Images

Two of my images won't work for some reason, but are fine on my own laptop and on all the macs in school. These images are the 'Day for heroes' Logo and a Picture of the cast from 'Glory hill' found on my what's on page.

Copyright

My logo- I created myself using PhotoShop, using the text font Comic Sans Ms.

All images shown on every page are all my own that I've taken, or i've had permission from other people.

Video- I filmed myself.

Final Double page spread & Newspaper Ad

My final double page spread.

My final Newspaper Ad

Evaluation

Introduction

For my A2 Advanced Portfolio, I was set the task of creating a brand new website for a teen channel.  My website is called ‘Pulse’.  I have mainly focused on the latest updates because I know that this is very important for teenager’s life. The latest updates that I have including in my website are based on many different things such as Music- latest new band and top 40. Prom- hot new couples. News- interviews, what’s on- the latest new shows. I wanted my website to be very broad therefore I decided not to stick to one main aspect of a teen life. I decided to choose ‘Pulse’ as my website name as I thought it was quite original. My logo is very colourful making it very eye watching for the audience, this was one of my aims.  I have a very dark colour scheme throughout my website, sticking with a black background and a white canvas with my content on. These colours aren’t pacifically representing any gender, for instance pink for girls and blue for boys. I was also set two ancillary tasks, which were to create a newspaper advertisement and a double page spread for a magazine. These were purposely created to promote the website.

In what ways does your media production use, develop and challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

My website consists of various forms and conventions. The layout of my website is constant, using the same background colour with a white runner in the middle where all my content is. I tried to keep common page elements, a basic convention of websites.  This includes a navigation bar, which is located in the same place on every single Pulse page. A navigation bar helps the audience easily access the pages they wish to view.  My unique logo is then above the navigation throughout the website. I created the logo by getting a copyright free font from dafont.com which I then edited into single letters in PhotoShop, changing the style completely to grab the audience’s attention. I did this by using different gradient’s under each letter, so for instance P has a gradient of light blue underneath, U has a gradient of yellow underneath and so on. I then used the line tool to create a pulse wave either side of the logo, to produce a modern but edgier feature. I challenged my design convention right the way through my website when it suggests to keep the background colour the same on all of the pages. On the other hand I felt that this would make my website look boring and effortless subsequently I decided that I would have different tab link colours for each page, they then coordinate with my ’Pulse’ logo gradient colours using light blue, yellow, red, purple and dark blue in the same order. From researching Jakob Neilson I learnt that texts or logos need to stand out if they are intended to catch someone’s eye. Before I started to create my website I researched other websites; BBC Three, MTV and Bliss.  These websites all target a teenage audience. From the research I found out that the majority of these websites consist of many different images, colourful text, different style fonts and videos. I also found that there wasn’t a great deal of text surrounding the images. Therefore an additional convention takes place within my website, the use or images and videos. I used my own original images on my website and ancillary tasks. I felt that a consistent logo was needed in my website, double page magazine spread and newspaper advertisement because my target teenager audience would automatically be familiar with ’Pulse’.  I have embedded two different video’s into my website, one of which is the new band ‘A day for heroes’ , I filmed this myself during of their live gigs, this can be found on the ‘News’ page. The other video is a short opening to a thriller film which I created last year, which can be found on the ‘What’s on page’ I have shown this video in my website to show my teen audience a quick insight to a new film being released.  These videos will work very well as they are both realistic features. Many websites use short video clips of upcoming new bands and shows, for fans to preview, and example of this being MTV; www.MTV.co.uk. A further convention is my gallery page which also you to enter my prom competition by entering a picture of yourself with your prom partner. I think this page is very unique and different.

My double page spread, to some extent challenges conventions. I preferred to be do something different which wasn’t to plain but had enough content for my target audience. I used basically the same colour scheme as I did for my website, black and white then the odd bright colour text.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

My main product being my website pulse combined successfully with the ancillary tasks; The double page magazine spread and the Newspaper advert. When I first approached my ancillary tasks, I decided that gaining research on newspaper adverts, promotional posters that this would help me make a decision on both of my designs. I was determined to have some continuity between my website and ancillary tasks, this meant I could apply conventions to both my ‘pulse’ website, double page spread and newspaper ad. To try and add in some sort of continuity to my main product I thought very carefully about the colours, especially on how I would use them consistently between my website and ancillary pieces. I decided because of the dark imagery that I would keep the background black and incorporate bright colour font styles and gradient features into the foreground of the pieces. I used my logo on both my website and ancillary tasks therefore when my target audience notices my pulse logo they will automatically know that it they are promoting the website, as the logo is very memorable. On my website I made sure that I included primary information on the to the new band ’A day for heroes’ (the name of the band, Facebook fan page, video and interview). The incorporation of a face book page link means that when ‘Pulse’ is shown on the internet, they can visit the fan page address and find out more information about the band.  Keeping my ancillary tasks connected to Pulse website. My prom image and band images make a subtle reference to the gallery page and news page. The bands images on my double page spread make the fan base aware of who the band are. This helps establish the band more and makes the audience associate their faces with the music and band name. I have also tried using the same font throughout the tasks which gives a strong consistency as it gives off a frequent style throughout my pieces although it’s only a subtle feature. All three pieces I believe have effectively combined to make them all work together, using the correct codes and conventions.

