Task 9 - Evaluation

Abygail Jones

FanzineI had 3 total drafts of the fanzine, the first one was

quite long and included a lot of invaluable

information such as: where his siblings went to

college, what his parents did and so on.

In the second draft, I somehow managed to bump the word count from 1221 to

1301 – this is mostly due to my own personal opinion included after writing a

particular statement or the fact that I included a lot of quotes that could be

seen as unnecessary.

The third and final draft was my most successful, I cut down the word count to

973 and managed to keep all my opinions, most of the quotes and a bunch of

factual information in there to really apply to the readers.

(Come back to Sources of information)

I feel like I really managed to capture the style that most fanzines use, this is a

mixture of fact and opinion – more heavily lenient towards opinion. When

comparing it to other fanzine articles - such as the ‘Dr. Who Titles’ written by

Peter Capaldi many years ago – there is definitely some similarities in style

and writing technique, the first paragraph is all about relating to the audience

and giving personal views on the subject at hand, i.e. Doctor Who with: ‘…Dr.

Who has become a familiar ritual for all of us.’ or Bo with: ‘…though I am a

young girl and one of the many that follow him…’

Like I stated previously, I’ve mixed fact with opinion (e.g. ‘first impulse to

create comedy came from him seeing it as a way to get girl, be liked and to

deflect his own self-consciousness’ – this starts off pretty shallow…’), although

the Dr. Who article didn’t really use this, it’s a technique that I have noticed in

other articles – especially when a bias opinion is involved.

Much like any article, including the Dr Who one, I have used quotes to further

highlight my points, for example: ‘Burnham applied for several

universities/colleges – according to an interview, he said, ‘I worked eight hours

a day so I could get in to the college of my dreams (Harvard) and say that I got

in – and I never went…’

FanzineI feel like I managed my time pretty well with this particular

part of the project. It took about half a day to collect the

right factual information to include within the fanzine article.

It took me about 2 days to fully complete the initial writing

for the task, I made sure it was quite bias and opinionated

with a lot of factual information to back me up. I feel like this

part went very well, I didn’t particularly set a time scale to

finish it within but I feel like I managed to finish the task

quickly and effectively with good results. (2 days altogether)

I feel this is similar to Task 4 in the Critical Responses unit –

I don’t think I had a particular time scale with that task either

but I managed to get it done quickly and effectively with

good results.

When it came to the production part, I feel I managed my

time very well – within the space of a week, I managed to

create two different layouts for the Fanzine article that were

both unique and effective – I’d even say they were quite

professional looking.

The first final piece (Left) took me under a day to complete

– the most time consuming part was putting the text in to

the selected boxes, it was quite hard to fit it all in without it

looking strange, misplaced or have a lot of white space left

over.

This is a lot like the second piece (Right) – it took me the

same amount of time to complete and the most time

consuming part was resizing the images on Photoshop and

placing them in, not just that but making sure the header

text was both in the centre of the page, large and clear but I

managed it.

FanzineWhilst I was writing the copy for my fanzine, I would send my work back

to my tutor to be assessed, it would then be sent back to me with areas

of improvement and I would quickly act upon them and use them as

guidelines to make my work more professional/to a better quality – with

fanzine, I ended up with 3 different end products.

The first draft (top left) was an abundance of factual information,

opinions and bias material bundled in to a full 2 page piece, the word

count ended up at 1221, I didn’t send this draft to my tutor, instead, I

tried again on a second draft (top right) using the same information but

adding some more in to it, more opinions, more facts and so on – then I

sent it to my tutor.

The feedback I received from my tutor further aided me in my creating my third piece – it

enabled me to create my final draft which was again checked and approved. I lessened my

word count down from 1301 (from the second draft) to 973 without getting rid of important

information, opinions or facts.

I feel like the reviewing went well, I am now very assured that I will get a good grade for my

written pieces.

This is the first time I’ve ever gotten my work looked at in this particular way – I found it more

helpful to receive advice on where to improve and which certain areas to look at, it made it a

lot easier to improve my pieces and get them up to a good standard. It was definitely a lot

more useful than getting it graded right at the very end only to find out that I got a low grade

because I got it wrong.

The only time it was sort of similar was during the Recipe Card project, before submitting final

pieces, I made sure with a tutor that it was right before continuing with another task.

Fanzine

I used In Design for my most of my

production. I had to learn how to use it

again as I did have some skill knowledge

from using it before during the Recipe

Cards unit.

I think I did quite well from a ‘technical

standpoint’ – I managed to effectively use

In Design without any help from my tutor.

It took a while, but I managed to find large

images that - even throughout the resizing

process – managed to stay clear and of a

good quality, for example: the image of Bo

Burnham with a book on his head, after

the resizing process through Photoshop, it

was added to In Design and it managed to

stay a good quality without looking straight

or disoriented.

I feel like I’ve managed to create quite a

professional looking piece – when I look at

other examples, such as the Doctor Who

titles fanzine article by Peter Capaldi

(Current Doctor Who actor) the designs

are usually quite compact but simple, I feel

that even though my design is pretty

complicated, it’s also very easy to read.

My piece has all of the text in neat portions

throughout the page, along with a variety

of photographs of Burnham which is very

similar to the example – and if that was

professionally printed, I feel like my

version is also quite professional.

