Creative Critical Reflection

I know it is very late, but I am now going to post my Creative Critical Reflection, in which I reflect upon my project as a whole. It has taken me quite a while to figure out how to post this file online. Although it may seem I waited to the last minute to post this, I actually had done my CCR earlier, but apparently did not save it and thus had to redo it as I went to go and post it. Also, I had no idea you had to like create a website and everything else, and I had a seriously busy weekend, and yeah I should not have waited this late to work on it when I was not sure what I was doing. The file was also too large so I wasted an hour and a half of the website and everything was a complete mess.

Here is basically my final script for the CCR.

Critical Creative  Reflection

I never realize when I started this project that I would enjoy it this much, the project is now coming to a close and I’m going to reflect on this process as a whole. This project was an amazing experience and I’m very glad to have gotten to do. Not only was it fun and enjoyable, but it elaborated and expanded the skills I have acquired over the year. Plus it taught me patience and time management, not just to go nuclear anytime something goes wrong, skills I will be grateful to have for the rest of my life. What I feel made my experience so enjoyable was my ability to be able to combine some of my favorite things, which are photography, reading, writing, dance, and psychology (for in my research I looked to the Langlois study, as well as the American Psychological Association, and in my magazine I quoted the findings of the Sigmund Freud).   

Questions: How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

1. My magazine Dancing Through Life both utilizes and challenges the conventions of typically dance magazines. Typically dance magazines appeal to an older audience, typically the 20-something year old struggling dancer. With the simplistic appearance of the cover, the articles included, as well as the models/dancers used Dance magazines are geared to an older, more mature audience. I wanted my magazine to not only appeal to that group, but expand it to a younger audience as well. Dance is one of America’s favorite past times, especially for young girls in a mid-high economic status, and to exclude them from the target audience of a dance magazine is hindering to the magazine’s success. So while my magazine does have a simple cover of a dancer showing great concentration and technique, the model is younger than most models pictured on the covers of dance magazines in order to appeal to that younger audience. The masthead has a fun, yet eloquent font style, instead of a plainly written masthead of the typical Dance magazines that are currently being distributed. Also, the articles not only include important,meaningful articles for dancers and choreographers, but also fun quizzes and trends to capture the younger audiences attention. Also, a lot of dance magazines talk about more mature topics going on in the dance world, but none of them really discuss issues within the realm of dance. So basically they talk about facts and observations, but not really the implications of trends and events.  Some of the pictures included in my magazine show girls ages (13-17) in revealing, tight clothing in order to emphasize the idea that dance is oversexualizing young girls, because this is a trend that is happening, but is going unnoticed and this is the best way (in my opinion) to draw attention to the issue as well as address it.

Question: How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

2. If I were to distribute this magazine in real life I think the best way would be to make it available digitally, as well as through subscription, but not in stores. Very rarely is a dance based magazine found in stores, either in bookstores or at the cash registers at the grocery stores. Since there is such a limited audience for a dance based magazine, selling it in stores would be a waste of money (printing excess copies and distributing across the country) since it would not catch the eyes of the general public since it is so specific. Through subscriptions only a certain amount of magazines would be made, and go to the avid and engaged readers of the magazine, giving them something to look forward to every month. Distributing it online not only allows for easier accessibility, especially in the fast paced and materialistic world we live in people want everything to ready and available at the palm of their hand (or as the case may be the screen of their phone in their hand); but distributing online also appeals to the younger audiences I am trying to reach. Kids and tweens are basically attached to their phones and computers, and this way they can read the more kid-friendly articles and take the quizzes with more ease than flipping and skipping over parts of the magazine. I think what will engage my audience and keep them interested in reading my magazine is not only my use of photos and layouts, but the fact that my magazine talks about real world issues rather than just solely reviews and trends in the dance world.

Question: How did your production skills develop throughout the project?

3. I think that throughout the duration of my project my production skills improved enormously. I had never really worked with a site such as joomag or made my own magazine/layouts that needed to be both engaging and professional. The creation of my magazine pushed me out of my “yearbook-layout” comfort zone, in which the goal is to fit as many pictures as you can on the page (because let’s be real nobody actually reads the stories in a yearbook). I needed to find a way to place pictures that enforced what I was saying, but did not completely distracted from the contents of my articles. I obtained the criticism from fellow classmates that if they were to be reading a dance magazine they were not sure they would want to be reading too much, but I feel the issue at hand needed to be talked about in detail.

Although I did not use Photoshop much in my project, or any other photo manipulation tools for that matter, I did attempt to familiarize myself with the softwares, and feel if I need to use anything like that in the future I will be more ready. Even using a digital magazine site like joomag.com I think really helped me with not only my skills in with technology, design, layout, and everything, it also helped me with important life skills. Initially I was very frustrated and annoyed with joomag because It was not as easy as I thought it would be, it took days of trying to figure it out and a ton of mistakes to actually figure it out, but this made me a more patient person, as shown by the fact that I did not smash my laptop into the wall out of frustration.

Question: How did you integrate technologies- software, hardware, and online- in this project?

4. For this project I used very few technologies. I used my mom’s amazing camera and tripod, joomag, blogger, and microsoft. I wanted to use softwares and technologies that I was comfortable with instead of messing up my images in attempts of using Photoshop or Google Nik. Do not get me wrong I tried to use both, it just did not work in my favor. I feel I did not have the time, due to poor time management skills, to use these programs to their fullest potentials, thus I chose not to use them at all.  Using all of these different technologies and sites that I was comfortable with  did introduce to me to a whole new form of media. I used sites and programs that encompassed different areas of media. From a place to write, to a place for magazine layouts, to a place to express and reflect upon my learning and process. The use of all of these things together really brought my project to life, and allowed for my voice and ideas to be heard. Had I not used all of these different online sources that were available to me, my project would definitely be lackluster and fall below where I would like it to be and know in my mind it could be.  

I am truly grateful for this experience, and I hope the work I put into this project pays off. Thank you Taylor Barton.