it s gr8

1. Rian Doherty

3. www.explore-birmingham.co.uk
These are my products: For my
main product I created a
regional magazine and a
billboard and website for my
ancillary.

4. Although both these covers feature a central model, I’ve still
used them to draw inspiration for my own work, as their
simplistic nature has the impact I’m hoping my magazine will
create. By not cluttering the cover with an excess of cover lines,
the already well established brands will still have consistent
sales, but maintain a design that can mesmerise.
I was particularly intrigued by the I-D cover,
as it used image manipulation to create a
new image from the old that left an imprint
on our minds. The geometric shapes and
colours have an artistic appeal that will
entice a wide audience.
Exclusive magazine is a regional magazine
that I have also taken inspiration from, as
it is good at identifying with a particular
demographic, a skill I knew would be
necessary to create a successful magazine.
I looked at it on my blog, the post can be
found here:
http://riandohertymediaa2.blogspot.com/
2014/09/examples-of-existing-regional-
magazines.html

5. I used shout magazine to identify
the normal conventions of a
magazine contents page:
http://riandohertymediaa2.blogspo
t.co.uk/2014/11/blog-post.html
This magazine incorporates
geometric shapes into its
design. The triangular feature
picture has influenced me in
my design as I have also
incorporated shape in a
collage effect.
These two magazine covers have
the unique style that I favoured.
By presenting a challenge to the
normal conventions they capture
the audiences attention.
The first presents its numbers in
a different way, and although I
didn’t apply this to mine
personally, It was the inspiration
behind the different coloured
numbers.
The second has a disjointed
‘contents’ title which I thought
looked unique and wished to
replicate in my own style.

6. I feel my article was the piece of work that most kept with the normal
conventions of a magazine. Many of the generic articles has similar features-
such as these two, where I have drawn on the layout of the single page
article but also like the variety of small images portrayed in the article below.
Despite following mostly generic conventions I also wanted to make it
unique to my magazine by adding a ‘feature box’ and having my images in a
collage style – almost like a scrap book. I felt this worked for my magazine
as it made the article identifiable, encouraging others new to Birmingham, or
simply wanting to find out more, able to relate.
I think my article bears
most resemblance to
the other single page
article as they have a
different layout
completely to ensure
everything is packed
onto one page
effectively.

7. https://birminghamairport.co.uk/
When I saw the
Birmingham Airport
website, it was
immediately
inspiring. With it’s
eye capturing image,
and simplistic design,
I was encouraged to
explore the website. I
want people to feel
that about my
website. This was
where I got my idea
to have a main
central image on my
homepage, with
minimum
information/writing,
that could be saved
for other pages.
Although I was unable to
make my social media feature
as savvy as this one, it was
evident from various research
that practically every website
has a social network option. I
feel for my product, facebook
and twitter were the most
necessary so I created a page
on facebook and a twitter
account for my magazine.

8. http://www.libraryofbirmingham.com/
This website had a news and blogs
section running down the side of it. I
thought this would be a useful feature
to include as people interested on
Birmingham will likely be happy to find
blogs about Birmingham as well as what
is going on. Therefore, I created an
external link to blog ‘Birmingham
Blogger’ which I received permission to
do.
Also, I have an rss feed that runs a news
feed drawn from a news website to keep
people updated
http://www.birminghamblogger.co.uk/

9. Stereotypes of Birmingham:
Birmingham is often portrayed negatively in the media
and carries negative connotations in peoples minds.
This can often hinder the people of Birmingham's
appreciation of their city, a mind-set I am hoping to
break them away from with my magazine.
One stereotype of Birmingham, is that all the people are
‘Chavs’ and not very intelligent. Therefore, by having a
culturally rich magazine, It proves the intelligence of
Birmingham, particularly as it is integrated into society
as a whole.
Another stereotype is that Birmingham It draws its
tourism from popular landmarks such as the bull and
Selfridges, when in fact, Birmingham is the Second city
of the England full of interesting things to do/see.
Breaking away from these stereotypes allowed me to
create a magazine that portrayed a positive image.

10. These are some of the ideas
about Birmingham I tried to
portray in my magazine, I did
this though multiple methods,
including the artistic deign and
the editing of images to bring
new dimensions.