I feel like my In Design skills have vastly

improved since I last used them for the

Recipe Cards project, as previously

mentioned, I can now easily create

guidelines and create ideas I’ve come up

with elsewhere – it also makes it easier to

look at examples - such as the Doctor

Who fanzine article – and effectively copy

that particular style.

I only really used Photoshop when I needed to

resize images, it was pretty straight forward,

however, I forgot how to actually do the whole

resizing part and I had to get help from my tutor –

otherwise, it went very well; I managed to do

every picture so that it was pristine and clear on

the In Design document.

The images I found to resize were

usually quite large – unless the

sizing was required to be quite small

– ensuring that the image is large

means that it’s easier to resize

without getting a bad quality in the

end, even if it’s for quite a small

image overall. An example of this is

one of the images I used for the first

made fanzine, it was a very large

image that was required for quite a

small space and it turned out clear

and high quality.

I also feel that during this process,

I’ve managed to improve my

Photoshop skills, it’s easier to resize

images and fit them in to certain

sizes now.

FanzineI feel that my creative abilities have been tested in this particular

project, it gave me a lot of options to try out and a lot of different

scenarios to write for. Other than testing my ability, I also feel that it’s

helped me to improve – for example, I’ve never written for a different

variety of texts before, it’s always been fictional writing – now I’m able

to think outside the box and try factual writing, maybe even read some,

for this particular project, though; I feel I’ve done a good job.

I think I’ve done quite well in being creative, especially for factual text

which is outside of my comfort zone when writing.

I feel I’ve managed to be creative because even with a particular

scenario to aim at, I feel I managed to create quite an interesting

article/story. For example with the fanzine article, I included a lot of

factual information in to a particular paragraph, I also managed to

include a quote and my own, personal opinion – it’s interesting because

it manages to inform, make them think and persuade the reader to

consider what’s been said and influence their opinion, e.g. ‘this is

where we start to see the other side of Bo, or, one of many.’

Somewhere else I felt particularly creative was when creating flat plans

for production – I used shapes on PowerPoint to create the initial page

shape and I used different variations in colours to show what which

individual box represents – along with an annotation in the centre of the

boxes, indicating what they are. This was very helpful during the

production process and it didn’t take long to do at all, I feel most

creative because I’d usually come up with a few pictures and a chunk

of text rather than doing it this way.

I used a lot of existing examples to help me come up with some initial

design ideas, I used this website to help me look through different

fanzine designs.

http://brandnewretro.ie/2013/12/09/imprint-fanzine-dublin-may-1980/

There are quite a lot of intricate, unique

designs on that particular website – my

designs feel quite simple in comparison

to some, for example the ‘In Vogue’

article – it has quite a simple looking

design at first glance but it’d be quite a

complex task to get the writing in the

right areas and add in the images – If I

could improve something about my

designs, it would probably be the

images – I’d like to make it so that it

sort of interferes with the text – I find

that kind of design quite interesting and

aesthetically pleasing.

FanzineThe idea was to create a fanzine article entirely devoted to Bo Burnham, I had to

aim at a certain target audience and cater to their needs and ideals.

Seems as Bo is a very well educated, satire comedian – the initial age should

have been aimed at an older audience, however, it still didn’t match the

requirements that, that age group would sort of go for, therefore to make it appeal

to a younger audience, I used simple explanations and simple sentences – this is

to apply to them and I feel I have definitely managed to do that, however, there

are a few larger words in there but thanks to the internet, it’s only a Google

search away to understand what the word means.

Because it’s a fanzine rather than an actual, professionally produced magazine, it

doesn’t really matter how professional the overall look is, however: I’ve tried to

keep it simple and interesting at the same time, using a lot of imagery that takes

up almost the same amount of space as the writing does – I’ve also created it so

it’s very simple and easy to follow, but if you’re a fan of Bo, it’s most likely that

you’ll be a well educated individual as some of his comedy is quite complex and

has many hidden meanings.

What I’ve made sure of is that the text is quite a biased, opinionated text, I’ve

definitely made sure of this as the first line is, ‘In my personal opinion…’ and I

also use lines such as: ‘I can always turn to him when I’m sad or in need of a

good chuckle’ and ‘This definitely pulls at my heart strings a little bit…’ the way

that I’ve written the piece is very chatty and basic, it also includes the reader, for

example: ‘I don’t know about you, but after the finale of Mr. Burnham’s, What. I

was left speechless…’ and ‘it’s a question – a statement – however you want to

view it, and that is: we think we know Bo.’ which is also a slanted version of a

quote from his actual finale piece.

I made sure to look at the examples on the link I posted in the previous slide for

reference, it helped me to come up with idea of addressing the audience and

including them within the text, for example: ‘so everybody’s favorite Ringsend 3-

piece re-recorded it…’ (from BLADES Hold Off fanzine article ) – it helps keep

them interested and when the first words are, ‘in my personal opinion’ people

usually keep reading – whether that’s because they want the banter or they are

actually interested in the writers views.

http://brandnewretro.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/p9-1100.jpg

Personally, I feel that I’ve managed to achieve what I set out to do – I’ve

addressed a variety of audiences (I think), I’ve made sure the overall look is

appealing and I’ve made sure it would fit in a comedy fanzine – I’ve also one

hundred percent made sure that it’s a bias, opinionated piece with no

discrimination and no false allegations.

