to fit with my re branding theme as well as promotional offers like meet and greets with the influencers who will collaborate with the brand to encourage a larger audience to attend, i may also created a few mock up PR issues between the influencers and then work on solutions as to how it could benefit my collaboration and boost sales. Another way I will promote my collaboration will be through a snapchat geo tag which will be relative to the location of each pop up tent available during the point of sales, by promoting my product through these filters i will be able to reach a larger audience that may not know about the collaboration but also make it known through the crowds of festival goers of the event happening, I have created a mock up of what my Geo Tag could look like;

Town and Country Rebranding pt 1

Reasons why research  is important;

1) Allows you to understand your target audience and how to reach them
2) Gives you background knowledge on the brand
3) Inspiration
4) To see trends and most popular items from  the brand
5) Competitors, seeing what the brand is up against

Types of research

Primary research- research performed by yourself like a survey, focus groups.
Secondary research- research performed by others like internet research, books.

Town and Country Rebrand;

Town and Country began to manufacture and design leather based goods in 1960, since then the company has focused their attention on farming and agriculture side of their business, stating on their website that 'our focus has been on bringing innovation to the gardening sector with a range of gloves and footwear that combines quality, functionality and style, with a price tag that represents exceptional value for money.' Today, T&C has claimed to be one of the country's leading gardening brands who allege that they offer 'one of the most comprehensive collections of gardening gloves and footwear'. Having put their put through the door in 1997 when beginning the production of footwear T&C have continued to invest in their footwear ranges and hope to in the future. 

Research

From my research i have found that, currently the target audience for T&C is middle aged to older men and women, i can tell this by the promotional pictures adverting their goods through the website. The website also heavily features a lot of the outdoors, which is to be expected with a company who sells outdoors footwear and equipment. To me this suggests that the company is also trying the each audiences over the age of 65 as it is a well known fact that this is retirement age therefore those older than this will have the time for things like gardening and so will want to buy the goods from places like T&C, another observation i have made from the brand is that the prices are high for the goods provided, showing to me that they have a customer base and those they want to reach must have a lot of expendable income to spend of things like wellies, hence why is suggest that there is a middle class vibe towards the brand. From my research i found that alot of the products also used gender neutral tones and earthy tones which i will keep in mind when it comes to the rebranding as i believe it is beneficial to keep things gender neutral to reach larger audiences but also how i can re brand the items on sale with changing colour schemes and styles.   

For my research i will perform both primary and secondary research before beginning my re brand, most of my primary research will be very active including going to visit my closest distributor of T&C footwear and inviting them to answer my questions such as what styles sell best and who buys them, using questionnaires to identify what my target audience would want from the rebrand, asking questions such as who influences you style wise but also things like occupation to understand how much my target audience are willing to pay. In doing these questionnaires i can get a full understanding of how and what will make my rebrand successful and my research i conduct will hopefully back this up. As for secondary research i will use the blogs and information provided to me through the T&C website as their information will be most correct, i will also use google and other factual providers to benefit my factual profile on T&C.

My idea

My Idea is to rebrand Town and Country for a younger audience for a festival scene, due to this my target audience will be those over the age of 16. When festival season starts the sale of wellies sky rocket, in 2015 Ebay the e-commerce giant gained a 40% surge in the sales of waterproof garments before Glastonbury, with key searches being 'fashionable' and 'waterproof' together.  By brands such as T&C tapping into consumers interest during the festival period, they can profit on the uncertain weather Britain seems have. My intention is to create a line of wellies for the festival season and to promote each design through a collaboration of a well known celebrities, preferably those who is well known in the for appearances at festivals in both the US and UK such as Coachella and Glastonbury. Over the past five years there has been a surge in brands creating festival inspired fashion lines such as H&M X Coachella and other online British clothing companies such as Boohoo, Miss guided and ASOS also selling festival inspired pieces, during my research I also noticed that men were also targeted during the festival promotions.

