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Annotated bibliography complete

Earlier this week, I was able to complete it. I uploaded it as a draft to Turnitin, and it was only 15% plagiarized. I am happy with that because it was only the book names with their authors that had been copied.

I need to upload my final version to Turnitin, and then upload it as my final to the assessment area of my course. I also need to complete a self-critique which I have never done before

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My Essay

The title will be: Do specialist food magazines have common approaches in their visual communication?: Examine the graphics and layouts of specialist food magazines’ and how they communicate with their audience.

To gather my research I have looked into books, both paper and electronic and also video - from TED. I am going to use all three of those sources as reference.

I have not found any secondary sources. This is because I wan not sure where to find them as I wanted them to be reliable as well as opinionated.

I found it hard to obtain all of the sources necessary for reference. This was because other than semiotics which my tutor suggested that I should look into. I was not sure how to find examinations of page layouts and designs. But once I got my head around looking at ‘Editorial’ design, rather than only magazine design, I did find it much easier.

During the process of completing this essay, I would have researched a lot into semiotics and editorial design. So from linking my research into my chosen magazine pages’, it will help me become more in tune with page layout and the thoughts that viewers/customers can gain from viewing different things.

As I have previously mentioned, my tutor did suggest that I could look into semiotics. I have found several books within this subject which I will hope to use as reference in my bibliography. From my peers giving me suggestions in which theme to look at with would become the theme of my essay, a few of them did suggest to look into magazine layouts and also typography. I have also included books where it does mention about the structure of a magazine and what can be done to make it look impressive.

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Rung up publisher

I did something I never thought that I would have to do in my life.

I have a book and it does not say who the author is, just the ‘writers. I did type them down, plus the two main editors, But then I decided to ring up the publisher to find out who the author was

The woman on the phone did not now either, she asked me to email my question in, to see if anyone could answer it for me

I feel proud of myself for phoning, as I am not confident with phone calls and sometimes it is hard for the person on the other side to understand my voice because of my disability.

Until I get a reply I am going to keep it as the writers and editors.

In a couple of days I should have finished the draft of my bibliography, I will upload it to Turnitin

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May not use references from the Libary of Birmingham

Now I do have a lot of references that I could look upon. I may try to avoid the ones from the Libary of Birmingham not because they are with no interest to me and my essay but because I cannot take these books out. These books will be very hard for me to relate my work to if I cannot take them out.

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Warwick Library - quite a while away by bus

Last Saturday I did visit the library at Warwick University. It took an hour and a half to get there by bus.

Anyway I visited this libary as it is one of my closest uni libraries that has the books in it that I need. I was able to apply for a libary pass because I was given approval by SCONUL.

This libary did have lots of books that interested me, done I want able to have access to because they were either e-books or they had been taken out already

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Library Visit

Today I visited the Birmingham library to take a look into some books which I may use as my research

Crow, D. (2010). Visible Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics in the Visual Arts. 2nd Ed. Lausanne: AVA Academia

Dabner, D & Calvert, S & Casey, A. (2010). Graphic Design School: a foundation course for graphic designers working in print, moving image and digital media. 4th Ed.  London: Thames & Hudson

Meggs, P B. (1991). A History of Graphic Design. 2nd Ed. John Wiley & Sons

Noble, I & Bestley, R. (2018 Visual research: an introduction to research methods in graphic design. 3rd Ed.  London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts  

Quinn, A. (2016). A history of British magazine design. London: V&A Publishing

(Just then I found it hard to reference as with some of the books the Libraries dates are different to dates off other websites)

I was not allowed to take these books out so I have taken some photographs of the wording so I will be able to say how each book could possibly help me in my Bibliography task

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My Essays Title

I have now decided what my essays title is going to be. It will be:

Do specialist food magazines have common approaches in their visual communication?: Examine the graphics and layouts of specialist food magazines’ and how they communicate with their audience.

Below shows a document showing how I came up with this title. I have included the references that I will take a look at to see if they are relevant to my essay, also what makes my work unique, and how it will help me in the future with my own practical work.