(I’ve answered the audience question and the intention question together)

These are the stock photographs I used for

my fanzine articles, the top 3 are the ones

used in the first created design and the 3 on

the side are the ones used for the second

design.

I decided to pick them all because they’re

aesthetically pleasing and some of them show

off just how goofy and interesting Bo Burnham

is – in a way, I feel like the photographs would

actually bring in more readers.

The only problem I really ran in to with these

was finding larger images that were easy to

resize without and pixilation or decrease in the

overall quality of the photograph – these were

just some of the few that actually had the right

format and size to edit without side effects,

otherwise it was quite difficult to find them.

I sort of went for similar styles when it came to the overall look of my

articles, I made sure they were different in some ways but ended up

overall quite similar in terms of appearance.

I kept using the half page idea for the start of the article, this went

quite well in terms of variation – the first design has half of it’s title

space dedicated to one of the stock photographs whereas the

second design has no photograph at all. I did keep the 3 column

design consistent throughout as I think it looks quite professional

and aesthetically pleasing. In terms of skills used, it was also very

similar – I created the same guidelines on In Design to follow, this

meant that all text boxes created were all the same throughout both

designs, only varying when it came to the title text.

The real difference is when looking at the second page of the

designs. The first design’s second page is very different in

comparison to the design of the second design’s second page. The

text boxes, photograph placement and use of quotes is completely

different. Where in the first one, it seems like the text is the main

focus, accompanied by the photographs – in the second one it seem

the focus is centered more predominantly on photographs as there

is more of them. I did this to take up a large chunk of space so there

wasn’t as much white space as the first design.

Skills didn’t really vary during the production processes of these

either, the only thing that changed was the amount of guidelines

used in order to create the final piece, although similar I needed 4

rows on the second design as opposed to 3 on the first, I also

needed to use the box tool to create more photograph spaces in the

second design compared to the first.

This, again, reminds me of the Recipe Cards project where I used

similar skills to create page layout designs – including the adding

photographs part.

FanzineWith the writing, I feel

there isn’t that much that I

could improve.

I could have connected to the audience a bit more, by

starting with sentences such as: ‘I don’t know about

you…’ or ‘I don’t know what you think…’ – this would

have applied to my demographic as it would get them

more interested, it might also make them think

differently about a certain aspect such as: ‘Bo’s

comedy is unique in comparison to a lot of stand up

comedians…’

I think I’d like to add more quotes in there, especially

song lyrics that I feel the audience would find

intriguing, I’d like to talk about the hidden meanings

behind some of them. I think I’d also like to talk about

how it takes a few listens to really understand what

Bo is trying to say through the use of music – much

like I examined in the tabloid copy.

When it comes to the production pieces, I feel there are

a few things that could be improved, such as: I feel like I

should have used less images in second produced

piece (top and bottom left) or at least put them in

different areas rather than one below the other, I also

think I should have gotten rid of the border on the quote

it makes it seem quite amateur and childish, although

the format for fanzines is usually rather laid back, I still

feel that it makes it seem less professional.

The first produced piece (Top and bottom right) had

similar problems, I don’t actually like how an image

takes up such a large amount of the second page, I

could have added in more text or included quotes or an

advertisement.

InterviewI created two different versions

of the interview, one of them

was a long response with

explanations as well as

questions and answers and the

other was a question answer

format, very simple, very easy

to follow.

It only took me one draft for

each, there was a point where I

improved them but I didn’t

document it – it was small

changes like cutting out

invaluable information or adding

in more quotes.

I actually started out with the short question and

answer format, I included a short description before

every answer – I cut that out later on to turn it in to

the long response.

I also created 2 final production pieces for this task.

The first one I created was quite basic and straight

forward, it didn’t look professional – it looked quite

amateur and plain.

The first one was quite easy to follow as it had a very

straight forward format, it’s literally question and

answer, i.e. ‘Favorite Quote? (from

song/jokes/interview) why?’ and an answer was:

‘When asked how the weather is up there (he’s very

tall (6’5) he would say it’s raining and pretend to spit

at them’ – James Callum Liversidge.’

The second one looked like it belonged in a

magazine, I feel it’s quite a professional looking end

piece, the design is still simple but it looks a lot

clearer and easy to read rather than bunched up like

my first one was.

I feel that, within the first paragraph of the long

response, I wrote in more of a fanzine style with

sentences such as: ‘Bo Burnham is one of the very

few whose made it big and genuinely deserves it…’ it

then dives in to how Bo achieved his fame. What I’ve

done here, is basically take the questions I asked on

the short response copy and further explain

who/what/how/why/where. For example, the first

question is, ‘How/when did you discover Bo?’ and I

explained -

- it in a very long,

informative way, for

instance, the second

paragraph which talks about

how Bo became famous,

where his fans came/come

from and which sites he

used to achieve this, i.e.

YouTube.

I think I managed my time very well for this particular

task, I definitely managed to finish my short response in

time, even after receiving feedback and improving it – I

finished this task within a singular lesson.

The long response took a day to complete, that’s with

receiving feedback and improving it too, I definitely took

less time creating these in comparison to the fanzine.

Overall it took me about a day and a half to complete

the writing tasks, with the production, it was a little

different.