What have you learnt from audience feedback?

By creating an audience feedback questionnaire it enabled me to see the strengths and weaknesses of m website and ancillary tasks.  I asked an equal number of boys and girls to identify these.  The majority of my feedback was composed through my media studies class and my friendship group. My questionnaire contained 6 different questions. They were; Was the website easy to use? Did all the image link/functions work? Did it appeal to you as a teenager, if yes, how? Did you like the content of the pages? Was the logo and colour scheme appropriate? What areas of the website could be improved?

After looking at the results of my questionnaire, I found out quite a significant amount of interesting facts that teenagers wanted from my website and the various improvements that I could make.  The results told me how easy they found it to navigate through my pages on my website. A couple of people commented on the colour which was a weakness; they felt that the use of background colour was slightly boring, but the white panel running through the centre with brightly coloured text was very effective. All the people surveyed liked the logo, as it gave the website a very memorable impression with the brightly used colours. Some said it was very appropriate for teenagers because of the shaping. Many people commented on the font background colour saying that the neon effect was a great touch. Several people surveyed commented on the fact that there was no forum or comment boxes on the website they felt that this would add more interactivity to Pulse. From this, I feel that a forum/comment box could have been added as an option to my contact page. Others thought my content was good, not too overpowering and compacted with loads of different images, just enough text to entertain the teenager with. One person commented saying how they would have like to have seen a larger range of music. The boys and girls liked the fact that I haven’t just used one gender it’s a representation for both.

With my double page spread they said that I haven’t included a lot of text which is a weakness and strength depending on how much I wanted to promote my website Pulse.  Many of the girls were impressed by the gallery page, letting them view each prom couple from 2010 and 2011, getting tips on what ball gown to wear and even entering themselves. The boys were particularly interested in the latest news about the hottest new band, this page shows them an exclusive video, interview and images before any other website.  The combination of these results hae enabled me to pick out the most pointed out improvements that could be made. I can see what positive feedback I have achieved from my intended audience and what doesn't.

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

In the planning, development and evaluation I have used a variety of different technologies throughout this coursework. For instance the computer technologies I have used are - Adobe PhotoShop Elements, Blogger,  Kompozer and YouTube.  I used Adobe PhotoShop Elements which was extremely useful when I needed to edit images and arranging my ancillary pieces, PhotoShop allowed me to save my work under Jpeg files which is needed to open up any image if the computer/laptop doesn’t have PhotoShop. The other main program that I used was Kompozer, which was the program I used to build my actual website. Kompozer allowed me to develop my website through time creating cells, tables and embedding my own videos. I have developed skills with codes by learning how to use hyperlinks in order to link my pages together, therefore this has let me link my own images on my page linking you to different pages. I developed this from www.bliss.com. Doing this has allowed me the opportunity of letting the audience have what they actually want out of a website.  I have unknowing gained more experience in ICT and designing skills in various ways.  I used PhotoShop Elements to create my ancillary tasks, I could use several images and which could create one single image.  This program enabled me to create a professional look for my newspaper advert and double page spread, by allowing me to use layering, shadows and lighting effects. There are many different options to pick from, manipulating photos to help combined them with colours and fonts. I also used cropping this was used to erase any unnecessary backgrounds which were not needed.  I mainly used the internet to research websites. I used www.bliss.com, www.sugar.co.uk and www.MTV.co.uk I analysed them and took print screen shows of them, brainstorming ideas for my website.

Website first drafts.

Homepage- first draft.

News- first draft.

Music- First draft

What's on - First draft

Gallery- First draft

Contact page - first draft

Codes and Conventions - Website

Layout and Design

My website is very clear and quite easy to use as it very logical and you could say basic. It is easy to navigate as there is not too much information crammed together on the home page, just a few images, and texts telling you what you can find throughout 'pulse'. It also has links to other pages, these can be found by clicking pictures which lead you to one of the other 5 pages. The navigation is simple and quite colorful to follow. The background is plain black and the cells within the website is white, with a black border highlighting the navigation font. The larger images on the home page adds visual interest. 