11. The first artist I was
influenced by was
Picasso, who although
pained work not similar
to my design, used quirky
original style that at his
time of painting were
revolutionary. I wanted to
take the essence of the
man who changed the
face of art and adapt it to
modern day and my
magazine.
I discovered inspiration in this
image, as I felt its mood and
colours were very emotion evoking,
whilst remaining light and fruitful. I
want the reader to feel something
when looking at the design of my
magazine, even if only and
understanding or connection to the
image, event or style.
This geometric style appears in my magazine,
in an adapted way. While my front cover
doesn’t exactly use shape, the edit uses
angles and photo reflections to create a new
dimension of the image. My contents also
uses a similar design to this, having instead
photos fill the triangular shapes.

13. Throughout my project I’ve kept a similar colour
scheme to combine the texts into a brand. My use
of Blue, black and white meant that each of the
products can easily be linked to the others. My
reason for choosing blue was because of the
connotations it carries. Blue suggest cool and calm
but also connotes intelligence and trust.
I want my brand to be seen as trustworthy, an
accurate guide to exploring Birmingham, as this
way it will be believable as the true representation
of Birmingham. As it is a modern, artistic portray,
connotations of cool and intelligent are also very
appropriate.
‘The cultural collection of all things
Birmingham’
This is the tagline I have used on all three
of my products as I believe it to be
memorable and easily understood. It
hints towards what will be inside as well
as building on my suggestion that it is a
different look at Birmingham to one they
have seen before.

14. I created a logo that would be used to
provide synergy between my products. My
main logo is larger as it specifies
Birmingham, however I knew it would be
difficult to have this appearing on my
magazine or other pages of my website.
Because of this, I created a smaller version
that was obviously recognisable to the larger
one and my brand but was more suitable for
smaller places.
As my idea was to make the Ikon Gallery a
‘partner’ with my magazine, I thought it
would be appropriate to include my logo
here. It provides and immediate link
between my advert and the brand.
On my website, the home page has
the larger logo as one of the main
features of the page, this allows the
consumer to immediately make the
connection with this logo and my
products. By reinforcing this
throughout all my pages with the
smaller logo, It creates a brand
effectively.
On reflection, I feel I should have included the logo on my
Billboard, however my reasoning against doing so was due to
the impact I wanted it to have. By having a main central image,
clouded by very little I believe people will be drawn to it and
wish to find out more.

15. Roland Barthes Enigma theory can be applied to my work, as it suggests a text can portray
a mystery in order to lure and audience in, create questions and assist them in
becoming intrigued by the piece. By having a simplistic front cover, my magazine does
have a mystery, as not everything about what is inside is revealed. The cubic approach
to design may also raise questions as it is one not seen often. On the whole a fresh
cover layout will intrigue a reader to discover more.
Steve Meale’s theory is also fitting when reflecting on my work. He claims ‘Genres are
instances of repetition and difference’, believing it is essential for genres to sometimes
deviate from the normal genre trend to engage and attract and audience. My magazine
takes a different approach to most of the regional magazines I came across, challenging
the normal stereotypes, therefore making it fall under the ‘difference’.
Buckingham said that ‘Genre is a constant process of negotiation and change’ and that
‘Texts must respond to social and cultural change’ I believe adapting my magazine to
the research I did on modern, cultured Birmingham is doing exactly that, as I didn’t stick
to the ‘landmarks’ approach that most would due to a social change in society that has
lead to many needing a new spark of energy.

17. http://riandohertymediaa2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/blog-post_5.html
This link goes to the
full analysis of my
original questionnaire
results.
‘Dynamic’ and ‘Busy’ were two
of the most common answers
for this question, a positive
response actually, one I was
then able to transpire into my
magazine. The response of
Dynamic inspired me to make
sure my magazine itself was
dynamic to be representative of
Birmingham.
My original questionnaire was a vital step to begin my
bridge between the magazine and the target audience. It
allowed me to build a foundation of knowledge which I
previously didn’t have about what they would want to see
in a regional magazine as well as what they think of
Birmingham as a whole.