I created two different magazine layouts for this part of

the task, one was admittedly a lot more impressive in

comparison to the other, the first one I created (top

right) was very simplistic and straight forward, a few

columns, a drab title and an eye catching image – it

took me less than a full lesson to fully create and

complete.The second layout (bottom

Right) I created looked a

lot more professional and

had a more complex

overall look. The large

title, sub title, array of

columns and large end

photograph made it look

like it was actually

supposed to be included

within a magazine.

Overall I managed to

finish all of my work within

the time limit with, what I

think, is to a high

standard.

Interview

Just like with the previous task (Fanzine) once I

had completed the task, I sent it over to my tutor to

be assessed, he sent it back with ways I could

improve.

I feel like because of this, I’ve managed to assess

my work very well, it definitely helps that there is a

second party evaluating my work – seems as I’d

personally feel there was nothing wrong with it

before the actual problems were brought to light.

I now feel that my work is of a high standard and I’ll

get a good grade at the end.

I also feel quite proud of myself,

especially when work came back without

a lot of errors or improvements, in a way

this way of evaluating made me work

harder to complete the task with as much

efficiency as possible.

Without sending the work back, I

wouldn’t have been given the idea to do

a long response answer too – this would

have meant that I spent almost a full day

and a half doing a whole lot of nothing.

The way that this is done is quite similar

to how our entire units are marked –

send the work over, get results and areas

to improve and then improve them, it’s a

good way of achieving better grades and

making sure that the work is right the first

time it’s sent as a final piece.

(An example response I received from my tutor)

Interview The photographs I used within the

production process were definitely

high quality – I made sure that I

found large images that would have

been easy to stretch and shape in

Photoshop without any pixel damage

or disfiguration. I used the same

technique as fanzine to change the

size of the photographs and insert

them in to the In Design document.

The way I changed the size was by

using the box sizes from In Design to

create a new document on

Photoshop, I then stretched and re

sized the photographs of Bo to fit

them so that when I added them to

the In Design document they were

pristine and clear.

A lot of the technical tools I used for this task were

basically on par with the tools I used for the

creation of the Fanzine document. Most of the

tools used seemed to be included in the In Design

document, things like the text tool, box tool, use of

different fonts and using guidelines to create the

right end product, derived from my flat plan earlier

on in the task.

I feel like my end results have come out quite professional, the first design

(bottom right) admittedly, was quite basic in comparison to my second

attempt which I could seriously see being used in a magazine.

InterviewI feel like my flat plans ended up being my most

creative thing in the task, besides the actual

production. I feel they are the most creative

because I thought outside the box and used shapes

on PowerPoint to create a brief page overview – the

flat plans really helped me make my end products in

production faster. This is the first time I’ve used this

as a design idea and I think it works very well, along

the side of the flat plan was all of the tools I used to

create my production product; shown through the

use of screenshots.

I also found that my

writing ability was tested

in this task – I definitely

feel like I have really

proved my creativity in

writing through this.

I like the challenge that I

had, to make a writing

piece that had an initial

intention i.e. for a tabloid,

for a fanzine etc.

I definitely feel I was

creative with the

placement and font

style choices – I feel

that my work actually

looks professional, it’s

something I’d actually

see in a magazine.

I feel that the variation

in font types really

contrast and look good

rather than consistently

using one font

altogether.

InterviewI feel that, yes, I have fully

realized my intentions.

Before creating my final design, I

researched in to previous existing

products – this gave me the initial

idea to create the large header

text and include the photographs

further down the page or (like the

first page) not at all.

Here are some of the examples

that I looked at before creating

my final piece. They are generally

straight forward when it comes to

the designs – it’s either columns

or chunks of text and a

photograph added in underneath

or above it.

The research reminded me of

various units I’ve covered in the

past, recipe cards was a big one

– I spent a lot of time researching

in to designs before I created my

final one, the same goes with

Graphic Narrative or design for

advertising, before creating the

final design I made sure that I

looked at existing products and

made my decisions based off of

what I found.

Although aimed at quite a

young audience, the choices

I’ve made for this task and

the final design I ended up

with looks like it belongs in a

magazine aimed at middle

aged women or would be

found in something like:

Chat.

I feel it looks like this

because it’s quite basic and

straight forward, there isn’t

any crazy colours or a

mixture of photographs, it’s

predominantly writing with a

black and white format.

I did try very hard to keep

the format energetic and

aesthetically pleasing which I

feel I have done, the second

page seems more aimed at

the right audience in

comparison to the first one –

maybe if I added a

photograph or added in

some colour it wouldn’t seem

so formal. I still feel like this

style is used in teen

magazines therefore I don’t

think it’s too bad.

InterviewI feel like I didn’t include a lot of content

in this particular task. The stock

photographs used, I found on the

internet, ensuring that they were large

in size to make the resizing process go

smoother (as already mentioned.) I

decided to use these photographs in

particular because one of them is from

a few years back when Bo was just

starting stand up (bottom left) and the

other is from his very new, recent show,

What. I like the contrast in time scales

so I used different photographs on

different documents. It was quite

difficult to find photographs that were

large and easy to resize without

disfiguration, even some of the other

larger ones ended up pixilated or blurry

in some areas. It took a few tries.

