Evaluation

Evaluation – K1219829

During this module I have learnt to produce my own website during TB1 and learnt how to work and drive the team to the right path. Both terms I have learnt how to produce a website on Wordpress and produce many different multimedia products in a creative way. In the second term, I have done the same but this time I have been put into a group and we worked together as a team to produce our successful website together. However, there are some strength, weaknesses and things that I would love to improve as an individual and as a team.

My strengths are creativity, meeting deadlines and determined to improve. One of the reasons why I study Media Studies is because I am a creative individual and producing a website in both terms has made me express myself by producing two websites individually and in a group. Creativity helps me come up with new and unique ideas that I like to share with everyone. I am not a theoretical person, but I am definitely a person who likes visuals and this is why I think that is one of my strengths during this project. Meeting deadlines was perfectly fine as I was the project manager. Therefore I should give the same respect to my team as they will respect me by getting their work done on time as it is my job to push them to get the work done. My determination to improve is driven by competition that is surrounding me, such as other people who have produced fashion websites or friends that are also producing a well-presented website. This makes me determined to be better than everyone and to make sure I am ahead of everybody else.

The strengths on our website are quite a few. We have a lot of visuals which are images that have been produced after a fashion photo shoot. There are a lot of photos that have been produced and presented on our website, and it does lie within the concept of our website which is about fashion and photo shoots. The other best point of our website is the colour scheme. We went for a simple background (black), white font and a hint of pink to “spice” things up. We didn’t want it too simple, so we figured we should put a little pink to it.

Moving onto the weakness of the website, the weaknesses are time management, lack of different materials and meetings. The time management wasn’t too great as we all are juggling with other assignments on different modules. However, that wasn’t the big problem but the other problem was to find a make-up artist, photographer, director and models free on the same day. It was very limited time, and we did not have enough time to get enough material.

As Odd Form will no longer be part of our project, it still will be part of our own project as we are now part of Odd Form. This gives us enough time in the world to improve the website by producing different kinds of mediums such as videos, where we can produce teaser trailers for the next photo shoot or set a fierce mood by capturing action behind the scene with the techno music blasting in the background. We all still have amazing and unique ideas we would love to share and we will share in the near future.

Final Product

There are a few changes we have made with our website. Instead of having a lot of sub-categories, we figured out it is best to narrow our audience down and focus on one aspect which is about fashion photo shoots. Odd Form and the group have discussed what their aim is and they want to attract popular fashion blogs and magazines to make Odd Form popular and get the recognition they want.

The homepage is just a simple slide show that will direct the audience to the specific category they are looking for. Here you can see this is a beauty shot, which will direct the audience to 'beauty photo shoots' that has many different beauty shots on there.

Because this is a fashion blog, we narrowed the 'shop' down to 'clothing'. We do not have to list cosmetics and accessories, Odd Form is all about that odd clothing and that is what it is showing instead of filling up the spaces.

Process: Social Media

It is time to get the website some well deserved recognition. We created an Instagram, Twitter and Facebook account for Odd Form. However, we are mostly focusing on Instagram as it is a social network to express how you are feeling or want to share something with the world by using photos. Instagram and Odd Form have something in common! We have set an account on Instagram and posted quite a few photos from the previous photo shoots we had.

By gaining followers we simply hash tag our photos. For example, if there was an image of an apple we can simply add 'labels' so it can be easier for the audience to find it. To lead the audience to our photo we hash tag the image '#apple' or '#healthy'! If this gets a lot of views it could also become a new trend!

Planning: Meeting Dates

We have a couple of photoshoots that we have planned to do with photographers, make up artists and models. We also have times to meet up as a multimedia group without the 'Odd Form' group.  We have many things to do, as the project manager I need to make sure we meet on time so we do not leave anything until the last minute.

- Meetings with group:

• Discuss that everything is clear after the research and what we have planned for our website. 
• Discuss the times we are free to meet up with Odd Form.
• Give each person a task to do and make sure it is done by the end of the week.
• Keep updating the website
• Skype sessions at 8pm on Skype everyday for ten minutes to make sure team is working on tasks and support each other.

- Meetings with Odd Form:

• Book a time with the photographer, make up artist and models. 
• Discuss what sort of theme we are going for. Start to look for locations. 
• Accurate times to meet for photo shoot to avoid any delays.

