CRITICAL REFLECTION SCRIPT

How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

I want my magazine to be comfortably read. In my attempt to achieve this,

I break the conventions or preconceived notions

It is assumed that this allows the reader to connect with the magazine's ideas and buy more copies of the magazine if the celebrities are popular.

Although on the surface level this looks good, it inevitably fails as the magazine is relying upon those people for its promotion. Without them the magazine is not much, the readers will soon realize this and the only readers the magazine is left with are the masses that want to see the celebrities face.

Secondly when a magazine relies on the people who support it rather than its concept, the core audience/target audience will distance themselves from it.

Talking about the achievement, rather than the people who achieved it will improve the magazine as a whole. For a magazine to truly have a good life span a good concept/topic along with a layout that is easy for the eyes of the reader to follow is important. This has to be followed when creating/investing/planning for a magazine that has procedures/real life practice/studies in it.( Like carpentry, science experiments, art and studies like astronomy, geology. etc )

Most of the science magazines that are not for children are mostly a pure text- based magazine with the names of a few scientists.

In the case of a children’s magazine (catering to children from Age 10 and above), it is much more restrictive in words and the information given to them as the general notion is “he/she is too young for more”. The main reason for looking out for books and magazines in your formative years is to learn and if you are restricted from information and then expected to know the same when you are older, does it add up?

No, it doesn’t!! This is why I devised a way for children to get information and understand it faster using illustrations/photographs and other design elements that aid in helping them understand.

It gives the child a photographic memory rather than text-based memory and their minds will start associating like/similar terms sometimes resulting in them understanding the experiment without actually going through the text.

Layouts and easy to understand and easy to remember illustrations/photographs are the key to such magazines.

This is why my magazine does not have people and is not purely text based like most science magazines or not restrictive in its content just because it is for children.

Some online children’s magazines like “Kids Discover” or “Frontiers for young minds” have contents which are title based whereas “Frontiers for young minds” is more of a science journal reviewed by kids and teenagers.

My magazine will invite articles on various aspects of science from any child above 10 years duly vetted before publication. The contents are “Explaining Turbines”, “Nothing to something”, “Siphoning of Water(Double spread)”, “Wow The AC” and “How to Compost” covering topics of interest across age groups and making the content socially relevant. The language used is entirely simple, relying far more on photography and DIY instructions to make interactive and likable.

How does your product engage with the audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

I use elements such as color and symbolism to catch the attention of the reader. The final outcome of formatting the magazine in such a way is that even though the child cannot use such complicated words (which can come with practice) the child is still able to give enough attention to detail and convey the experiment to the point and perform the experiment.

The experiments and other forms information presented in my magazine are concepts that anyone can understand by observing their surroundings and using house hold materials to make and understand the concepts. The core of my magazine is any compromise on the materials can be made as long as the concept is alive, well-understood and functions in that explanation or experiment

The success of any online initiative is dependent on our ability to build a community. This will be a digital magazine published monthly and sent to the subscribers of the magazine. Additionally, a text-only version will reside in a blog which will also have an interactive section. This will help the subscribers post comments, ask questions and share their experiences. This will inspire, excite and educate the young minds.

There will be a home-page on Facebook titled “UNREAL BUT REAL” where new release previews will be shared, subscriptions will be offered and join the community to contribute articles and share reviews will be available.

One would also have the option to download the digital version on kindle which can be purchased through an amazon account.

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

Considering the fact that this was my first attempt at producing and creating a magazine, it seemed daunting at first.

The materials were as accurate to the original as possible and were photographed in birds’ eye view, worms’ eye view, close ups and wide shots.

I chose these camera angles to better portray the experiment and support the detailed information with an equally clear photograph.

I took photographs of the different material required for the experiment with my background as grass.
A previous attempt at conducting the experiment out in the open failed as
Number 1 my set up was wrong and I could not think straight in afternoon sun

Number 2 There were many insects around me and I could not stay still and focus for taking photographs.

Green, is also a color that gives the mind a sense of being calm and at home. This minute detail is also an important factor that keeps people hooked to the magazine and this is true especially for children as they have a less attention to detail and move on to only things that fascinate them.

During production I did a study on the common eye movement (refer to my blog on “Creating a layout that makes use of common eye movement”). In this blog I talk on how the spacing of the content can greatly impact the way the reader perceives the information and other major factors that play a role in the overall quality of the article.

The trouble with an experiment is that first you have to conduct the experiment after which you have to try and photograph and capture the moment when the water is flowing through a tube or when a chemical is reacting. etc.

The experiment was tested out by my grandfather and myself before the actual photo shoot for which my father also helped.

So, while I was photographing the experiment, I had to figure out the timings to which my father and grandfather would start and finish the experiment.

I also learned to adjust the lens to capture the photo and tried out different light and dark settings for enhancing the photos. Right form setting up the experiment using props during the photoshoot which required daylight to illustrating the text and the contents and cover page was an adventures journey. I experimented with the software that I never used before and understood its nuances.

It was both a challenge and a thrill to work with an entirely digital magazine. By analyzing and breaking down the relationship between magazines and the readers I understood both parties’ view points and was able to create content that was not only information based but also content that has experience and life to it in a digitized format.

How did you integrate technologies, software, hardware and online?

I wanted to use day light for the first shoot (consisting of the materials needed) to portray the materials in the field with a more naturalistic background giving the viewer a sense of familiarity and an earthy feel to materials.

I was able to start working in illustrator, and within an hour or so I was able to progress well.

As I was already familiar with how Photoshop worked I was able to edit the photographs to fit my purpose.

I got the feel for the software, and was experimenting with the features that it provided. I initially tried out the brush tools and did some sketches. Then I wanted to try and import an image to see if it works like Adobe Photoshop. The spiral tool and flare tools intrigued me as they were both very unusual tools. I used a lot of lighting  and blending effects in photoshop to edit the photographs.

I used Google drive as a means to transfer work I did at home to school and vice versa.

I used illustrator to draw the cover page and the double spread layout along with supporting illustrations. I took pictures of primary sources and edited them to make them fit into the magazines’ house-style using photoshop. I also practiced working with rectangles and squares to represent the buildings in my magazine cover page.  

I drew a leaf on illustrator and this task was the most interesting of them all. It was a little experiment to see what scale of illustrator I can use to draw and see how good my drawings can be here. Although it was a tracing of photograph, it proves that if you spend enough time you can make a drawing a lot more detailed.

Finally, I used in-design to bring in and compose the said content and illustrations to fit a magazine format.

 The hardware used were my HP laptop, my DSLR Eos camera and Copic markers to do the text illustration.

I analyzed and researched on science magazines and blogs online, as well as followed You tube tutorials for aspects of the software that I did not understand. During my entire coursework I updated blogs to give an idea of the journey of my magazine.

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