In comparison to the fanzine, the final designs for this task ended

up quite simplistic and straight forward, with the fanzine there

was a lot going on in different areas – this included chunks of text

mingled with photographs and so on. This one has to be a little

less crowded as it’s for a professionally manufactured magazine

whereas fanzines are quite laid back with style.

When writing headlines or sub headings, I made sure to use

Dream Orphans and when it came to the main text, I used

Century Gothic. This was to create a contrast in fonts so

readers would be more intrigued – there is only a slight difference

when looking at it.

InterviewI feel like for the writing part, I could have done a

few things to improve. I could have worded the

beginning sentence better, or used the correct

grammar, i.e. ‘thanks to good ol’ modern

technology; some people deserve the fame and

others…well they don’t.’ rather than what it is now. I

could have also made it seem less like a fanzine in

the beginning paragraph, when I said, ‘Bo Burnham

is one of the very few whose made it big and

genuinely deserves it…’ it seems like I’m sort of

rooting for him and showing the readers that I am in

fact, a fan.

I feel like there isn’t much else I could do to improve the writing part, I think I’ve covered

most of the right content I needed to include, this is things like quotes from fans like: ‘the

perfect woman’ where they found it, ‘more harmful than it is funny…’, personal opinion, ‘the

way that Bo achieved his fame is quite impressive and inspiring…’ and facts, ‘little did 16

year old Burnham know it’d go viral and receive millions of hits and views and in the future,

he’d end up scoring a contract with comedy central and later on, having his own MTV

television show…’ I think the main things that could be improved if I went back and looked at

it, was some wording in certain parts of the text.

When it comes to the production part, I feel I did quite well, however there are definitely

some problems that could be improved. In the first draft – top right – the overall style is very

basic and simple – not that it needs to be complex but it definitely looks very amateur, I

could have included another photograph at the end for example.

With the second draft – top and bottom left – I feel like there’s a few mistakes I made – I left

quite a large chunk of white space on the first page where I could have included a quote or

some more information, I’ve also done the same on the second page at the end, although

this is less of an issue. I could probably do with more photographs or more quotes to get the

reader intrigued, maybe even include an advertisement to help fill in the space.

ObituaryOriginally, I made the end of the obituary a little bit too much

like a fanzine, therefore I had to correct that error and try to

be factual rather than mixing my own opinion in to the

writing.

I also didn’t include any quotes, therefore, after sending it to

my tutor for assessment and receiving it with things to

improve, I added them in.

I made the writing as factual and informative as possible, it

includes all of the facts and sources that fans and non-fans

alike can read it and understand what an impact and an

asset to stand up comedy Bo really was/is.

Overall I feel like the end product came out quite well, it has

all of the facts and sources that fans would need during the

grieving process. I looked at Elisabeth Sladen’s obituary to

help aid me in the writing process – if you were to compare

the pieces, they are quite similar in the way that they are

written – especially with the beginning paragraph, if you

compare the two, they have the same structure just about

two different people.

I also started off the second paragraph with pure facts,

making sure that I was being very informative and using well

structured, well written points to further accentuate me

points, giving facts and quotes from songs twisted in to

intricate sentences that would only really fully make sense to

a big fan of Bo, quotes like: ‘A ‘born Bostonian’ (Bo fo sho’

EP) he chose to attend St. John’s Preparatory School where

he was on honor roll and involved in the theatre and campus

ministry program…’

It’s also very similar to how the Elisabeth Sladen obituary

goes more in to detail about her personal life and

achievements throughout.

ObituaryI feel like my time management went very well with this

task, I managed to finish the writing within the time limit

with some to spare and that was even after it had been

assessed by my tutor and sent back to me with

feedback and improvements. I spent quite a bit of time,

however, researching in to Bo’s life and tracing back the

sources – I also spent quite a bit of time looking for

quotes and picking out the ones that made it seem like it

was directed towards his death, the quotes were from

fans and the came from the answers I had received for

my long/short response from task 5.

Just as I did with Fanzine and the interview, I sent my

obituary to my tutor to be assessed and sent back to me

with improvements and I quickly acted upon it and used

the guidelines to help aid me in actually improving the

written piece. Without the information on how to make it

better, I wouldn’t have thought my ending was too

informal or fan written – therefore using this technique

definitely improves my confidence and work ethnic.

There wasn’t a lot of opportunities to use different tools

or processes in this task – it was pretty straight forward,

using all the normal tools anyone would use on Word to

create a document and write a large array of text. The

only time I actually used technical tools was to change

the text size or the font.

ObituaryI feel like the only part in this where I felt particularly creative

was when researching in to previously written obituaries in

tabloid newspapers – also researching in to his lifestyle and

putting it in to my own words, I was definitely creative with

that part. The obituary I was looking in to was the

Telegraph’s version for Elisabeth Sladen, when comparing

mine to theirs, there are some similarities in the way I

decided to structure it (How I started it, how I introduced him

and so on.)

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-

radio/2011/apr/20/doctor-who-fantasy

I feel I have fully realized my intentions. I have definitely

achieved what I set out to do, which was to create an

obituary about my chosen celebrity (Robert Pickering

Burnham) – I have definitely done this and I’ve included

everything I needed to, i.e. back story, road to fame,

personal life, quotes from audience, quotes from him and so

on. I did sort of copy the style from the professional obituary

I mentioned previously, but I did it with good intention and I

made it my own – therefore I have definitely achieved what I

was trying to.