Thanks to this research that suggests both men and women are targeted during the festival season, I will ensure that my collaboration will include both women and men influencers. I have made the choice to use two male influencers, currently i believe i will use Harry Styles and Jordan Bunker as one is well known in the music industry and the other well known in the fashion industry which i believe will benefit me as both influencers intertwine the two markets i am trying to reach. I have used the same method when selecting my female influencers, choosing to use three to model for re brand. The three female influencers i have chosen to use are Alexa Chung, Cara Delevingne and Rita Ora. I plan to use these influencers in multiple ways, the first i will do this is by naming at least one of my boot designs after one of the influencers, because of this i will be design five different styles of welly boots, each separate design reflecting the style of the influencer. For example; Rita Ora's will be flamboyant and named 'The Rita.' In order to do this entire process i will begin by creating individual mood boards of reach influencers style, begin to sketch out ideas and researching patterns and colours that could be used before then transferring all of this information into photo shop and creating my finale designs. Once i have completed my design work i will processed to think about how i could potentially promote my wellies, currently my idea would be a meet and greet situation where my influencers could meet those who buy a certain pair. Another Idea i have on how i could promote this is by ensuring photo opps are taken with them in the wellies during a festival scenario.

Progression-sending my magazine to print

This is my finale progression blog post i will be doing for this project, once i said my magazine to print i will gathering together all of my feedback and creating my evaluation posts, self and peer. In this project i am really happy with progress i have made in the targets i set myself, such as learning more about Adobe softwares to push my work to the next level. I am lucky in that all of my work is similar to that of the publishing industry especially in terms of Adobe. For my peer assessments and evaluations I be more depth than i have been with assessments in previous blog posts, being self critical is really important therefore i will talk about things like what i would do next time.

As my deadline date is fast approaching, after receiving my feedback from my focus groups and changing all of the aspects of my magazine until i was fully happy. I went ahead to print, in my previous blog post on what in which i talked about which possible print company i wanted to go with, i chose Solopress however the quote i was informed about the quote i received on the day were very different in price and i did not want to pay that much therefore i went to the website Mixam.co.uk who i actually prefered in the long term, i felt like i did not have to compromise of paper quality or the finish i wanted and the price was very reasonable! All i needed to do on the website was upload my readily made PDF document of my magazine exported straight out of InDesign and away it went.
I was really happy with how easy the whole process was as i knew that i wanted to use recycled paper as i had found that i really liked the use of this in other magazines i had gone to look at.

 Here you can see both the specs i selected in my magazine design and also how the layout would look from the websites point of view. I really wanted my magazine to be of a high quality as since i have spent so much time on it i would like to use it for my portfolio if that be for interviews in the media industry or for anything else like using the magazine as part of my uni applications.

Peer evaluation from focus group and self evaluation

Once receiving my printed magazines, i wanted to collect a focus group together to give me some extra feedback now that i have physical copies. The feedback i got was overall good, the biggest concern was that on my text only pages. The issue with my text only pages was that not only was there alot of it, and some readers may find that overwhelming, not only this but the size of the font was too big, there the type only pages looked misplaced. I didnt notice this to be a problem when i was working on my magazine, even after converting it into a PDF or even whilst looking at the magazine when working over it before hand on my print company website, therefore this must have happened because i was not observant enough in my double checking before hand. This is not a huge issue either, i do not believe that my grade will be affected because of it for example. Another issue picked up on through my focus groups feedback was that another article should have been added or another photoshoot, just something to bulk the magazine out about. I also agree on this, i speak about this in my evaluation but i finish i had pushed myself further to do, like i said, i agree with this. I think that if i was given the time to do this project again, i could encourage myself to do so. Overall, my peer feedback was really interesting was they all picked up on points similar to mine, however having someone else look at it can help to see if you're missing anything.

From the beginning of this project i set myself a certain amount of goals to accomplish throughout this project not just in how i wanted my product to look but also i how i was going to stretch myself and show improvements from then and now, looking at my statement of intent i feel like i have accomplished all i set out to do on reflection. Within the time scale available to me i feel like i was able to not only go through the processes and research and experimentation but also have my magazine created, printed and evaluated before the deadline date, although i was very challenged during this process especially when having to create my layouts and direct, shoot and edit my pictures within around two weeks whilst doing other work on top of this. However the most important aspect of this project and one of goals when beginning this project, i feel more confident when using Adobe softwares such as InDesign and Lightroom, both of which i had barely used before beginning the task, i feel as if i would now favour this programs thanks to my new found knowledge over others available to me. I feel like one of my main successes now that the project is finish is how coherent it looks altogether, i wanted to the magazine to look professional and well put together and although i think that my magazine does still look really amature, it is not bad for a first attempt.