18. I considered a Range of fonts for my
original Masthead, people from my
target audience did advice my that
keeping bold and simplistic would be
more effective than fancy, difficult to
read or a font that doesn’t match the
content.
For this reason LemonMilk was my
best option a many of the others
became unsuitable.
Pinterest was a new and interesting way for my
to obtain audience feedback. Although
commenting was less common on this site,
people could re-pin or ‘like’ any photos I
shared, therefore in each category of photos I
created, those pinned or liked the most were
clearly the most popular.
https://www.pinterest.com/

19. As you can see above, one of the pieces of
feedback I received on my contents page was to
change the fonts. After reflecting, I also agree
that it has an outdated style, however my
reasoning behind it was to be vibrant. The font
soon changed to a bolder easily readable one,
which complimented the house style of the rest
of the magazine as well.
My style for arranging the pictures was widely
appreciated, leading to this style with minor
adjustments following all the way through to my
final version.
My first draft of my cover and the final
one are basically unrecognisable as a
comparison. The reasons for my overhaul
of the original design was down to my
audience feedback. It became evident
from numerous opinions, that although
they didn’t dislike the cover, it was very
similar to others they had seen before, as
well as being a very stereotypical
representation of Birmingham – through
typical landmarks.

20. I received feedback on my Billboard when my initial
design had been completed. One thing people
suggested it was missing was a tagline, which I later
added after taking this on board. The reasoning
behind needing one was that although it was easily
identifiable to Birmingham, it lacked any information
that would nod towards it being a magazine.
Although a Billboard should be simplistic, it should
also make clear what the product is, if no product is
drawn from the billboard, it wouldn’t increase
peoples awareness of it’s existence, therefore
making it an ineffective billboard.

21. http://www.explore-birmingham.co.uk/
The new question has had many
more responses, allowing me to
engage with people viewing my
website while constantly
receiving feedback for my
magazine/website content
As website design and running was so new to me, I felt
audience feedback was incredibly important for this
product even more so than others which I have more
experience in creating.
After my initial designing, I uploaded a link onto twitter and
facebook to ask people what they thought; the general
response was very positive, with people liking the easy to
access pdf version of my magazine, as well as the news
feed to see what’s going on around Birmingham.
Two of the critiques I received were to reconsider my poll
question to something that people feel will voice their
opinion, leading it to change from a question about
Birmingham's Culture, to asking about what the reader
would like to see in ‘Explore Birmingham’ so they can feel
like their answers will make a difference.
The second critique I received was that I lacked in pages
with good readable content. While this would have been
difficult to do, I was able to subsequently add ‘Birmingham
Blogger’ as an external page on my website, full of
informative and enjoyable content.

22. Process to create a logo began at the
bottom where I continued to develop it into
the black and white logo at the top.
Initially, I received some negative feedback in
the early stages of the logo design. Not many
people liked the colour scheme, and although
the blue didn’t fit well in any other colour, was
not quite right in complimenting the magazine.
I think it was definitely of high importance to
make sure my target audience approved of my
logo, as they will be the ones using this logo to
identify with the brand image.
After many attempts I opted for a simplistic
but memorable black and white logo, which
many more people were happy with. Because
there is a blue colour running throughout my
other products, unless the colours were very
complimentary to the shade of blue I used,
they would clash and not have the synergy I
wanted to create.

24. Blogger:
To present my project I used blogger, as I did last year. However, I feel my multimedia approach
when using it has helped me improve my skills. This year I focused on including a range of different
features, such as embedding tutorial videos, including more hyperlinks and using programmes such
as slide share to present my research. By using different approaches in my research I was able to
gain a fuller understanding of the demographic I was covering as well as the range of material out
there I’m able to incorporate and be influenced by in the creation of my own regional magazine.
Examples of this work can be found here:
Video embedding – http://riandohertymediaa2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/blog-post.html
Hyperlinks – http://riandohertymediaa2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/organisation.html
Slideshare - http://riandohertymediaa2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/research-into-similar-
products.html
Survey monkey:
One new piece of media I became accustomed with over this course is survey monkey. I hadn’t
previously used it in AS or otherwise, but I found it extremely useful and easy to navigate. It
provided me with an electronic questionnaire which was much easier to distribute. As I was aiming
most of my research to 18-24 year olds at the time, online questionnaires were more likely to be
completed than hard copy ones, which could possibly just be thrown away or ignored.
My survey can be found here.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/6P2VC3W