I’ve made sure to include as much information as possible that

would both please and cater to the needs of Bo’s fans, I’ve

definitely ensured that all the language is quite simplistic and the

copy is easy to follow as it’s mostly aimed at adolescents and

upwards – I’ve also included the cause of death, but ensured that

it’s a very brief summary of what happened rather than go in to

detail, I’ve also included quotes from fans at the bottom – this

would attract the younger audiences as the whole obituary would

anyway, it’s a way of saying goodbye, finding out what happened

and reviewing his life in a full and interesting way.

ObituaryThe only content included in this is the research I found prior

to actually writing the copy for this task. There are no

photographs, only because it was an after thought – I should

have actually included one as the obituary for Elisabeth

Sladen also included a young photograph of her, I’d ensure

to find a decent, nice one rather than the humorous ones he

seems to take – maybe a still from one of his shows or

something like that.

I ran in to some problems when it came to the research part

– some of the quotes didn’t have a source to them so I either

couldn’t include it, even if it would have made my work better

or I had to dig deeper to find it which was rather time

consuming.

I think the way that I could improve this piece would be to

further explain the whole, ‘challenges to the form’ part – it

may make sense to some people, especially fans, but if

someone was quite a mediocre fan, they might find it hard to

understand quite what I mean by that.

I’d of liked to include more quotes from songs and mix it in to

sentences, a bit of word play that would get the fans

remembering – however, again, not as big fans could find it

difficult to fully understand the point I’m trying to get across.

I feel like I should have tried to find some quotes from

famous people, during an interview or a web article and

included those, not that it matters too much but it would

have improved the quality and readers would be able to

recognize a famous name and possibly look in to Bo’s work

too. Something else I could have done is included it within a

production piece – like a tabloid page or even within an

article.

Promotional

Task 6.1

I actually ended up with two drafts for this task – the first

one (this one) had a lesser word count and didn’t include

any quotes whereas the second draft (next slide) had just

a few more words and ended up being the final product.

I feel like I’ve done quite a good job with this particular

writing piece, it has all of the information that a potential

consumer would be interested in.

I’ve used a mixture of large words in simple sentences so

it shows that the product is quite sophisticated, however it

still aims at a young audience – or I find that it aims at a

wide variety of audience.

I’ve included comparisons to famous poets such as, Shel

Silverstein whom Bo Burnham even gives a special

thanks to in the acknowledgements section of the book,

Bo’s poetry is also compared to Silverstein’s in an array of

interviews and reviews from places like, Good Reads.

I do feel like I referred to my fanzine style a little bit when I

read over the fourth paragraph, ‘There’s also the fact that

it’s actually a book – it’s not a video or an audio clip – it’s

fine, genuine literature…’

I also explained where Bo most likely got his inspiration

from for the title of the poetry book – I feel like this

information would particularly interest fans as it’s

something that personally relates to Bo. There’s also

information on how he came up with the poetry and where

he got his ideas from, even a quote from an interview

where I got most of my information from.

Promotional

Task 6.2

I feel like I managed my time very well within this task –

like the others, I managed to create a final draft, send it to

my tutor, get it back with ways to improve and make a

second draft which ended up being the final product.

It took me about a day to complete this task – this was

due to writing, deleting some and attempting to write it

again in a different style or using different techniques

such as: adding in the part about Shel Silverstein which

gives other readers, older readers a chance to sort of

understand and create that comparison. I feel like I

managed my time very well throughout the entire unit,

everything was completed and in on time, the writing

tasks especially, took a lot less time than I had expected

them to.

It reminds me of a lot of previous projects e.g. graphic

narrative, recipe cards and so on – I always manage to

get the tasks completed either on time or before the initial

timeframe.

Just like with the previous tasks, obituary, interview and

the fanzine I used the same method for ongoing

evaluations – sending it to my tutor, getting it marked,

receiving it and improving my work to a better standard –

which vastly improved my work, ensured I got it to the

best quality I could and made the whole process a lot

quicker and easier.

Promotional

Task 6.1

Like the obituary, I only really required using skills I

already knew when it came to the writing – I only needed

the knowledge and tools in Word to create a document

and change the writing size or font.

With the creative abilities, I feel this task managed to test

me – the first draft I created was more suited for a fanzine

and I didn’t really know how to approach writing a

promotional piece, after researching in to different

promotional products and reading through the brief, many

times, I finally created a piece that efficiently sells Bo

Burnham’s poetry book to the public. I’m quite proud of

myself that I managed to turn it around from a fanzine

entry in to a promotional piece with a few changes, such

as: adding in quotes from fans, review websites and

online magazines.

I feel I have fully realized my intentions for this task, I’ve

created a promotional piece of writing with every aspect

that aims at the right audience (plus some) and gets the

point of the book across without revealing too much!

There’s even quoted from Bo Burnham himself about it –

what’s expected, what it’s like and I’ve also fully explained

what the term ‘Egghead’ means and hypothesized about

why he chose to use that as the title of the book.

Promotional

Task 6.2

I feel that I’ve aimed for a variety of audiences with this

piece of writing – it’s very informative and factual which is

what the fans of Bo would be interested in, his fans can

vary in age from 16 and under to 20 and over, they are

more predominantly female too.