In conclusion, i feel like this project has really pushed my skill set as someone interested in working in the publishing world. It has opened my eyes to just how much of a process publishing work is, you must pay attention to detail but also go through the motion of re designing and re trying every possible option, i am happy with how i have progressed throughout this project, giving myself the creative freedom to do what i want but also self disciplined by ensuring i stick to my deadline dates and also sticking to a schedule every day. There are definitely some things i would like to change about my project such as adding in more content but my overall finish is what i set out to do, create a multimedia magazine campaign that show cases the things that i love, such as photography and writing.  

My Evaluation

For this year's FMP L3 Creative Media were given the task of creating our own projects using the skills we have learnt throughout the year and combining them into our chosen second year choice, for me this was publishing. Using a combination of research, experimentation and my creative skill set as a student i created a magazine which, overall i am happy with. As a student who takes fascination of publication work i found myself really pushing myself this year and enjoying it, too.

Pre Production

The pre production process for my FMP started in late March, we were given a brief of the work expected of us as well as how to get the top grades thanks to marking boundaries but apart from that we were sent to work on our way paths. Initially, i really struggled with what to create for this project therefore my raw starting point was to create mind maps of four possible ideas i could pursue, creating these mind maps made everything so visual for me that i almost found it easier to weigh up the pros and cons from potential topic. Once finalising that a magazine is what i wanted to do with a mixture of both photography based content as well as channeling myself to do some articles, which isn't something i feel particularity comfortable in my research began. To begin with i gathered inspiration from magazines that really inspired me which varied from Vogue magazine to more 'indie' magazines like Paper and V, as these were my starting inspirations i created a mind map, much like my initial ideas as i found this so effective. Over all i believe that it was a good idea for me to do it that way because you can see my progression from a few basic ideas into actually finding what inspired me to do this magazine, which aspects of each i would like to incorporate into my own magazine which aspects from each i dont like and so on. Once my inspirations mind map had run its course i began to think about other potential aspects that i would need to think about in my my magazine, things such as potential colour schemes, editorial makeup which really spoke to me that i could incorporate into my own magazine and also the styles of writing that i liked, this was important to me because i knew that if i wanted to add in articles to my work, i wanted them to have a 'blog' style to them in the sense that they were slightly informal, had personal opinion in them but also another key feature i really liked about the blog style writing i found was that they spoke to the audience, allowing for them to really ponder about the chosen subject. All of this tied into one made one large mind map that had all of my starting bases on it for where i could take the ideas next, on top of this i had to keep in mind my time frame.

 Back in March i felt like i had all the time in the world, i realised very quickly this was not the case therefore i had to act sharp on my ideas if i was to create a magazine i was going to be proud of. Once creating my mind maps as well as blogging my responses, i set about doing alot more primary research and some more secondary research on areas i haven't yet touched upon like font types and layout, for my primary research it took shape in the form of two major projects. One was a survey using a focus group through social media and the other was through an interview i would be conducting with a local, dedicated magazine shop owner who had invited me in to talk to me about important aspects of magazine i had not thought about yet. On reflection i feel like i could have done more in terms of giving out my survey to the type of audience i was trying to attract, instead of just sharing it on a facebook wall and hoping for the best i feel like i should have been more active in my research by going around my local shopping areas things like that, i feel like would have benefitted me more that just hoping for the responses to come to me as although through sharing the survey would have given me the demographic i wanted to reach, i did not get as many responses as i would have liked. One top of this, i do not feel like the questions i had asked on my survey were direct enough, they were too vague and did not give the direct answers i needed in terms of what i needed to know for my magazine and its contents. Another issue i fell into was the fact that when sharing my survey online, i didnt get the control i wanted in terms of who answered it. I soon realised that younger boys were answered my survey and that was not who my target audience was! therefore i have learnt for next time do just hand the survey out myself to those i believe would be in my focus group.