25. Page plus:
I used page plus to create my regional magazine, although I used it last year, I found it much
easier to use this time around and felt my outcome was much more professional. For
example, when cropping and cutting out images I made sure to maintain straight lines and
avoid the images being ‘bitty’. Images lacking clarity and professionalism is a problem I came
across last year, meaning my final product wasn’t as good as I had hoped. Learning from
mistakes I made last year similar to this has improved my final product as well as deducting
from time I would have spent having to make and subsequently amend these errors.
Here you can see a comparison of my AS and A2 contents pages, both created on
Page Plus, I feel like my design skills have taken leaps forward, using good quality
Images and fonts.
Paint.net
My billboard was created on paint.net, a programme I have
used before but have been previously unable to properly
grasp. This year I decided to focus some time on
understanding how to work it in order to create an
effective billboard. My reason for choosing paint.net was
because I wanted it to be different to my magazine and
although maintain the same house style, have unique and
eye catching qualities. Paint.net allowed me to manipulate
my text effectively, creating a slight transparency which
proved to work really well on my billboard. I feel it created
an eye-catching design that would be noticed when
driving past.

26. These are two apps I discovered and purchased to help me with
image manipulation. I had to upload the image into the app and
could then try out different techniques. Fracture, the app I used to
manipulate the image on my billboard I enjoyed using as I feel its
outcome looks great, however it took me a long time to reach a final
image as the process wasn’t as simple as I thought. If I tried to use
multiple images I thought the outcome looked unrecognisable and
therefore wouldn’t be suitable for a regional magazine, which needs
to identify with Birmingham. Fragment on the other hand had
various options, I created numerous images that could have worked
well in a regional magazine and I found it easier to navigate.
Following this link you can see a variety of different photos I was able to create thanks
to the apps, allowing new dimension for my original photography, which I feel would
help to distinguish it from other regional magazine in circulation:
http://riandohertymediaa2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/advadv.html
A link to a tutorial on fragment that
inspired me can be found here:
https://youtu.be/FECjHtUX9mY

27. Weebly-
Weebly is a website creator that I used when making mine. It was very new to me so I first
watched a tutorial to teach me the basics. After that, I used trial and error to piece together
my magazine’s website in a way I felt would keep the same representations my magazine
portrays. Although I did find it a good programme to help me, the free version had
limitations which lead to me purchasing the ‘pro’ version to provide myself with more
flexibility. I feel the end product produced a more professional style than I would have been
able to achieve by myself.
The site allowed you to
add features such as a
poll, social icons and
contact forms.
This links to the
tutorial I initially
watched before
beginning my
website design:
https://youtu.be
/u2l5924P_2k
One of the drawbacks I
found with this programme
was that some of the
technical work to allow
everything to be functional
and reach the right place
(for example the feedback
form on the ‘Contact’ page)
was difficult and time
consuming. Despite this, I
feel in persevering I’ve
learnt many new skills.

28. I had two main options to choose from when presenting my evaluation, Slideshare or Prezi.
Although both with their strengths, I decided slide share was the best option for me, as I
had grown comfortable with using it.
Pros Cons
Easy to use Appearance
remains
similar to
PowerPoint
Can add
links and
images with
ease
Professional
appearance
Pros Cons
Unique layout Harder to
navigate
Can be
accessed
anywhere due
to being
online.
More time
consuming

29. Overall, I believe my skills have
vastly improved between AS and
A2. Due to them both being
magazine, It’s reasonably easy
to see the comparisons, and
where some design styles, such
as collage in the images has
remained present in my work,
but the majority has changed.
Although this was due to my
own improvement, it was also
impacted by the different style
of magazine, Music to regional,
where my demographic became
wide and had to appeal to all.
I feel I have most improved on my cover page. Previously there was a mix of lots of different
fonts, that stopped the magazine having any clarity or contingency. This year I have tried to
follow through all my products with a similar font style for the same reason.