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.