However, my interview at Magairella was really interesting, i had pre prepared questions i had wanted to ask, after the disastrous survey and they were more than happy to help. In asking questions like 'Do you believe that print is a thriving business, still?' it give me more confidence in my choice to do a print based magazine, as yes they believed it was. Interviewing the shop was really eye opening to me, i feel like i got all the answers i needed to now carry out my secondary research in more depth. As i knew that i wanted my magazine to be very article based i found the three topics i wanted to cover as researched them alot more, from this i found five or six reliable news sources that contained factual information about my news related story which meant i knew that i would be documenting mistruths. Next up i knew that i wanted to do a review based article also, coincidentally the controversial Netflix program '13 Reasons Why' had just been realised therefore i knew that i wanted to have my say in the matter, so i knew what my review based article was going to be. As for my photography inspiration, i was recommended the photographer Brandon Woelfel and once i began to research him i fell in love with his photography style, he gave me the inspiration to do a photography series for my magazine using flares which he had done and it looked incredible, especially after editing! Once i had the contents of my magazine out of the way, i progressed through to study layout and font as these are both key elements in which can help create a magazine, i believe that if a font is unreadable for example, then this may discourage a reader from the magazine. The same can be said for layout, as said in my primary research, of course i had a look of lots of magazines currently on the market and what they had to offer. I found a specific style of layout that i really liked and so it heavily influenced me during the production process, the layouts i personally liked had alot of geometric squaring, minimalist images and text but also alot of plain spacing, which i thought was really effective. Once this form of experimentation had taken place i wanted to push myself further, creating potential page layouts, experimenting with front covers and also looking at magazine characteristics such as contents summaries on the front cover, taking into consideration if i wanted that for myself or did i want things differently, all of these aspects of consideration can be found through my other blog work, of course. On top of this, i had to think about my outside shoot as well, therefore i created a recce of potential locations that i could use, this was really interesting for me s there were a lot of factors i had to think about such as danger to the public and roads, the amount of natural lighting we would have all of the aspects had to be considered, i also created an inspiration, mood board which showed how i wanted my model to be where i wanted my flares to be positioned and how i wanted my lighting to look which all helped me out on reflection.

Another key part of my pre production process was, of course my test shoot for my front cover. I took inspiration from my previous research using influences such as Paper magazine and I-D mag to also my own influences and tastes as well as from photographers such as Brandon Woelfel, ensuring to push myself into doing a shoot i hadn't before. By doing my test shots i was able to really understand what i would need for my actual production, things like equipment set up needed to be considered before moving forward but since i was doing my test shoot, i knew what to do for the real thing. When conducting my test shoot created a mood board also really helped me as i could relate back to what inspired me, whether that be from a model's positioning to the lighting style used it really helped me to convey my ideas visually in my personal path way, which is key during this project. By doing my test shoot not only did it prepare me for what i would need to do for my actual shoot but also help me to convey my ideas in a way that shows progression for an idea, to trying the idea, to changing something, in addition to this by doing so many experiments whether that be from layout to front cover styling it enables me to develop my ideas further constantly, pushing myself to better myself. Throughout this entire process of pre production i have found myself increasingly confidence when it comes to softwares like Lightroom and Photoshop, of course all documented through my other blog posts. I feel that in experimenting with editing, different forms my magazine can take and also different styles of layout i have grown accustom to using these platforms and if i have had any issues, google has been my best friend, such as overlapping images or manipulating text. If i could change anything else about my pre production process it would probably to have to be not spending as much time physically researching however just making notes on what i have done and then filling my blogs up later, i feel like i spent too much time researching which may not necessarily be a bad thing however, i soon found myself falling behind others in the class and struggling to catch up, if i was to do this project again i would probably attempt to find a balance between enough research however it be thoroughly blogged about as well as being analysed to pinpoint the exact parts of any particular section of research that i like.

