Wednesday, 16 December 2009
Evaluation Grade 10/20
Your evaluation demonstrates a good ability to communicate your use of software to create the site. However your understanding of the issues surrounding audience, representation and institution is basic. This goes back to your planning because you did not carry out the necessary research to help you consider these things during construction and in the evaluation of your work.
AS PLANNING GRADE: 11/20
Your research into similar websites and a target audience was fairly basic and the evidence is minimal. Your time management and organisation was mostly proficient and the design of the site is to a high standard. However, evidence of planning uploaded to the blog is fairly minimal.
Monday, 14 December 2009
Evaluation Redraft
Who would be the audience for your media product?
- The audience for my media product will span over a wide range of people. The site is appealing in ways such as it being interesting and a certain amount of appeal visually, therefore being appealing to those older and younger. The main target audience will be those who care for animals and can feel sympathy for them.
I’m hoping to use the information in 2 different ways on the site. Information for those people who may not know anything about what the Pick up a penguin charity do and also informing where the money that is donated will be going to and what it will be used for. I didn't want to create a site where everything available to view was negative trying to beg sympathy out of the viewer so I used positive pictures all over. I want the pictures used to show what peoples own money can do for the penguins.
How did you attract/address your audience?
- As soon as you enter the website you are overwhelmed by colours and straight to the point telling of what the site is about and what we want you to do. I found this would be one of the main aspects of attracting an audience. With the use of simple language and the layout being quite user friendly, I wanted to make sure the site attracted various users of all ages, through not being overly complicated to get around for those who may not be so "up to date" with technology. As far as gender is concerned, I didn't really have a specific target. Really gender was not a set criteria. Using this same idea the sentences used are short to be easily memorable so as readers read through the sites content, they do not feel like they are going over and over irrelevant information. I thought the general attraction of the phrase pick up a penguin was quite good as it’s easy to remember and the whole point of the website is pretty much in the title.
The site is consists of all good news. I thought that although showing people the reality of where some penguins come from using a sympathy idea, I wanted to express to people what their own money can do for the penguins, seeing how their money can have a positive effect on the animals lives.
Does your media product represent a particular social group?
The site wasn’t really designed to attract or represent a particular social group, the only criteria possibly being animal lovers. But i’m sure in most cases you don’t need to be an animal lover to feel sympathy or feel a slight love for the penguins pictured on the site. As I already mentioned I am not aiming for particular ages to target or genders.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My site uses basic editing (iweb) therefore not being able to consist of maybe some features that I may have liked to, such as, PHP or Java Script. My site uses quite a common webpage layout, with the title featured at the top, with the tabs horizontally just underneath.
Each page on the site all use the same layout just with different content in each one. I thought this would be useful as it would be easier for people who may not be as “skillful” with computers than others. I thought it would also look more professional using advertisement links to other animal campaign websites. My site has a very similar layout to the RSPCA site. I thought this would be a good idea to incorporate as the RSPCA are hugely successful.
Similar to my site, the RSPCA use a logo featured top left of the page, with a horizontal navigation bar. The company logo is located just underneath the title. To create the site logo, I was aware that well esablished campaigns would create their own logo from scratch. Due to short time I had to try and improvise. My old site logo was just some simple Photoshop standard brushes dotted about. I saved the file as a Photoshop image so it slowed the site down a lot, but I wasn’t aware why at the time. Through changing the site logo I downloaded some photoshop brushes trying to find something similar to a water splash, the nearest i could find was paint flicks. Saving the image as a png allowed the site to work much faster all round, loading quicker and responding quicker.
There are 4 main links on each page all leading to each other. These links are "Home" " News" "About Us" & "Contact us". Each of the 4 links stay in one place at all times as they are part of the stable layout. The only other links that are available on the site are "more info" links on the side bar for News. I thought it would look more professional to have small insites to the pages, News especially because this would be updated regularly.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this production?
iWeb has taught me quite a lot about web design. It is a web hosting speciaised company that produce standard software for Mac's. I thought considering the program is made for basic web design, when effort is put down to it, you can really makesomething basic look like a professional job. Other website builders do not allow you to create such high quality websites with such little knowledge. iweb was slightly confusing at first, but once you have the basic idea of the tools, you can build up the knowledge yourself. The only downside to iweb that I came across was the use of basic tools that were not there, things such as hit counter.