I’ve decided to make it as factual as possible, adding in

information about the title, the overall view of what the

book is expected to be like, quotes from Bo himself plus

fan quotes from reviews, how he came up with his poems,

where he came up with them and why he decided to do it.

I feel this would definitely apply to the whole audience, no

matter in what way they vary (gender, age etc.) I also

made sure that the wording I chose was both complex,

simple and had an explanation after it so that both the

younger and older audiences would understand, for

example: ‘Egghead is an anti-intellectual metaphor

(mistrust towards intellectual individuals)’ or, ‘Egghead it’s

considered the same as ‘boffin’ which is also the

equivalent of calling someone a ‘nerd’. This is quite a

clever play on words on Bo Burnham's behalf…’

The only content I needed for this task was the facts that I included

within the writing – I found most of this from Wikipedia and news

stories or online magazines which is also where I acquired most of the

quotes from as well – there is no photograph but I suppose I could

have included one of the actual book – maybe even a sneak peak at

some of it’s content, for example: on the Amazon website, there’s a

‘look in’ option where you can look at the first few pages of a book and

Egghead is one of those that you can do that with – might be worth

including it in this task in particular, even if it’s a spoiler.

Promotional

Task 6.1

The second paragraph is very informative, which is great,

but I sort of blab on a bit and give a lot of examples – I’d

change that by getting rid of some things, for example

change, ‘break ups, religion, suicide and death…’ to

‘break ups, religion and death…’ which seems like a really

simple thing to fix but it might vastly improve the overall

copy.

Then third paragraph almost seems meaningless until you

reach the end where it states, ‘it’s why this book is so

unique.’ which I think is quite an important explanation of

the book, otherwise I’d trim down that paragraph – it’s

informative and has points and quotes to back it up but

again, it seems as if I’m sort of blabbing on a little bit.

Maybe I should have included some sort of quote or

example from Shel Silverstein to compare to one of Bo’s

poems – especially one that might seem to contrast.

I should have included where I got the term ‘anti-

intellectual’ from, although if I remember rightly it didn’t

actually have a source to trace back.

I’d of liked to include some more quotes from major

magazines or online reviews from Amazon – this would

give me some good quotes to work with – maybe I could

go a step further and explain them or include my own,

personal review.

TabloidI feel particularly proud of my tabloid designs – not only

do I feel very good about the copy I managed to come

up with but I also enjoy the designs I’ve made on In

Design.

There was improvements to be made on the copy part

of the task, however, I didn’t manage to document this, I

know I needed to cut the writing down a little bit and

make it more serious – towards the end I almost made

it too chatty and created it as if it was for a fanzine

instead of an article, this changed however, for my final

draft.

I made two different types of designs – one of a front

page (top left) which I found went very well, I feel it

looks quite professional although admittedly, it could

probably do with a more complex layout or include

more advertisements or something like that within the

design, I could even overlap some boxes to make it

look a little more aesthetically pleasing as it’s a tiny bit

plain. I think that the overall design works very well and

if not for a few errors, looks quite professional.

I also made another design as if it was a page within

the tabloid, I did really enjoy this one, I think the layout

is simple but nice, it’s also quite aesthetically pleasing

and looks quite professional, in my own opinion. It could

probably do with a different advertisement or no

advertisement at all and let the photograph at the

bottom take up the whole bottom section.

In a way they almost look like magazine articles but

there is a distinct difference – the layout for magazines

don’t usually fit all of a story on one page and if they do,

there would be a lot more colour and a different

variation in text sizes and fonts.

TabloidI feel like the time management went quite well for this

task considering there was quite a lot of things to do.

The writing task took a day or two to complete – this

was mostly because I missed a day and when I sent the

finished piece to my tutor to be reviewed, I received the

improvements later than expected, the final piece was

therefore not actually completed in my desired

timescale.

The front page of the tabloid took a full day to complete

– there was a lot of stock photographs to find, designs

to place in certain areas and coming up with a quick

overview of the story that was told for the main story. It

was also quite time consuming to place writing in

certain areas, I had a bit of trouble keeping it clear of

any vital part of the photograph, i.e. Bo’s face.

The most time consuming thing about the tabloid page

(bottom left) was adding in the text directly from the

document (right screenshot) to the columns I’d created.

It was time consuming because I had to fit it all in, in a

certain way otherwise it wouldn’t have worked – I also

had to improvise with my design a few times and

change a few key aspects such as: adding in a

photograph between the advertisement and end of

copy.

TabloidA lot of the tools I used for this task are exactly the

same as the ones I used for the rest of the tasks –

this was my last task therefore it was last on my

agenda –which meant that I’d already learnt most of

what I needed to know without any problems.

I feel like, from a technical standpoint, I’ve done very

well, especially during the production process. I feel

I’ve managed to make very good layouts and

effectively created a high standard front page and

inside page.

The photographs that I used for these designs are of

a very high quality, I ensured this – I also ensured

that they were large and able to stretch to the right

size, I found this particularly difficult with the front

page stock image, this is because it’s quite a large,

odd shaped box and the photograph was quite

difficult to morph in to the size that I got it to without

any disfiguration or pixel damage, the same goes for

most of the other stock photographs – the

advertisements were also quite hard to resize as the

boxes were usually an unusual shape and I was

unable to cut any of the advertisement out.