Technical codes

Many sites now provide moving images or audio contents such as music players containing tracks to listen too. There are no music players within my website, but you can find my own video off one of the bands featured on my website, courtesy of Youtube. (I filmed the band myself) and uploading it to Youtube. 

Content of my website

There are many distinct conventions for websites which contain factual information compared to those created for entertainment. My website 'Pulse' purposes is to inform any viewers and audiences that it is was purposely created for entertainment, therefore making it look considerably different to a factual website, for example *the news*. 

Codes and Conventions of a Tv Listings page

The main codes and conventions of a TV listings page is that they need to stand out for example - loads of different colours, not just one set colour which makes it even more attractive towards the audience. TV listings needs to be easy to read, made up of simple but still effective fonts, just like the content which should also be easy to read but still simple. Another code for a TV listings page is that the day and date should be at the top or side of the page which would make it a lot easier for viewers to read. The time and show should also be at the top therefore this lets the viewers know what programmes are on .

Editing Images/Cropping and resizing

I cropped images when it came to inserting images to blogger so the unnecessary white space would not be copied over. I also cropped, edited images to use in my website using Photo shop and picxlr. I also used Photo shop when i was creating my promotional products, which were my newspaper advert and double page spread advertisement. I did encounter problems with resizing and changing the effects on some of my images. I found when trying to enlarge an my image on Photo shop it became blurred. After a while I learnt that there was a way round this by using a tool which alters the pixels in the image, therefore making the image a lot more visible.  

Adding Content

My content was added on all of the pages. An example of this was on my homepage, which included information on the lattest news, music, TV listings etc.  Editing Content- there were quite a number of times when i edited the content, making necessary changes to suit the audiences needs. I changed the background colour on My music Change to match the top 40 table. I changed the style of the writing every so often, making it more intractable and appealing to the teenager audience. I wasn't sure about how far to go in informality, using words which are more acceptable with the teenage audience was a lot easier.

Creating a logo suitable for the intended audience

Using extensive research which I completed of other related websites, there were lots of different types of logos with catchy names. My favourite name was MTV, as it had another meaning, and lots of well known TV Channels do it, such as ITV, BBC, MTV, VH1, and TMF (now up your viva). I decided however to keep the full name on the logo, as it uniquely indentifies the TV Channel, and I really wanted to effectively use different fonts to make it stand out (also, I didn't want any confusion with TMF). I feel the spiral behind it, with a nice silvery surround made the logo very retro, which was my intention. I did encounter some problems when trying to import it into dreamweaver, as it didn't look right without a background. That was when I took my logo back into photoshop and made a top banner logo frame. I feel that by doing this it made its apperance a success.

 

Before I started making my website, I managed my site, so that all the work was organised from the start. It was organised so the html files where going to one folder and images to another. Whilst in the process of production of my website, I saved regulary so work would not get lost in the event of a power cut or computer crash.

Production and Development of website

Homepage 

Here I have taken a screenshot of my ‘Home’ tab from my website ‘Pulse’ all these print screens shall be taken when my website is in live view on Internet Explorer. I have decided to create a homepage, as it is a widely used page on many websites that I have recently researched. The ‘Home’ page is my starting point. It will hold information on other pages making it easier for the audience to see what website has to offer. It also provides a quick glance on what gossip, news and celebrity photos the website has. The homepage is there primarily to make it easier for the audience and viewers to navigate around ‘Pulse’, it clearly illustrates what content is on what pages and what it has to offer.

News

A screen shot of my news page so far -

I decided that a new pages would be appropriate for my website, as ‘Pulse’ hols information about different aspects of the celebrity world. There are many entertaining news stories that would definitely be an interest to my audience. The page will offer its audience the latest news, breaking news and any celebrity gossip.

Music

Here is a screen shot of my 'Music' page-

I decided to include a music page in my website, to inform my viewers of the latest top 40. The chart is in order from one to 40. Showing the most bought single and the least bought track. 

Contents Page

The content page will be very basic, it will show the audience how they can contact the website, what channel you can find us on and text in for any competitions. I have decided to make this page very bright and wild, which looks very attractive.

Gallery Page

This will show all the latest pictures of celebrities, prom couples and competition prom couple entry's for viewers to enter, get fashion prom tips from and many more.

