University Work

This page is designed to inform you on what I have been doing at university. My modules from third year include newspaper and magazine production, online production, my dissertation and my work experience module (which can be found on my blog).

In this post, you will see:
Print module (first and second term)
Online module (whole of third year)
Online module (second term of second year)

Print Module

Throughout my time at university, I have develop many useful skills for the future. For example, InDesign. This has been something which I ended up using everyday in third year when my group and me had to create two 60 page magazines. InDesign is a programme which many publications use so it was vital for me to learn how to use it.


Frankie Says I Do - First Term of Third Year
(We managed to create an online version for our magazine, however it does take a while to load on here so please wait a few moments!)

Frankie Says I Do is a UK supplement for the Australian magazine, Frankie. My group and me decided to create an alternative wedding magazine because there was nothing like it out their on the market. Our aim was to create a personal wedding magazine which the readers can relate to and they can really get to know the people we interviewed. The wedding magazines which are currently on the market are cluttered and has a 'catalogue' feel to it. We decided to use Frankie as a guide because we all love Frankie magazine. Its quirky yet simplistic style is why we love it so much. The pictures in the magazine provide colour to the magazine and they are not afraid to use white space.
We found all of our own interviews and took a lot of our own pictures. We edited them using Photoshop and created the entire magazine using InDesign. This has probably been the module which I have enjoyed the most. You're allowed to be as creative as you like and you had the freedom to choose whatever magazine you wanted to create.
After receiving 80% for this magazine, we were all over the moon and thrilled! And even better, we won Print Magazine of the Year which was a great achievement and something which we are all extremely proud of.

Awards night: Our award and a picture with our print tutors!

On Location - Second Term of Third Year

On Location was a magazine which is very different to Frankie Says I Do. For starters, it does not have anything to do with weddings because it is a one off supplement for the UK magazine Total Film. And secondly, it is very, very colourful. This was something which was out of our groups comfort zone, however, we all like a challenge.
Our group firstly decided we wanted to create a travel magazine. After a lot of meeting over chip and dip (our favourite snack) we all agreed to make a magazine which incorporated travel and film. The idea of our main feature in our magazine, Seen on Screen, is that we give the reader information on cult and classic films that they can go visit the set of. The magazine allows the readers to not only see where the film was filmed at but we also give them a few facts about the film and the location as well. This was out my comfort zone because I don't know a lot about films but after researching into the films, it became a lot easier. The design aspect was also a challenge because we wanted to reflect Total Film's magazine; bright, colourful and full of images. I believe that my group achieved this very well and I feel very proud of what we have created!

Online Module

Pretty Natural - Third Year

prettynatural.co.uk

For our online module, we had to create a website. Again, this module gave you so much freedom as you could choose any single topic for the website.
Our group came together and we decided to create an all natural product website. This involved writing blog posts using WordPress about natural products which we reviewed and creating our on homemade DIYs. The name 'Pretty Natural' is kind of like a disclaimer. We state on our website that not everything we talk about is 100% natural, but it is pretty natural.
This project lasted from September 2014 until May 2015. We had a year to produce a high standard and functioning website with lots of posts and a few of our own videos. This was another challenge because non of our group had used camera equipment since first year. However, we were determined to make videos for our site.
I really enjoyed this topic because I gained a lot of online skills from this. I was able to learn how to create tabs, pages and categories for our site. This was something which I believe is very useful for the future as many websites use WordPress. We also learnt about copyright law, privacy policy and editorial policy which again is extremely important when creating a website. We learnt the basics of how to edit our WordPress site but alongside this we did learn the necessities of what all websites need to protect our site.
These are the videos which I made for the site:

Student Wardrobe - Second Year

https://studentwardrobe.wordpress.com

In this project, we only had half a term to create an entire website with social media. This site that we created was a site especially for students who are on a budget and are interested in fashion.
Our site had regular features such as Spotted on Campus. This involved seeing what the students of our uni were wearing and what were the recurring fashion trends were. We interviewed them and posted this onto our site to show our readers the current trends.
As well as fashion, we also incorporated beauty into our site. This again had the theme of students on a budget and this included posts such as '£10 make up challenge' which involved me going to my local Boots and seeing what products I could get for just a tenner.
This module allowed me to learn the very basics of WordPress and prepared me for the third year module.