The second page almost had the same troubles as

the front cover – though there was less. I found it

quite difficult to put the text over the picture of Biebs

and Gomez but otherwise it wasn’t that difficult to

find stock photographs or advertisements for this

part. The only other thing that was a bit of a

challenge was the title text – it’s quite hard (even

with a text box) to get the writing in to the exact

placement that you want it in. After a few attempts,

however, I finally managed to get it to a good place.

TabloidI feel like I’ve really managed to express my

creativity throughout this task (through the whole

project too) which reminds me a lot of the graphic

narrative project, which also pushed me to be more

creative and come up with interesting ideas and

designs I wouldn’t have even thought of before.

I do feel my abilities have improved though, I think

that these are some of the highest quality products

I’ve ever come up with – I’m very proud of them.

I like to think I managed to push myself and be quite

creative – especially within the writing, I feel I

managed to create unique and interesting pieces

even though it was following instructions, I usually

write fictional stuff so writing non fictional, factual

pieces has really helped me to feel like I’ve improved

in the writing aspect.

I do think I’ve managed to create good, creative

products – such as the front page (top left) with it’s

array of photographs, advertisements and writing. I

did look at professionally produced articles and front

pages in newspapers such as: The Guardian and

The Telegraph which is actually the main inspiration

behind the designs for these end products, same

goes for the article I created.

TabloidI feel like my intentions have been fully recognized in this

task. I’ve created a front page including all of the vital

information such as: the main story (Bo kicking pop music

whilst it’s down), advertisements that entice the viewers,

traditional font for the title, the price and other stories related

to the main one which, in this case is comedy. Not only do I

think I’ve realized my intentions, but I think I’ve done them to

a good standard, I especially enjoy the overall look – again, I

used previously existing products to base my design off of

and I think doing this extra research really helped me create

a good end product.

With the article, I’ve included all of the story in columns as

it’s the common style, I’ve included photographs to help

further aid the story plus entice readers, I’ve also included

the title text in quite large, bold lettering which would also

draw attention straight to it. I also researched in to

previously existing articles and based my design off of some

of theirs, this also fulfills my intentions.

As my audience varies in age, I made sure that I came up

with quite a snappy title that would at least catch the

attention of both – if the photograph of Bo alone wasn’t

enough to pull them in. I’ve also made sure that the design

and format is easy to follow and understand – I included a

lot of photographs which would appeal to younger

audiences, I also included all of the text from my copy which

was aimed at both of theses audiences anyways. Another

way I’ve appealed to them is by including advertisements

and other stories that would interest them, for example:

other comedians like, Tim Minchin for example in the beige

advertisement on the left hand side of the front page.

TabloidI used my tabloid copy as the text for this task, I did this

because that’s what it was intended for and I wanted to see

what my copy would look like in a ‘professional’ sort of

setting.

There was quite a few photographs I ended up using for

this task, the advertisements are what takes up most of

these. I made sure that they were all high quality and large

so that during the resizing process, they didn’t become

disfigured or suffer any damage (go blurry etc.) the same

goes for the photographs I acquired of Bo and the other

one of Selena and Justin leaving Bo’s show.

I really enjoy the overall style of my designs, I feel that this

time I’ve really strived to make interesting, true to the form

designs – by this, I mean I made them similar to layouts

that already existed but I made it my own. I like the images

I’ve used as they include the main person and the others – I

enjoyed looking for advertisements that linked to music and

comedy.

I think there are some improvements to be made within

production, the tabloid cover could do with some little more

attention – I feel like I should have tried harder and used

different techniques to make the picture – of Bo – and the

text overlapping it look a little more professionally done –

for example, I really wanted to use techniques I’ve seen on

other tabloids where the photograph seems to pop out of

it’s box and appear in another one – it would have been

quite hard to do with the photograph I picked but I could

have changed it to one of Bo performing – I could also

include a quote rather than a short description of the story,

along with a snappy headline.

I feel like my skills have developed throughout the

project – I feel I have become stronger in my ability to

come up with creative ideas such as: the PowerPoint

flat plan ideas, it made it a lot easier for me to follow

those guidelines and it made the whole process

quicker – I’ll definitely be using that again in future

projects, if needed.

I also feel I have become stronger in my writing ability,

going outside of my comfort zone for the writing of this

project really helped me to express myself in a

different way – I really enjoyed writing this fanzine, it

was quite enjoyable to write about my favorite

celebrity in a factual sense – it helped me learn more

about his work and it changed my opinion on him a

little bit.

I also feel like it’s improved my research skills, I feel

like they have seriously improved throughout this

project – I’ve managed to find loads of interesting

facts about Bo, even things I haven’t heard of before –

it makes me feel a lot more confident about

researching for future projects.

I also feel like I’ve improved my technical skills – using

Photoshop and In Design more than I usually would

had broadened my horizons on the thing’s I’m able to

do/create in them – I also look forward to testing these

skills in future projects.

Although previous projects such as: Recipe Cards,

Graphic Narrative and Critical Responses have given

me the same opportunities to improve these skills, I

don’t feel like they’ve aided me in the same way that

this project has.

How my Skills have Developed