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Bibliography

Both yesterday and today I have been trying to find work and text that can relate to my magazine layout study

I have looked online into the catalogues of two different libaries, which it is possible for me to get to.

Some of the books I cannot take out, this is a pain for me as I cannot reach the photocopier to take photographs. I can always take photographs, but these did not turn out as well as I hoped last time. This was because of the distance between the table and me sitting in my wheelchair is not that high, I cannot take a picture of the whole page.

I have been advised in a way to fix this, using a selfie stick to position my phone higher so that the whole page can be seen in the camera.

I have also been looking at the talks on TED, I have found one relating to typography and design, and is part humorous that I might use

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Essay theme is going to be on magazine layouts

I do like looking into examining layouts and graphical concepts in many graphical formats, such as posters, logos, websites and magazines. I do like discussing what I think is well done, and what I think could be improved with each piece of work, even if I am just talking to myself. I have also enjoyed a module that I completed within my HND course. In this module, one of the tasks I had to look into was three different genres of magazines. I then looked very closely into the layouts, type and the who design of certain pages and to redesign those pages, with influence from their target audience.

Within my essay, I can carry on with discussing my thoughts of the pages. I can go one step further and compare magazine layouts and designs with each other. I will really enjoy writing my thought down, not that there is a purpose, rather than just pointing my thought out to myself or in a discussion with a friend.

From writing this essay it will help me in my future designing work. What I mean by this, is that I will use my research of semiotics to help me produce designs and layouts. Yes, I have written about what can be signified from certain images and text but not knowing this system is under the name of semiotics. Now I know this I can look more into the actual title semiotics and see if I can find and research that can support my opinions.

The theme that I decided to go with was editorial design. With this, I will look into magazine layouts and their designs like I said earlier. My peers, tutor and family helped me get to my decision on my essay theme.

One of the peers explained how I could look more in-depth with each theme that I chose. I did like the advice she gave with looking at the layout and the typography used in both ‘The Face’ and ‘Fuse’ magazines. When I started looking into these two magazines, I realized that ‘The Face’ has now stopped production so if I was going to commit to this magazine I would have to spend a lot of time to find these magazines and money purchasing them. I Googled ‘Fuse’ Magazine and it did not appeal to me as I could only see the front covers, there were half-naked women on them. I later found out that I was looking at the wrong magazine.

One person from my family, (who is also studying a degree), said that he enjoyed looking at my own magazine layouts, I feel like he most enjoyed this theme as he said that he has created some magazine designs before. From this, he then suggested that I could maybe look at a genre of magazine and discuss the layout, type and images that are used.

My tutor did like the idea from my brother, she suggested that to increase the volume of my work that I could maybe look at more than one magazine in a certain genre. She also advised me to make my essay more academic that I should add some aspects of semiotics to it. I had not heard of that word before.

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Feedback From My Peers

Sarah

She gave me some very positive feedback.

She said that she really appreciated the look of my PDF document and said that I have worked very hard with this activity. She also pointed out that I have used  PMI (plus, minus, interesting), which is very similar to a brainstorming activity, she said that this format has helped her reach a conclusion.

She then struggled to give me any feedback on which theme to choose as she said that Suzanne had includes a lot in her feedback.

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Magazines sorted

This Tuesday I went to my Slimming World class and spoke to the consultant about my magazine essay theme. She gave me one of the magazines, I felt special because I did not have to pay anything towards it.

Today while I was out I went into WHSmith and looked at the recipe magazines. Two took my fancy. Vegan Life, because it was colourful and had different coloured and sized typography on them from the page. And Delicious, it was decorative on the front cover with a photo and type.

Later that day I decide to swap the Delicious magazine with a different one. This was because both of the Delicious and Slimming World magazines are both to do with dieting and eating healthily. I wanted to swap it will one that was similar to the vegetarian/magazine and Slimming World but at the same time was different by include recipes that are not as healthy. Do I decided to swap it with BBC Good Food as there is a variety of different recipes in there

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Magazines

Tomorrow while I am out I will have a look at the different recipe magazines in  Solihull to try and find the right ones to use

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Chosen My Theme

With great thought and lovely feedback, I have decided to base my essay on the magazine theme.

