Autumn term - Task 1 Brief

Print – Deadline Friday 26 / 09 / 08 (3 weeks)

Brief:

Using DTP and an image manipulation program, produce the front page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photograph of a student in medium close-up plus some appropriately laid-out text and a masthead. Additionally candidates must produce a mock-up of the layout of the contents page to demonstrate their grasp of DTP.

Tasks

Familiarise yourself with the capabilities of the creative software (Photoshop)

Research existing similar media texts. What codes and conventions are being used? What codes and conventions will you attempt to use? (At least three similar texts need to be analysed.)

Who are the target audience for this text? Describe the target demographic. Perform some research into exactly what implications this has on your final product. (You will need some sort of questionnaire / survey and an analysis of these results.)

Plan your text. This could be done using a computer or on plain paper and then scanned.

Take the necessary photographs. These will need to be selected, enhanced, cropped and edited appropriately.

Combine these images on the final pages, exporting the completed pages as one final jpeg file.

Evaluate the successes and failures of your project. Answer the following questions in your analysis:

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
• How does your media product represent particular social groups?
• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
• Who would be the audience for your media product?
• How did you attract/address your audience?
• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?