I found photoshop quite easy to get around for the tasks that needed to be put into place. Seeing as CS4 was very similar to other older photoshops it wasn’t hard to get used to and with the help of having used photoshop at home for general usage before, using some simple blending options and cutting out photos wasn’t too hard. The only problem I came across was creating a picture with a transparent background. After trial and error I found out the picture was just being saved in the wrong format. Some tools that i could have used to make my site appear better I simply couldn’t due to lack of knowledge and time. Photoshop on the whole was the hardest program to get around especially when some things would take time and patience.
Picture taking at first came across as a big problem. Seeing as I had made 2 sites i had decided to scrap my first one half way through the making. I knew where there was a penguin sanctuary so I went there with a group of friends one day and took all my pictures there. Most of the pictures were quite successful and to take them I used a 12 mega-pixel Sony camera. One of the pictures that came in most useful I felt was one that was just water. I ended using the picture for the header of the homepage.
I thought it looked good and the quality of the pictures was very high, with no blur so I felt it was ideal.
To create my site I used an Apple Macbook. I have a Macbook myself so it wasn’t a problem to adapt to using an iMac at all. I find them better seeing as the applications they support are much better and of a higher quality. iweb for example, a free application that comes installed on all macs when bought, is of a high enough quality to create a fully functioning website as good as top of the line sites, using animation and video.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I think the idea of an animal campaign would appeal to a lot of institutions as its showing a sense of all round goodness for their company. I think pick up a penguin would be quite a memorable phrase due to its catchiness. People generally like these kind of things and I would hope that awareness would get around fast as it is something a bit different to all other animal campaigns you hear about. Although on the other hand I think it may have its problems seeing as not everyone cares about animals as much as others, let alone penguins. I think institutions such as the RSPCA would be one of the best companies to advertise my site because most people who are generally giving donations to animal campaign sites, the RSPCA would be one of the first on mind.
I think it would be quite hard to advertise or promote the campaign on tv and radio, seeing as it would cost a lot of money to do and with only a small amount of people being moved or concerned about the idea it wouldn’t be worth the cost, yet on the other hand the promotion side, raising awareness of the problem of endangered penguins, maybe not even getting people to donate but it would still cause concern.
I think the best option to promote would be through posters. Its cheap and with good software a high quality poster can be made standing out amongst others, then if people want to visit the site and read about what goes on, then they can. The other option would be promoting on other animal campaign sites. The people that will be seeing the promotion are people that care about animals, obviously because they are already on a campaign site and with the variation of the campaign being quite unique could lure more people into the idea.
I think on a whole the idea of helping penguins may not be on every-bodies mind, but with advertisement it would maybe get around, then if it were more established other companies may look into investing.
- The audience for my media product will span over a wide range of people. The site is appealing in ways such as it being interesting and a certain amount of appeal visually, therefore being appealing to those older and younger. The main target audience will be those who care for animals and can feel sympathy for them.
I’m hoping to use the information in 2 different ways on the site. Information for those people who may not know anything about what the Pick up a penguin charity do and also informing where the money that is donated will be going to and what it will be used for. I didn't want to create a site where everything available to view was negative trying to beg sympathy out of the viewer so I used positive pictures all over. I want the pictures used to show what peoples own money can do for the penguins.
How did you attract/address your audience?
- As soon as you enter the website you are overwhelmed by colours and straight to the point telling of what the site is about and what we want you to do. I found this would be one of the main aspects of attracting an audience. With the use of simple language and the layout being quite user friendly, I wanted to make sure the site attracted various users of all ages, through not being overly complicated to get around for those who may not be so "up to date" with technology. As far as gender is concerned, I didn't really have a specific target. Really gender was not a set criteria. Using this same idea the sentences used are short to be easily memorable so as readers read through the sites content, they do not feel like they are going over and over irrelevant information. I thought the general attraction of the phrase pick up a penguin was quite good as it’s easy to remember and the whole point of the website is pretty much in the title.
The site is consists of all good news. I thought that although showing people the reality of where some penguins come from using a sympathy idea, I wanted to express to people what their own money can do for the penguins, seeing how their money can have a positive effect on the animals lives.
Does your media product represent a particular social group?
The site wasn’t really designed to attract or represent a particular social group, the only criteria possibly being animal lovers. But i’m sure in most cases you don’t need to be an animal lover to feel sympathy or feel a slight love for the penguins pictured on the site. As I already mentioned I am not aiming for particular ages to target or genders.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
My site uses basic editing (iweb) therefore not being able to consist of maybe some features that I may have liked to, such as, PHP or Java Script. My site uses quite a common webpage layout, with the title featured at the top, with the tabs horizontally just underneath.
