Gigi's News

In order to develop my own sketchbook/journal (blog) I had a look at how famous writers used their sketchbooks. I decided to stick with writers because it is most relevant to Journalism or Media and Communication. Sketchbooks are used by artists as a place to keep their initial ideas and thoughts. Sketchbooks contain all sort of writing, drawings and ideas because it is a place where artists can use their creativity to help them develop work. The image shown below is an excerpt from Fyodor Dostoevsky's Novel 'Demons'. The page appears pretty messy and filled with writing. A sketchbook our journal is used to keep track of any inspiration from an artist so the drawing on the left side is probably there as it helped him picture the story. There are  also crossed lines showing mistakes, a trial and error process maybe. Trying out different handwriting is seen on the left as well. All of these are ways that helped him develop his novel.       Sketches of Demons by Fyo

                Module: Media Project 1 As you can see below, these are the 20 ideas I came up with for my project. There are a few I find  interesting especially the ones focused on the mind such as dreams, memory or personality disorders. The idea that grabs my attention the most is 'dreams'. I have recently watched a video on why we dream and what they mean. I thought it was pretty interesting and maybe could create a video myself or write an article on the subconscious. An article would be easier to complete, however a video would be more interesting especially on this topic. Milanote planning: These are the ideas I came up with until now.  I added 4 resources- 2 books from the DMU library and 2 online magazines. (will research more in the following week) My inspiration came from an episode of 'The mind explained' on Netflix                  

This Blog has been the showcase of all the work I have done for my Digital Arts module for this term. In the first few weeks I did not fully understand all of the steps that needed to be posted probably because I was unfamiliar with this module so in every post I received commentary that I needed more detail and that the writing wasn't enough. Overtime I got used to the way it worked and clearly understood that I needed initial ideas, process, research and reflection for all my work. I tried to keep up with the amount of 3 blogposts per week so I could receive feedback and eventually have time to change something without getting to the final weeks and having loads of work to complete. I think I have done quite a lot of research and learnt from it. One thing I improved with time is the reflection and showing critical commentary. Overall I believe my blogposts have all the information they require

  Article: As I mentioned on a previous blogpost, I thought that it would be so hard for me to write a 1000 word article so I decided to choose a wide topic hoping that it would enable me to talk about many aspects and reach the word count. I wanted to talk about something interesting and relevant to today's world. So I narrowed it down to something close to my progression route, and that would give me a better understanding of Media Studies. A Feature news article is certainly more complex to write than a normal news article because it uses creativity together with facts. In this project I learned the difference between the 2 styles of writing and this improved my knowledge and writing skills if I have to write a future news article in the future. The main challenge I faced was adjusting the style of language  because in my other modules I was taught to write in an academic way. I think the final outcome of the writing is quite good and I've been trying to do my best but I

Having completed my article, I started to think of how to display my writing. I also reconsidered the fonts used in my website and I decided change them from 'Futura' to 'Reklame script' and 'Palatino Linotype' because I want to distinguish the 'About me' title from the rest of the writing. Palatino Linotype is slightly sharper and I think it looks more like a newspaper/media typography . The initial idea was to use flip book to display my article. After Nixon told me he would use a flip book for his article about football I pictured it and I thought it was suitable because many news about football are or were presented in newspapers and magazines. However I have never seen a feature article in a newspaper, so I didn't think that recreating a newspaper using a flip book would be a good idea after all. When I did my research on The Guardian I looked on how the features were presented to have a better perspective. I eventually chose to create

When I emailed my draft to my tutor Bettina, she answered with this email and highlighted the problems within the article and then we met so we could discuss it more in depth. When we met, she said that the only major problem is the style and language used. I wrote the article using complex words when instead I should have used everyday language. She suggested to use the word 'our' to identify myself as part of the audience. She also told me that the word 'enhancing' might not the best word to use with panic as the connotation is positive and it might be used to say 'improve' or 'made better'. Unfortunately, I used this word on the title in my approval form and I told her and she said it's fine because enhancing can also mean to 'increase', however a different word would have been better. The anecdotal paragraph she refers to in the email is this below: In my draft, I placed this paragraph at the end of the

Based on the UX Feedback, the majority of my classmates think that the layout of my website is appealing and clear to navigate. I'm glad because I think that these are the most important functions. Some said that the introduction paragraph to the major project should have more information but the article itself holds a lot of information, so I think the introduction should just give the main idea. Perhaps, I will explain why I chose this topic on a final reflection blog post.  All of my peers think that the font, images and contact form are appropriate. 28% say that my home page does not reflect my progression route but 71% say it does. I think there are many elements suggesting a website belonging to a journalist. For example,  the words 'Aspiring Journalist', the choice of images showing magazines, documents and a computer and also the button 'view my articles'. Most of my peers believe that I should add more image

Picture number 1.           Process of editing using Lightroom:  Spot Removal tool used on the right side of the picture to remove black lines on wall and Temperature (-7) found in Basic tools                   2.  Crop Overlay tool used in order to delete the undesired piece of paper on the left side and cut part of the wall to focus the attention on the subject. 3.  I used a number of different basic tools- Temperature (-10), Exposure (-0.12), Contrast (-19), Highlights (+7),  Shadows (-12), Clarity (+14), Saturation (+10)  At last I used the spot removal again to remove a small square shape that you can see on the top part of the picture in the first photograph Final Outcome: Picture number 2.                 Process of Editing using Lightroom: Basic tools used: Exposure (+0.60), Shadows (-43), Clarity (+5), Dehaze (+17)         2.   I used a Tone Curve and I increased the Lights (+10) and Darks (

 This is the first draft I wrote for my feature news article exploring how the media communicates a disaster to its audience  I will receive feedback from my media tutor on how to improve the work for the final piece  Reflection: At first I thought that it would be hard for me to reach 1000 words, but I found it surprisingly easy because the topic is vast and there are is much to talk about. The topic is also interesting so I enjoyed researching it and writing it. I tried to put the interview and other sources in a sort of narrative order so the reader would not be confused, however I might have to work on that. I also have to work on my word choice and language because it is formal and makes the writing appear like an essay rather than a feature article. I tried to be as creative as possible and overall I think this article sounds interesting.