Research Report

For this unit i am writing a report to explain the purposes and methods of research. I will be talking about the advantages and disadvantages to the different types of research while also talking about my own personal experiences using these types of research.

There are 2 main types of research primary and secondary research. Primary research is where you use questionnaires, interviews and surveys to get information from members of the public in the hope of getting information to either support a claim your trying to make or to find out a target audience. Secondary research takes other peoples information whether its from books or even wikipedia and uses it to get data and figures to go towards your information.

During my time on this course i have created my own primary research this has been through creating  surveys that people can answer so that i can use the information towards a report. I feel that primary research can be extremely helpful because if you are trying to create a product or find out more about the product one of the most important things to find out is what your target audience will be. Questionnaires/surveys are arguably the best way to do this because you are getting actual answers from the people themselves. I have found this really handy when finding out information for my course project. There are disadvantages for example sometimes the person answering the survey may not be interested in the topic your trying to cover meaning you don't gather much information. One other drawback could be people not giving complete answers meaning you don't get all the information you need for your work.

This is a screenshot of my video game questionnaire i also did a survey for Levis both questionnaires have helped greatly with finding out what my final project will be and what will be my target audience. In my last course me and a group of other students did a focus group to get meeting notes towards our own ideas for a mobile phone app this allowed us to keep our meetings saved away and used as a tool so that we could go back to and get information from for our paper work. The only drawback to this is that there is a lot of pressure so sometimes when speaking you could mess up the information meaning that you will have to start again. Another problem is the recording equipment can be complicated to use.

In terms of secondary research i have used a variety of websites to get information related to the work i must complete. Secondary research is a big positive in that there is a massive amount of information you can get from secondary research such as history and viewing figures. For my Levis assignment i have done secondary research to find out about the 501 campaign i went on the main site to get history and sales figures. The site i went on is official so all information is true and updated. A drawback is that other sites information can be out of date or even not true so the best advice is to find official reliable sites.

Survey Report

For this unit we created a survey on our own specific themes and then allowed my classmates to fill out the survey. The information that i have received from this will be used as inspiration for my own magazine front cover design. The theme that I chose to cover is video games as being a writer in the video games industry is something that I would love to do for a career one day.

I asked a total of 10 questions in my survey. I attempted to cover both the print side of video game journalism (magazines) and the digital side too (blog sites and websites) this is so that i had a good idea on how important each form was. I also asked questions about there own personal video game experiences so i could find out what sort of video games should be showcased mainly whether its hardcore games or more mainstream games to fit the casual audience. 

The results

The first thing i wanted to find out was how big people are into video games and out of the information i got i found out that the majority was just casual gamers playing now and again while a couple of people who filled out my survey was massively into video games and another was in the middle loves playing video games but not too seriously. This was a expected result as we are in a busy time in our lives so finding time to play video games is getting harder to do. Other information I found out was that a majority was into action games like call of duty but there was still a audience for role playing games and i also found out that people are still into retro games just as much as modern games. 

The main information I wanted to find out though was how many people actually read magazines these days and from the feedback I got back it suggests that a large amount of young people don't read magazines with only one person saying that they do read them. This again is expected because we are moving into a digital age so print information is beginning to become a less used form of information. I found that in fact some people occasionally check out gaming websites for reviews and news instead of magazines. The benefits to this is that websites are regularly updated and most importantly they are free to use. A large amount of users check out mainstream video game sites such as IGN that also covers movies and comic books. 

So in conclusion the results have allowed me to conclude that gaming magazines and magazines as a general form of information is not as widely used as it once was. Gaming websites are now the main place to go for information and reviews it offers the same stuff but digitally and for free. This will greatly help me when it comes to working on my final magazine design I know what themes I should cover and what video games I should include. I also through the feedback will find a way to incorporate a gaming website into my magazine design. 

Music exhibition trip

1. The exhibition in the guildhall was displaying bands and artists that have performed in Portsmouth through the 1950s to the 2000s. This includes the guildhall itself.

2. Music lovers and people that are interested in Portsmouth history should visit the museum as they will find the past of music fascinating.

3. My personal highlights was the posters and memorabillia of the old artists from the past decades. Also photos of the acts performing in the guildhall added to the history and prestige of the venue.

4. The main thing i learnt was that so many different acts from the indies to the most famous no matter what genre have all come to Portsmouth and performed here.

5. This tour will be a inspiration for my design mainly the colours and layout.

6. To begin this review i want to point out that i thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition of music in Portsmouth. This museum ticked a box straight in terms of being a good museum in that they straight away made us feel at home making us realise we can relax and take our time when looking around at all the memorabilia. One of the tour guides gave us a very interesting tour of the recording studios showing the group how they record and play there music. There was also a brief history lesson about the man who set up the museum it turns out he was once a unofficial performer for Queen while the tour guides was once roadies. The amount of pictures and items on show was overwhelming to say the least with so much on display that i dont think even after touring the museum 3 times i saw everything. We even got to see a video showing the performance of one of the tour guides with famous acts that performed in the Guildhall. My favourite part of this exhibition was finding out that some of my favourite acts had actually performed here at one point and definitely has attracted my attention in terms of watching a show at the Guildhall in the future. I also loved the detailed information on the different decades of music from the 1950s onwards. I felt that the layout of the museum was absolutely fantastic as it was easy to follow and you didn't get lost when looking for a specific thing. Overall the experience was really good and i 100% recommend that everyone who is a fan of music and lives in Portsmouth come and visit this museum i know that ill definitely be pestering my friends and family to visit.