Each page on the site all use the same layout just with different content in each one. I thought this would be useful as it would be easier for people who may not be as “skillful” with computers than others. I thought it would also look more professional using advertisement links to other animal campaign websites. My site has a very similar layout to the RSPCA site. I thought this would be a good idea to incorporate as the RSPCA are hugely successful.
Similar to my site, the RSPCA use a logo featured top left of the page, with a horizontal navigation bar. The company logo is located just underneath the title. To create the site logo, I was aware that well esablished campaigns would create their own logo from scratch. Due to short time I had to try and improvise. My old site logo was just some simple Photoshop standard brushes dotted about. I saved the file as a Photoshop image so it slowed the site down a lot, but I wasn’t aware why at the time. Through changing the site logo I downloaded some photoshop brushes trying to find something similar to a water splash, the nearest i could find was paint flicks. Saving the image as a png allowed the site to work much faster all round, loading quicker and responding quicker.
There are 4 main links on each page all leading to each other. These links are "Home" " News" "About Us" & "Contact us". Each of the 4 links stay in one place at all times as they are part of the stable layout. The only other links that are available on the site are "more info" links on the side bar for News. I thought it would look more professional to have small insites to the pages, News especially because this would be updated regularly.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this production?
iWeb has taught me quite a lot about web design. It is a web hosting speciaised company that produce standard software for Mac's. I thought considering the program is made for basic web design, when effort is put down to it, you can really makesomething basic look like a professional job. Other website builders do not allow you to create such high quality websites with such little knowledge. iweb was slightly confusing at first, but once you have the basic idea of the tools, you can build up the knowledge yourself. The only downside to iweb that I came across was the use of basic tools that were not there, things such as hit counter.
I found photoshop quite easy to get around for the tasks that needed to be put into place. Seeing as CS4 was very similar to other older photoshops it wasn’t hard to get used to and with the help of having used photoshop at home for general usage before, using some simple blending options and cutting out photos wasn’t too hard. The only problem I came across was creating a picture with a transparent background. After trial and error I found out the picture was just being saved in the wrong format. Some tools that i could have used to make my site appear better I simply couldn’t due to lack of knowledge and time. Photoshop on the whole was the hardest program to get around especially when some things would take time and patience.
Picture taking at first came across as a big problem. Seeing as I had made 2 sites i had decided to scrap my first one half way through the making. I knew where there was a penguin sanctuary so I went there with a group of friends one day and took all my pictures there. Most of the pictures were quite successful and to take them I used a 12 mega-pixel Sony camera. One of the pictures that came in most useful I felt was one that was just water. I ended using the picture for the header of the homepage.
I thought it looked good and the quality of the pictures was very high, with no blur so I felt it was ideal.
To create my site I used an Apple Macbook. I have a Macbook myself so it wasn’t a problem to adapt to using an iMac at all. I find them better seeing as the applications they support are much better and of a higher quality. iweb for example, a free application that comes installed on all macs when bought, is of a high enough quality to create a fully functioning website as good as top of the line sites, using animation and video.
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
I think the idea of an animal campaign would appeal to a lot of institutions as its showing a sense of all round goodness for their company. I think pick up a penguin would be quite a memorable phrase due to its catchiness. People generally like these kind of things and I would hope that awareness would get around fast as it is something a bit different to all other animal campaigns you hear about. Although on the other hand I think it may have its problems seeing as not everyone cares about animals as much as others, let alone penguins. I think institutions such as the RSPCA would be one of the best companies to advertise my site because most people who are generally giving donations to animal campaign sites, the RSPCA would be one of the first on mind.
I think it would be quite hard to advertise or promote the campaign on tv and radio, seeing as it would cost a lot of money to do and with only a small amount of people being moved or concerned about the idea it wouldn’t be worth the cost, yet on the other hand the promotion side, raising awareness of the problem of endangered penguins, maybe not even getting people to donate but it would still cause concern.
I think the best option to promote would be through posters. Its cheap and with good software a high quality poster can be made standing out amongst others, then if people want to visit the site and read about what goes on, then they can. The other option would be promoting on other animal campaign sites. The people that will be seeing the promotion are people that care about animals, obviously because they are already on a campaign site and with the variation of the campaign being quite unique could lure more people into the idea.
I think on a whole the idea of helping penguins may not be on every-bodies mind, but with advertisement it would maybe get around, then if it were more established other companies may look into investing.
Friday, 11 December 2009
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
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