Evaluation Question: How did you use media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

Paint.Net- (Maisie)
None of us used Paint.Net at all in AS so we weren't familiar with it at all in A2 which made getting started quite difficult, once we got started and figured out how to use the different tools however, it wasn't a very difficult technology to use at all. I (Maisie) used Paint.Net for all three of my final pieces and for our billboard however Alice only used this for her front cover and Saskia for her front cover and double page spread as they felt other softwares were easier to use and more appropriate for what they needed. Generally we all really liked using Paint.Net because it was a great way to construct our magazine pages and a billboard through having tools such as a colour picker and eraser. As I (Maisie) have little experience with Photoshop I was trying to find other ways to remove the backgrounds from images and so found it really easy when I discovered how to do this on Paint.Net, I sued this tool for both my front cover and contents. We all used the colour picking tool as it meant that we could easily keep the same colours throughout our production stages without having to try and match the colours ourselves. We all agree that Paint.Net allowed for really professional looking finished products which means that it will be more appealing to our audiences and they will be more inclined to read a copy. Due to the layering feature we found it very easy to manipulates text and shapes to get them exactly where and how we wanted them.

Blogger- (Maisie)

We used blogger in AS to upload all of our work onto to keep it all together and easily presented and so we didn't struggle with this again this year. Our skills progress from AS to A2 by incorporating more tags to make it easier to find different pieces of work. We also found that bloggers navigation bar tool made it extremely easy to navigate around our blogs and so it was as straight forward as possible. We found blogger a good way to be creative with our presentation.


Survey Monkey- (Maisie)

We used survey monkey in our AS productions so we were familiar with the usefulness of this technology and how to use it. We wanted to use it again this year because we found it so simple and quick to use yet extremely useful as it collected data without us having to do much work. Our skills developed this year from last as we used different style questions and answers so that they weren't all simply multiple choice, they had other things like rating scales and open answer boxes. This meant that we could get different types of feedback off of our audiences, this was extremely useful for communicating with our audience. It was easy as well because we could email it to our peers but also post it onto our social media to hear from a wider range of people.

Presentation software - Prezi, PowerPoint, Emaze, Slide share, Go Conqr and Powtoon- (Saskia) 
We found all of these presentations were easy to use, especially because we are all familiar with this software from As, however, we have tried to incorporate new ones, like Powtoon. With PowerPoint presentations we changed the transitions of slides and tried to add more colour and various images to them , making it more engaging and exciting. As we used more complex presentations platforms like Powtoon, this meant we could include videos and make this presentation more like a short film. Also, with Prezi, we started to make this more intricate by adding more videos and lots more images to explain, instead of overwhelming text. These software's allowed us to go deeper into a point as there was following slides incorporated next, showing a sense of progression and journey. Go Conqr was really good and easy and allowed us to display our ideas in the really easy format of a mind map, which isn't overwhelming as the text is split up in different sections. The use of different colours is also easy on the eye, and these presentation tools allowed us to choose a design that is linked to the fashion and beauty genre - for example we used ones that linked to the magazine genre. This is because it allowed it to look like they belong on the blog and shows the thought and small detail gone into it to make it look professional. Showing how we have used a range of different platforms to get our ideas across in a interesting way.

   

YouTube- (Saskia) 

YouTube has been very helpful in our process of research, planning and actually making our production. We have posted videos from YouTube to help explain various ways of using Photoshop and videos off celebrities that have gave us inspiration and ideas. We have all used YouTube to help us to figure out how to use Photoshop, Blogger and Paint. Net as some of the things were very complex and confusing. This means that we could figure out the software with step to step instructions in a accessible, easy way.

Wix - (Saskia)

We used this software to produce a webpage and 2 hyperlinked pages for a website. This software was very new to us all and even though there was a lot of guidance on the site, it was still hard to get used to. We all found it difficult to add in important, convectional parts of a website, for example, trying to add a pop up (light box) which we couldn't figure out for a while. Also, because we had images in mind of what we wanted our website to look like, we had to change some of these ideas because of the applications on the website creator. However, when we got to grips with the website we could start to create a really smart and professional looking webpages with lots of pop ups and interactions, Meaning that we could get more audience interaction if they left comments and subscribed. Now we are familiar with the software, I definitely would use this software to make a website again as it is actually really easy and basic when you are used to it. As there are different fonts and colours, it makes Wix really fun to use and means that it can be unique to other magazine websites. Overall, making the website a success in general. By using all of these software's and hardware's, this allows us as a group to make our blogs original and make new products to the best of our ability. This also allowed us to make our final pieces accurate and make the pieces look professional to a high standard.

Google Images- (Alice)

We found that by using Google Images it was really useful to our campaigns and overall work (e.g. research and planning, production and evaluation). This was because it allowed us to have very quick access to images, enabling us to save them to use on other platforms, like Paint.net, Emaze, and Microsoft Word. We used this a lot throughout our work to research/find images of existing fashion and beauty magazines, e.g. Vogue and Cosmopolitan. We also used Google Images to search regional magazines (Sixty Nine Degrees and Niche) to gain inspiration for the production of ours; and student magazines like (Property Wise and Style Life)as they are regional also. This meant that we had a better understanding of how to textually analyse products, and gain a better conception of formats and conventions; this majorly benefited us when creating our own original production pieces. We were able to identify what we liked and also what we didn't think was effective, or worked well on the individual students' work. This meant that we were able to make our work precise to the genre (fashion and beauty) and tailor it to our target audience. This benefited us the whole way through our production, as we made sure that we were continuously referring back to other former products, allowing us to see if our work was still accurate to the specific genre, appealing to our audience, and giving off a professional, finished look. 

  

Photoshop- (Alice)

Photoshop was our 'go-to' software for editing and manipulating our main images this year. We found that from the introduction of Photoshop to us this year, we were exposed to many new tools, enhancing our editing skills, enabling a more professional look than our AS images. However, neither of us used this software at all last year, therefore we found that by watching tutorials on YouTube, this allowed us to receive an understanding of how we could work with it and navigate around the program. The tools in which we found the most useful and effective, were the blemish, and the wand tool. The wand tool allowed us to remove any of the background image that we didn't like, or didn't want to be shown, e.g. graffiti. This enabled us to make our images more suitable to the genre. As from researching into other fashion and beauty magazines, we found that there wasn't a lot exposed in the background, therefore from gaining our new skills of how to use the wand tool, we were able to get rid of unwanted background images easily. We found that the blemish tool was really good for removing any skin blemishes, creating a more airbrushed look (which is very conventional within fashion and beauty magazines), e.g. spots, moles, or birth marks. We used this tool as we found that the majority of fashion and beauty magazines had their model's looking flawless with perfect skin; therefore to make our work accurate, and professional we chose to use this tool and create a similar look.

iPhone 7 & X- (Alice)

For our images, we chose to use our own phones to take the photos. This is because from previous experience last year in AS, myself and Maisie attempted to use a Nikon DSI Camera, however the quality was quite poor and we found it quite difficult to capture a good image. Therefore, we thought that the best option this year would be to use an iPhone camera. We found using an iPhone camera really easy to use, as we were extremely familiar with the camera, filters, and how to navigate our way around the app, therefore we were each able to use it to it's full potential. Through using our iPhones, this enabled us to capture quick shot types, and of a stronger, finer quality. Especially from using the iPhone X we found many benefits, as it is newly released, we were exposed to a better, more professional quality of image, possibly better than a camera could produce. Also, by using the iPhone camera, it enabled us to be allowed to quickly transfer them onto our laptop in order to start editing and manipulating; we also found that we really loved the freedom with a handheld phone.