Double page spread & TV advert

Double page spread

I created my double page spread by firstly filling the background in black. I then inserted my logo which I had already created before hand in PhotoShop which is the same logo I used in my website. I then inserted copyright free images, either taken by me or of photos from friends whom I had permission off.  There are certain font’s for example - Top 40, which I downloaded from dafont.com but then later on edited on PhotoShop. The text just below the logo is telling you about the website launch and how viewers should be interested by it. On the right directly across from this is telling the viewers how they shouldn’t miss out on catching the latest shows by ‘Pulse’, it then tells viewers what TV shows they can watch and at what times. Directly below that then is the pictures of the latest new hot band ‘A Day For Heroes’ the images I have taken myself, with permission off the band, underneath them is a gradient edit, I find this helps make the black and white pictures stand out more for the audience to see. Giving a great effect. To the left of that then is the image of ‘Top 40’ basically telling the viewers that they can view a top 40 page on the ‘Pulse’ website. Above that then is an image of my friends Aimee and Callum at our year 11 prom, I took this photo myself, again indenting to show the viewers that you can view prom couples. What I have included in my double page spread, is to engross the viewers to want to actually view the website. I think  my logo is very eye catching with the different gradient colour edits around each letter. 

Newspaper ad 

I have now finally uploaded a picture of my newspaper ad on here for my Pulse website. I created this on PhotoShop setting the canvas size to width ( ) and height () and resolution to (). I then again set the background colour to black and inserted the same logo I used for my website, which was created on PhotoShop. I wanted to keep my newspaper ad fairly simple, but still effective. I added text with the channel number on, which I also edited in PhotoShop and my website url. I wanted to make that stand out to highlight it for the audience to view Pulse. I also added my own slogan which I created myself, ‘ Can you feel the’ just above the logo. Insisting that the audience must view my website.

Research into content for my website

I have decided from my research and planning that I will have six hyperlinked pages. My website is going to have a homepage, a news page ,a music page, a gallery page and finally a contact page. My home page will basically to let everyone know what my website is about and it will guide you to the surrounding pages. My news page will be based around the latest new band 'A day for heroes' who are a local band in my area, for this I have taken my own images of them, and filmed them during one of their gigs. My music page will let the viewers know about the latest top 40, including singles from 40 right to the top! There will be a top 40 logo right at the top of this page which will include the website page logo 'Pulse'. The gallery page will let the viewers have an insight to the prom couple of the year 2010 and basically to let them vote for prom couple 2011, they can do this by viewing the photos. Lastly is the contact page, showing the viewers how they can get into with 'Pulse' through the channel number and the website address. 

Home Page:

My homepage is going to be the first page the user will see when entering my website, so it needs to give a very good first impression. Within design conventions of any website, the homepage will offer its audience places to go, by which I mean links to the other pages, with images and descriptions next to them to encourage the user to go to that page. 

News Page:

My News page is going to consist of the latest entertainment news, additionally any celebrity gossip (goss) or possibly breaking news which the audience will find interesting. It will also contain the latest new band 'A day for heroes' images of them, a video and an interview. All of these are copyright free as I've asked for permission and some of the images I personally took myself. There is also an option to be linked to the Facebook fan group.The video can be watched after clicking the band picture

Music Page: 

On this page, there will be a collection of the weeks 'must hear' singles, called the top 40 chart. The singles are the latest hot new songs out. At the top of the page will be a logo i created for the top 40 chart, then the pulse logo underneath. All the artist, track, and positions are placed into one big table. 

What's On Page:

This page will tell the viewers about the new show 'Glory hill' and what it has to offer, it will have images of the five cast members and their names, these images I also had permission to use. At the bottom of the page there will be a TV schedule for Saturday and Sunday telling you what shows are on and at what times. The colour scheme is pink and black, the cast images also have different colours around them.

Gallery page:

The gallery page will inform you on how to enter the prom couple competition, it will should you images of the prom couple 2010 couple voted by 'Pulse' viewers. The gallery page will also show you how you can join in by voting for your favourite prom couple 2011, by clicking on the 'contact us' link. The font I have used is mainly from dafont.com where I have edited it to fit in with my colour scheme. 

KompoZer

KompoZer is very straightforward and easy to use, it didn't take long to create my website. I have found KompoZer easier the more I use it. I have now developed my six content pages, which are now linked to eachother which has enabled users to click from page to page very quickly. I have used many different fonts throughout the creation of my website. These fonts can be found at www.dafont.com, the font on my website is not exactly the same as I found them on dafont.com I have edited most writing on PSE *PhotoShop*. All of the images contained on my website so far have been either taken by myself or close friends who I have gained permission off. I have completed a few pages so far, which are my homepage, news and music page. I will make minor changes throughout the process of building 'Pulse'.