Fri 13th Lesson

First of all apologies for not being there today. I'm alive and well, but not very mobile.

I am sure you will all be able to work productively without my assistance, having completed preliminary tasks of a high standard.

Here's my checklist for you today (VERY IMPORTANT: Please also read the previous post below regarding working on photoshop in school)

Please finish your front cover and upload it to your blog by 5.30pm.

I will look over them all at this time, and give you critical feedback.

Your blog at present should have:

·     Copy of Questionnaire (Planning and research)

·     Graphs with accompanying analysis

·     Masthead research

·     Front Cover Anlaysis x2

·     DPS Analysis x2

·     DPS Presentation

·     Front Cover photoshoot plan

·     Front Cover mockup

·     Front Cover with commentary

As promised, I will not set you half term homework as I am aware that you have plenty of revision for Ms. Furlong’s module. However, I would expect to find your blogs up to date.

If you do get a chance to do so during half term, please do take some (appropriate) photo’s for your Table of contents or Double Page Spread as it will save you some valuable time.

Thanks for your hard work this term. I think you've all made some good progress and some beautiful publications. Have a good rest, work hard and play hard and I will see you all in the new term.

Mr Lau

Working on photoshop in school

To avoid crashes in photoshop, please follow this advice:

Before working on photo's or any other graphics. I would advise you to save a copy of the original image in the DELL folder on the C: Drive. 

Working off large photoshop images hosted on H: drive or Media (M: drive) can cause problems when the network is busy, hence the crashes last week. I would therefore advise you to copy your work to C: Drive in to the DELL folder and save your work regularly.

Before going home, you can then copy and paste the work that you have done, back on to a memory stick, your H or Media drive.

I hope that helps and prevents further crashes.

Task for Friday 6th Jan

Plan your front cover image before the lesson. PHOTSHOOT.

Remember shoot two, one on a plain background. What did you learn from your prelim task? What was difficult? How can you overcome this?

Remember most magazines will be protrait so frame accordingly.

Awards for DPS Presentation will be announced at the end of the lesson.

DPS Presentation Awards

After hours of deliberation, the winners of the DPS Presentation awards were as follows:


All Star Award

For excellence in all areas: Design, Delivery Style and Analysis.



Christina opened strong by defining the audience of her magazine, using social group profiling and naming her audience as mainly C1/C2. Her presentation started with a high standard and continued with a thorough analysis and really informed her audience about her DPS.



Her presentations style was calm, confident, yet casual. She made her audience comfortable by not overwhelming them with too much information and spoke clearly and passionately about her DPS.



An "All Star" performance. Well done.



Overall score: 24/30











Design Award

For creativity and excellence in Design.


Lydia took a daring approach by opting not to use the standard MS Powerpoint template and to re-invent the style of a typical presentation. She sourced vibrant images from photobucket and other sites on the internet, but then laid these out with a fine artistic quality.

Her slides informed the reader about the type of artist and re-packaged the somewhat "standard" DPS in to a multi-scensory experience.


The audience was wowed by her design and each slide was a refreshing variation on a theme.




Graphic Designer, Carl Stratton described it as "brave" and complimented her for not being afraid to manipulate the images in an extreme way.



A stunning design which showed a great application of all the design principles learnt throughout the course.

Certainly a designer to watch in the future.



Design score: 8.5/10








Style Award

For excellence in the delivery and style of the presentation.


Many people lacked enthusiasm about their DPS, so this was a very difficult award to give out. In the end, I felt that Lucy's use of timed animations. Her relaxed demeanor, professional dress and confidence in her presentation gave her a slight advantage.



She came well-rehearsed and did not simply dump her script on to slides. Her use of ICT was professional and overall, this was a pleasing presentation.



Style score: 7.5/10

Analysis Award

For excellence in analysis and overall content .

It is difficult to strike a balance between depth and breadth of content and analysis in a 6-minute window. However, Tyrone's confidence in media language ensured that he could (quite casually) deconstruct a DPS and show the readers why he thought the DPS worked and how it conformed to and challenged media conventions.



He also managed to present this calmly and casually, addressing the audience like peers/friends. This somewhat unconventional and unprofessional approach worked well in this case as it ensured the audience could understand quite complex terminology being used.

Analysis score: 8.5/10




Work in progress


All art work was mastered by Graphic Designer Carl Stratton and supported by Ariane Gras. The pieces were completed primarily using Uni Posca Paint markers.





Carl working on the Style award:




A final word



My main advice would be to present with passion and enthusiasm. Often, presentations will decide whether you get a job, the highest grade at university or A-Level or a multi-million pound contract in industry. It is a chance to showcase your work.

Think about how you can be different, creative, professional, confident and an all star presenter.



Do your work justice by coming prepared, involve your audience, incorporate all the vocabulary, skills and knowledge since September. Do not be afraid to bring other subject-knowledge in to the mix. Finally, have a clear beginning, middle and end.

If you scored over 20, you did well for a first presentation. Please do take on my feedback and do not be disheartened, there will be more awards in the future.

Those interested in custom canvases, please e-mail Carl directly at: mail@carlstratton.co.uk

Well done for your efforts on your first media presentation. Hopefully you can apply what you have learnt to all your other subjects and presentations later on in life. Please keep up the hard work throughout your coursework.




Next awards will be for:

• Planning and Research (Blog)


• Photography


• Production Skills-Photoshop editting, Front Cover, TOC and DPS


• Evaluation (Blog)