Production

In contrast to my final sentence, i feel like if hadn't done as much planning in my pre production phase, i do not think that either of my photoshoots would have gone as smoothly as they did. Thanks to my research and experimentation i feel that my studio shoot was executed with swift transitions from one stage to the next, prior to the shoot i was able to book out all of the equipment i needed such as studio lighting and back drops and set up quickly thanks to my test shoot. Whilst doing my photoshoot i allowed a friend and fellow student into the studio with be to help take pictures of any of the behind the scenes stuff i may feel like needed, such as me doing my models make up and then directing her into postion so that after, when blogging about the whole experience i could explain why i did what i did and how, in doing the behind the scenes pictures i can also reflect on what i could do differently and how i could improve it, which i am glad about. After my test shoot i was under the impression that i would keep some of the images taken and also use those in my magazine, but after doing my official photoshoot i decided to disregard those images as the ones taken this time around i had found to be better and more to what i was attempting to re create. Once i had my photographs taken altogether, i uploaded them onto my Mac and began to edit. It chose to go straight into Lightroom for the editing process as i wanted to encourage myself to be more familiar with the software, as i had little to no experience with using Lightroom, i found myself struggling to use the software accurately however i soon found myself adjusting to it, i know i didnt use Lightroom as best as i could have however i managed to edit the pictures to a standard that i wanted correcting issues such as white balance and enhance them in other ways that i also liked, which i am thankful for. One issue i found with some of my images were that they seemed be discoloured with a white wash tone which meant that no matter how hard i tried to enhance my images, they looked bleached out and there was no way of using them, due to this some images were unusable from my cover shoot but i had taken to manage through, luckily.

The same could be said for my outdoors photoshoot, thanks to my careful planning and recce i found shooting with the flares easy enough, i ensured that we left before the sun had set otherwise we would have been able to see the flares at all and thanks to the fact we shot in a forest i feel like the smoke going around the trees was really effective and therefore the shoot went better than i could have ever previously planned! thanks to my moodboard work the model knew what do to and i set up the flares as carefully as possible to ensure no health and safety hazards were present. Once let off, we let the flare do its thing and encourage the model to work with it, which he did. I believe that alot of the smoothness of this shoot came from my mood boards and clear visions on where i wanted the photo shoot to go, showing my model the moodboard meant that he understood what i meant when i said follow whatever the flare is doing, the pictures can out exceptionally well and i was so pleased with the shoot there is nothing that i would do differently next time, my research and experimentation worked hand in hand to find me the perfect location without any concerns or problems.

After editing all of my images together and writing my articles to go inside the magazine, i set about doing my first print trial, this was to see how to colours of my editing would hold up, it also gave a me a visual physical copy of magazine to see if there were any alterations i would need to make before researching where to print my magazine and then eventually, sending it to print. In order to send my magazine to print i wanted to ensure that the print company was right for me in the sense that i wanted to ensure that they could offer me the paper quality i wanted, the quantity i wanted and for the magazine to be printed well, all for a fair charge. I am really happy i shopped around before confirming my definate answer as i found the similar website to the leading uk brand who i much preferred and who also seemed much better, honestly. I wanted to blog all of this because it shows a progression for wanting to print but not knowing where to go to gathering quotes together and comparing potential businesses. However, before finalising my magazine and sending it to print i wanted to do one last survey using a focus group to ensure changes that needed to be made were, learning from my previous experience i only shared the questionnaire with those who i trusted, printing off more mock ups of my magazine and also a digital copy so that those in my focus group could find and go back to look at the magazine if needed. The feedback i received was overall really informative and the most of the changes recommended to me i followed through with as i agreed with them, on reflection i am glad i made the changes i did as my magazine looks so much better for it.

Overall i am really happy with the photoshoots themselves, i feel that if i had not done my extra steps like create a recce or test photo shoot then things wouldn't have gone so smoothly in the production process, one thing i am slightly critical of however is the fact that when doing my cover shoot i did not shoot enough varied shots of my model which were of a portrait size, for some reason i kept turning the camera landscape (probably because that is what is most natural for me when holding my camera), this was slightly annoying as it meant a lot of the images that i really liked i couldn't use as my magazine size is A4 portrait without warping the images or cropping out important aspects of some of my images which i really liked, other than this i had no issues. Once i had edited my images in Lightroom i then went on to export the images out and create my layout in InDesign, that way my images did not lose quality, which i am glad i did.