I am going to look at 3 different magazines

Slimming World

A magazine with nutritional recipes

One of the various Vegetarian recipe magazines

With all of these, I will look at the graphical content within them, such as; layout, type, the use of pictures, and sizes.

I an not quite sure what title to give my essay yet. I have uploaded a few ideas

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Feedback from my peers

Suzanna

She pointed out three out of my four themes that I could look at into more detail.

She suggested that for my magazine theme that I could look into the layout and the typography for both ‘The Face’ and ‘Fuse’ magazines. She then advised that I could look into Vince Frost who also had done some magazine designs. I could then compare the three magazine layout/typography, or I could focus on one, and go into great detail.

She said that Paula Scher designed a lot of album covers in a short space of time, it was maybe for Atlantic records. And that quite a few post-modernists started their careers designing album covers. She suggested a couple of names to look into- Neville Brody and Jamie Reid.

She thought that I should not avoid my packaging and net ideas as that is something that I am interested in. She thought that I could look at packaging around one item, or how packaging effect people with limited movement and look at the way it is/can be solved.

My Thoughts

Looking at Suzanna’s feedback she has given some more great ideas for where I could lead my work.

I would really like to look into the magazines that she had suggested, but there were some negatives with that:

‘The Face’ magazine has now stopped so I would only have the internet to relate it to

There is a book to do with ‘The Face’, but it is not available at a library near me. Gorman, P. (2017). The Story of The Face: The Magazine that Changed Culture. Thames & Hudson.

‘Fuse’ magazine does not appeal to me as I could only see the front covers, there were half-naked women. Fuse Magazine Online. (2014-2019). The Fuse Magazine. [Online]. Available at: www.fusemagazine.com/the-fuse-magazine [Accessed 09/03/19]

I can only find one book best suitable to Vince Frost with his magazine designs, this book might only have a few. Frost, V. (2015) Design Your Life. Australia: Penguin Random House.

But a positive in doing this I found a book that includes 100 different magazine covers. I may have a look at this book further to see if there are any aspects that I can work with. Taylor, S & Brody, N. (2006). 100 Years of Magazine Covers. London: Black Dog Publishing

After having a quick look at Paula Scher’s album covers I began to admire her graphical styles in some of her album covers. I then looked at both Neville Brody’s and Jamie Reid’s type of album design. Both their styles are a bit more similar to mine so I may work around this for my essay. I will look into this in more detail.

I also like her ideas with looking into packaging that aids people with disabilities. Or if I cannot find one, try and create one in my essay writing. I am interested in this as I do have a physical disability and sometimes find it hard to open packaging.

Suzanna has messaged me saying that she was meaning a different magazine called Fuse, one by Neville Brady. I am able to purchase all of these magazines, but at a high price I have to be sure on if I want to look into magazines first

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Feedback off my family

I decided to ask both of my brothers who are doing their degrees on which topic they think that I should pick.

At first, one of my brothers did not know which theme to suggest because they all looked interesting to him. He then advised me to look into vectors more as I had more ideas for what to do with that theme than my other ideas.

My other brother suggested that I look into the magazine theme. He said that my magazine layouts look professional. I then proposed an idea that I could look at one magazine that has been around for decades, and explain how the layout and design have changed. He then advised that maybe I could look at a selection of magazines in the same genre, and see the similarities and differences between them.

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Tutor’s Feedback

During my discussions with Dawn about my essay, I kept on mentioning that I do have an interest in vector designs. I have made a few in my personal time.

She suggested some starting points that I could maybe look into:

Graphic/illustrative portraits used on vinyl/CD covers

Graphic/illustrative portraits used with packaging

Look at how wedding invitations are designed today

Vectors used in food packaging

Look into a particular magazine

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With my top four themes of graphic design, I created a document saying why I like each theme, showing images of my own work related to each one, ideas of what I could look into within each these and also pros and cons relating to my ideas