Problem solving

1. PROBLEM SOLVING

2. PRACTICAL AND
TECHNICAL PROBLEMS
EQUIPMENT- I'm not too sure whether I will be taking
photographs or I will just be creating graphics. If I do decide to take
my own photographs I will use a college camera, I will take along an
extra memory card, if for some reason the camera goes wrong I
could always use my phone. If I do interview people face to face I will
use of a voice recorder, I will also keep the original recording just in
case someone turns round and says that isn't what they said.
POWER- If the computer
crashes or the power cuts out. I
have decided on two solutions, I
will try to remember to save my
work regularly, if there is a power
cut or the computer crashes I
wont loose much work and even
if I don’t save till I started I would
only loose a days work. My other
solution is when waiting for the
computer to unfreeze I can write
my articles or create a mind map
or a list on what I could improve.
BACKING UP- Throughout my FMP I don't want to
loose any work during this project, to prevent this
happening I will regularly save my work.
After ever day at college I will back my work onto another
memory stick under a folder under the date. If I ever loose
a work I can retain it from my other memory stick.
WORKING AT HOME- At
college it is the older version of
Adobe where as on my laptop it
is the newest version. Before on
other projects I have struggled
with using my laptop and then
not being able to access it on the
college laptops. To fix this
problem I will save my work
differently when using my own
laptop, or what I can do is bring
my laptop into college.
SOFTWARE- At college I use the Adobe
software, most of my product will be created in
InDesign or Photoshop. If the software doesn't
work I will try reload it if this doesn't work I will
move to a different computer.
STORAGE- On my memory stick I have
two years worth of work, this means I
barely have any storage on my memory
stick. If worse comes to worse and I run
out of storage I can use my emails and
desktop to store work until I can buy a
new memory stick.

3. I don’t want to loose any work during any project,
especially not this project! If my computer decides to
crash or my file has become corrupted (which has
happened before) it can be a right burden to restart
your work all over again. The last time this happened
it took me days to get my work back to the state it
was in before. When I produce my work I try to make
it into a detailed product, if I lost my work at the
production stage I wouldn't have enough time to
complete the project which I want to show to
everyone. To prevent this from happening every day
I will try save a copy of my work under a folder of
the date on the work I did. This means if something
did go I could revert back to this and I wouldn't have
to start all over again. I will also save my work
regular. If I did end up loosing my work I think the
end effect on my product would be disastrous. I feel
as though I would have to work really hard to try
catch myself up and even then it might not even
work and I will still end up with a messy unorganised
BACKING UPWORKING AT HOME
Over the two years I have come across some
problems which have hindered my production work.
Last year I found this problem between my laptop
and working at college. The software which I have on
my laptop is more up to date than the software at
college. When I am working at home and I save my
work on my memory stick, it wont let me open the
document on college computers and wont let me
convert the file to the older version. In the space of a
year I have found out how I can fix this problem. The
best thing to do is save the file as ‘CS4 or later’
format. This has meant that I can access the
document on the college computers. If I decide to
do work at home and forget about saving it in this
particular way then I wouldn't be able to do the work
which I had planned to do on this day. If this was the
case I could bring my laptop into college and use my
laptop instead of wasting a day doing something
which I hadn't planned on doing. If I ended up
wasting a day because of not saving my work
properly I would be very annoyed as it might make
my production time rushed, the end result would

4. At college there is a large option of software, the
software which I use is Adobe. Most of my product
will be created in InDesign and Photoshop, one
software which I want to be able to use is Illustrator
this is something which I will learn at the end of the
week. I hope the software works throughout the
production time, but if it doesn't I will try to reload it
and if that still doesn't work I will move onto a
different computer and see if that works. If this does
work I will have most likely have lost the work which
I have completed in the lesson. This wont impact my
work a lot but it will leave me a little bit behind.
SOFTWAREPOWER
This is a problem which hasn't occurred to me before
but it could be an unforeseen problem which I didn't
know how to solve it. I would rather think of all the
contingencies which might happen. This could be
anything to the computer crashing to there being a
power cut. My main solution would be to save it
every hour or every 20 minutes, if something does
happen I wont be far behind because of saving it
regularly. If the computer does crash which is quite
normal, I will have saved my work and hopefully I
wont have lost any. Even if this does happen, I wont
want to waste time as I feel like if I wasted time it will
have a negative impact on my production. Instead of
wasting time if I could do anything by hand I could,
this could be anything from a draft of an article or a
list of things to do.