7. My tweet is:Amazing experience at Portsmouth Music museum definitely a must visit!anyone that is a fan of music please come visit its a must for all music fans!.

Production report about graphics

1. 210x297mm is the equivalent of a A4 peice of paper this is traditionally used to create articles and smaller designs. A4 is the traditional size for work documents.

2. 29.7x42.0cm is the equivalent of A3 which is used for posters and various other large designs. It is the size that is normally associated with art and design.

3. The term bleed is where a print goes beyond the edges of the paper that the design or print is being printed.

4. The reason you should outline fonts when sending a document to printer is so that the font can be printed out in a resolution that the printer is able to handle best.

5. When sending a file to the printer the colour setting should be set to cmyk ( cyan,magenta, yellow and key )

6. A serif and a sans serif are both typefaces that also act as a decorative line a serif is a normal small decorative line while a sans serif is a category of lines that do not use serifs.

7. Max Miedlinger created the helvetica type face font.

8. RGB stands for RED, GREEN, BLUE.

9. A jpeg is a format that is used to compress a file in order to be able to send through email.

10. PDF stands for Portable Document Format

11. A gif is a small file that is used for websites and animation

12. We use EPS is a standard graphics file that is used to exchange images and drawings it is a high resolution file with loads of data.

13. DPI ( dots per inch) it is something that is commonly mixed up with ppi in photography.

14. the minimum resolution for art work is 300 ppi.

15. Illustrator is a vector based program.

16. Photoshop increases the quality of older photos while also potentially adding aspects to photos that previously wasn't there like colour.

17. Indesign is a file that is used to create magazine documents and other forms of documents and even leaflets.

18. A juniour graphic designer is typically on 19k a year.

19. A starting salary for a senior graphic designer is on a minimum of 30-35k a year.

20. a creative director is on 93-130k a year.

Magazine Questionnaire

The chosen genre of my magazine is gaming.

1. What kind of gamer would you consider yourself? a) Hardcore gamer b) Casual Gamer c) Neutral

2. What genre of game is your favourite? a) Action b) Horror c) Simulation d) RPG e) Sports
 f) Puzzle

3. What type of game style do you like best? a) First Person b) Third Person c) Real Time Strategy
d) Point And Click

4. Do you read gaming magazines?  a) yes b) no c) sometimes

5. If yes what is your favourite? a) CVG b) Playstation Official Magazine c) XBOX Official d) Other

6. Do you read articles on gaming websites? a) yes b) no c) sometimes

7. if yes what website do you view? a) What Culture b) CVG c) IGN d) Game-spot e) Other

8. What is your favourite game to play?

9. Why is it your favourite?

10. what is your favourite console or system to play on? a) PC b) Playstation systems c) xbox systems d) nintendo systems

11. What is your preferred way to read gaming related content? a) magazine b) online

12. Please explain why?

13. Finally what do you prefer? a) retro games b) modern games c) both

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/D7TC6X3 link to online survey Create your own user feedback survey

Gaming Journalism logo/business card Samuel West

The area i want to work in is gaming journalism. Gaming journalism is typically a mix between both formal and informal as it is typically a relaxed environment and has a cool image but the content created is written in a formal way. Also gaming journalism can be very creative if you've seen a article it is filled with colour and images. Gaming journalism is its own big area in journalism and attracts a large group of people wanting to get into it.

  As you can see above is my gaming journalism logo expressing the career i want to get into. As well as my logo this also acts as my business card.

Media Portfolio

1. Freelancer.co.uk, Blurb.com, Weebly.com

2. The way that the websites are laid out is what attracted me and also the reputation that these 3 sites have.

3. On freelancer if your work is promoted through that site people will see the work and want to employ you also you can employ people yourself. Blurbs unique selling point is that it helps young writers promote there book through this portfolio. Can also give you statistics on sales etc. Weekly allows you to create a website and promote it.

4. Freelancer is free to sign up and upload but requires a premium membership in order to promote and get the best results. Blurb requires payments in order to create the books and weebly charges for websites being put officially online and promoted but is free to create websites. There is no trial period.

5. Freelancer allows you to add a set amount of money into your account similar to a bank account while blurb allows you to pay for separate products like a shopping site. Weebly has different charges depending on what type of website you create.

6. Freelancer allows you to upload all sorts of different projects from powerpoint to actual work while blurb allows you to create and upload images to go onto the book. Weebly allows you to upload images and videos onto your website.

7. Freelancer allows you to look at projects before you make a bid for them while blurb allows you to surf and look for examples as inspiration. Weebly has a inspiration centre showing other users websites that was created through weebly.

8. Here are examples of the work i liked on the 3 portfolio sites.

What i liked about all 3 examples was the professionalism behind them and how much effort was put in you can really see this is a massive passion for the creators.

9. Out of the 3 companies the one that i rank highest is Weebly i really love how easy it is to use i have used this site to create a website and the website was really good quality i also loved the layout of the website. The other 2 sites i like as well i really enjoy the idea behind freelancer posting your work and having people appreciate the work and even bidding to buy it. Blurb has a cool creative idea creating books and magazines and designing it how you wish.

10. Overall my favourite site is Weebly as explained because of the lay out but as someone who wants to get into journalism or potentially teaching my most used site would probably be freelancer due to the ability to make money from your work.