Post Production

Post production probably the most simple part of my entire project, once i had sent my magazine to print it was about me evaluating my work the best i could but also gathering feedback from my focus group again, now that my magazine has been printed. Overall i am happy with how my magazine turned out but next time i would like to push myself further, i like to push myself further than just an Instagram page and i magazine, i would like to create a video launch if i did this project again. Creating an advertisement for a magazine is a way for me to really reach new audiences but also reflect the style i am trying to portray from my magazine. By collecting another set of data from my focus group i feel like my work can be properly evaluated, as well as this evaluation created by myself. As a whole i feel that this project has been successful in the sense that i set out do what i aimed to however on reflection, as i said previously i would like to stretch myself further next time and really push my comfort zone in ways i havent during this project. Looking at my printed magazine now in comparison to the mind maps i created only a few months ago, is a strange feeling. I feel that i have remained consistent in my work throughout this project committing to blogging all i can to show you the improvements and progress i have made, which i believe i have done. If i was to do this task again i would want to push myself not only with the video advertisement to go with it but also with what i do with my contents, i would like to push myself to do another shoot as well as write more articles as i believe i could do it in the time frame we have been given for this project, providing i stay on top of my blog work. In doing this it will stretch me further in the sense that i will need to encourage my time management more.

Questionnaire results

After giving out my questionnaire to those who had viewed my magazine, i feel like i gained some really positive feedback from the experience on my finale designs. What i had wanted from my survey was for it to be viewed by a number of people in my focus group of 17 to 24 yrs olds for it then to be analysed to see if there were any points that needed changing or editing slightly before i sent my magazine to print, unsurprisingly, this did happen but i shall touch on those details later on in this blog post. Getting into my survey, the first question i asked was 'After looking at the magazine, would you read it?' thankfully, 68.8% of those who answered, said yes. Im really surprised by this figure as i would have assumed it would be less due to some of participating members of my focus group seeming disinterested and unbothered, but i am glad on reflection that was is something they would read.  I also gave my participants the option to select the answer 'Maybe, but only if something i would like was on there' and i left a comment bar so that they could submit their answers, i believe that this way i can receive more constructive criticism which i can then adjust before sending my magazine to print. One of my feedback comments stated that they found my title font too difficult to read, therefore i changed this on my magazine making the font similar, however large and more accessible for everyone to read. Another comment stated that they didn't think my text stood out enough from some of my backgrounds therefore i created textboxes around the images to separate the two which on reflection i think this is really effective, i really like how it turned out. I am glad i left this question so open for my group to interpret what i meant so that i can gather lots of variations of feedback before sending my magazine to print.

Next up i asked my focus group which their favourite page was and why, i wanted to ask this for my own personal interest more than anything to see what my target demographic prefer. There were a lot of 'I dont knows' which annoyed me slightly however other answers were really informative like, 'I really like the front page as it draws you in and i wanted to pick it up and read it' observations like this are really useful to be because i then know which parts of my magazine have been successful, others had really liked the articles i had written and thought they were really fitting with the magazine whilst others commented things like 'i really liked the front cover, however i feel like more info about the magazine needs to be added' to an extent i agree with this statement however i feel like for the magazine edge i am looking for, as found in my research a lot of magazines do not carry this feature anymore therefore i thought that neither should i, it was interesting that someone picked up on it however, as nobody else did. Moving onto my next question, i asked my focus group what their thoughts were on the articles i had written to include in the magazine, overall i got a really positive response to this, too which is slightly annoying as i need some constructive criticism to change my magazine! One of the focus group members did however point out i should include some contextual images of my work to go with the articles, so that is what i did. One answer said 'Not really, they didn't seem consistent' when asked if my articles were fitting to the magazine, of course it was unfortunate to say this as i do not know how to fix this. Unfortunately i can't write another article to go with it as i do not have enough time however i do not understand what is inconsistent about the articles, i wish i could ask.

After gathering some of my constructive criticisms i then went ahead and started to edit my magazine before sending it for its professional print, the main things i wanted to change were the title font, add in some text boxes and lastly add in some contextual images that would fit in well with the articles i had written. Here you can see some before and afters; I am really happy with adding the requests of those who had spoken up, i could have done with alot more critical feedback, so i had something to write about! But i have learnt that be really get the best analytical responses then i must go out of my way to do so with experiments like creating a focus group.