Process: Scouting For Fashion

We all had this great idea to scout for good looking boys and girls with amazing, unique and 'odd' fashion sense! We hoped that the public would be nice about the fact we want to take a picture of them and post it onto our website to show the public what we mean by 'ODD FORM'! We went around Kingston Upon Thames with a lot of mixed answers. We managed to get only a few people to say yes, unfortunately no boys. Here is a sneak peak:

Research: Contents

Research: Contents

This is the most important and vital part of the website. We want to use as much content as possible as our course is a multimedia module. The concept of our module course is about the multimedia contents that will be used in our website. These contents will help us make our website to be interactive and have many different types of visuals to keep the audience inattentive.

• Text - It isn't only about whether the things that you read is written in a formal or informal way. But it is about the way it looks to the audience, the colours and font, whether it is easy or a hassle to read and whether is is comfortable to read or irritating. As mentioned before, there have been many websites we have looked at. Some were pleasurable to read, others have too many colours clashing. Not only that, but we need to have the font to be linked in with the theme that we have for our website. For example, if it is a friendly blog we need to link it in with a 'friendly' looking font, to invite that person to read. Or if the theme of the website is about a charity website we need to link the font with formality and not childish, so the audience can take this charity seriously. The way the text is visualised is very important along with the other contents in the website. We shall be looking for a 'professional' looking text to give the audience a professional vibe but the way we write on our fashion blog will have a friendlier tone to it. 
• Images - Most of the content that will be used for our website will be images. Why? Images speak a lot to the audience and creates stories in their heads. Images are also important to our theme as its about fashion, therefor there will be a lot of images showing these photo shoots, different trends to show the audience and images of make-up. 
• Videos - This will come in handy. We found a way of using videos. There are many ideas such as shooting behind the scene of a photo shoot, stopping people on the streets and ask for fashion dos and don'ts and edit some trailers to keep the audience entertained and keep them updated. 
• Audio - This is the hardest content to fit in our website as our website is about fashion and beauty. This would lay perfectly in other people's websites if it had something to do with music or travel. However this is beauty and fashion, we need to figure out how to use this content into our website. We thought we could have used a music playlist on our website, however it may annoy the reader as they might be listening to their own playlist or it may interrupt the videos that will be played. The audio will just be used in our edited videos such as pumping music for our trailers. Dialogues are under audio, therefore that is one type of audio taken care of such as models having a conversation on camera, or the photographer directing the models on film. Another type of audio that can be used are sound effects that could be used in our behind the scenes such as blooper moments. 

These contents will all be used in a creative and make it a unique thing for our website. This will be discussed before we start planning for our website. 

Research: Menu

Research: Menu 


There are different ways to make the menu on your website appear appealing to the readers. As a group we have discussed what sort of menu we are after. We need it to speak loud to the audience, flow perfectly and have many choices to pick from but at the same time avoid cluttering.

• Speak Loud: We want the menu to be bold in a subtle way. The layout of our website would properly be a very simple background however we want the name of our website (OddForm) to stand out by creating a statement. We don't want the menu and the name of our website (logo) clash with each other. The menu needs to be on the top of the web page and below the logo. 
• Go with the Flow: The menu needs to flow. What we mean by 'flow' is that we want the menu to become interactive in a way, flows perfectly and does not glitch. We want the menu to drop down a sub-menu for the audience to pick and choose what sort of category they are going for. 
• Choices to Pick From: We have five categories we want to put onto our menu, those are; About Odd Form, Fashion, Beauty, Extras and Shop. We still have to discuss the sub-categories for the menu that will break it down to different parts that are more in depth. For example in fashion, one of the sub-categories are 'Photo Shoots'. Fashion on its own is too broad, we wanted to narrow it down to some stuff such as photo shoots or blogging about trends. 

Some of the websites we have looked at in the past and present have been very helpful. We have looked at dozens of non-fashion and fashion websites. We have focused on the layout, text, images and material that has been used. The reason why we have focused on the layout is to see where the menu has been placed. We've looked at colours, whether the menu is responsive and what sort of sub-categories were on the menu. We have discussed the cons and pros of a menu on the website. We are becoming a step closer to figuring out the overall layout of the website, the menu and the sub menu.