5. THEORETICAL PROBLEMS
INTERVIEWS- In my product the main thing subject is
based on peoples role models, for this I will need to
conduct interviews to find people role models. I have
conducted interviews in the past and it has been quite
difficult to conduct and get responses. Maybe this time I
will do fact to fact interviews instead?
WEATHER/ LOCATION- When I start with
my project, I want to make sure it looks aesthetic
and professional. This will rely on whether I will
be taking my own images. If I do go out and take
images it relies on whether the weather is good, if
the weather is bad it will make the location look
very depressing, this might effect my project.
FINANCE- I want this project
to be very professional, to do
this I will have to pay for things
out of my own pocket. I have
decided that every week ill try
save some money up over the
next few weeks so I can afford to
travel to see my interviewees as
well as get my work
professionally printed. I want to
make this the best project which
I have created, hence why I am
adding extras into it.
PRODUCTION TIME- With
my FMP deadline it is very
important that I stick to the
deadlines, I want to have as
much production time as I can,
this is why when it comes to the
week before my production I
want to make sure all my work is
completed so I don’t have to do
anything in my production time.
PROFESSIONAL PRINTING- As I have stated in my finance, I want to get my
fanzine professionally printed, I think this will make it look more nicer and more
appealing when I try get my product out, if I get it printed then if I decide to enter it
into any festivals it will look better than just printing it on paper. I will print off the
copy at college and re read it and edit it then finally send it off to be printed. I want
to make sure there are no mistakes so I want to print it a few time to make sure it is
perfect.

6. In the past, I have struggled with conducting my
interviews and getting responses within the time I
have to produce my work. For my fanzine I emailed a
feminist society and they seemed very keen to be
involved in my feminist fanzine, they never replied
which meant I had to find more people to interview.
I think I wouldn't experience this problem if I
conducted the interviews face to face. This could
also mean I could take an image of them to show
the reader who I have interviewed, this might be
difficult if I want to get people all around the world
as it wont be physically possible for me to go over to
their country, to get around this I could
facetime/skype them and record the whole
conversation with a camera so I have a back up just
in case. I think this is very possible but I will have to
see what the people are like when I approach them.
INTERVIEWSPRODUCTION TIME
For this project I have seven weeks to finish my
product, I think for the style of fanzine I want to
create and the amount of pages which I want to
achieve, I hope to get loads of pages and articles
done within this time. If I don’t complete in my
production time, I have a gap of 1 week before the
invigilator comes in, if I really need to use this time I
will come in every day to try get my work finished.
This would be very unforeseen circumstances as I
have always got my work in before the deadline, this
is also a longer production time so I think there will
not be a problem with production time. I think the
worst impact on running out of production time
would not be making the product the best product I
can make.

7. At the end of this project I want to try and get my
work out there, once it is finished I want to add it on
issu as well as trying to add it into fanzine
competitions. This is why I want to see if I can get it
professionally printed. This is not cheap and as you
can see I have researched the different printing
options. I think this will also help with my portfolio
as I will have a professional looking fanzine which
will hopefully attract. I think by the fact I am paying
out of my own pocket I will try my absolute best
with making sure everything is perfect as I will only
be able to afford to print my fanzine of once. It will
also motivate me to make a fanzine which is unique
and what people will enjoy reading. It wouldn’t be
the end of the world if I couldn’t afford to get it
printed but I think it would have a large impact on
my fanzine as I will feel proud of my work.
PROFESSINAL
PRINTING
FINANCE
To make this project the best I can I wanted to add
as much in as I can. This means that I will have to use
my own money to supply things. I hope to keep
saving money throughout the months to have
enough money to send my work off to print. If I
conduct interviews face to face, I am asking someone
to take their time to be involved in my interview. As I
am asking someone to stop whatever they are doing,
I will most likely meet them at a coffee shop and pay
for their drink to say thank you. Another cost which I
will have to think of is transport, if I need to travel to
the person to interview them I will have to get a train
there or drive there. This will depend on whether the
interviewee is based. I think if I interview by email I
will end up chasing people up to answer the
interviews, I also feel like I will be able to get more
out of the them if I interview them face to face.

8. PROFESSIONAL PRINTING/ MIXAM
WEBSITE
• https://mixam.co.uk/zines

9. PROFESSIONAL PRINTING/ EXWHYZED
WEBSITE
• https://www.exwhyzed.co.uk/products/zine-
printing/

10. PROFESSIONAL PRINTING/ DOXZOO
WEBSITE
• https://doxzoo.com/documents/zine-
printing

11. EXPERIMENTS

12. EXPERIMENTING WITH THE GRAPHICS
TABLET
It has been said that using a graphics tablet might be easier to use when I am creating my illustrations
rather than just using my mouse. This is something which I was really interested in looking at. I have never
used a graphics tablet, this was very obvious when I plugged it into the computer and had the tablet the
wrong way round, after I corrected this mistake I started creating an illustration of Obama. I got an image
of Gloria Steinem and tried to recreate her face, this was quite tricky as it was difficult to not wobble when
creating the lines. This is obvious with the right hand side of her hair. I think the good thing about this
experiment is the wrinkles, I created a new layer and turned the opacity to 5% to create the effect. I think I
need to work more on the hair as well as trying not to be very wobbly.

13. EXPERIMENTING WITH THE GRAPHICS
TABLET
I want to try use the graphics tablet when
creating my headings as I think it brings a
aesthetic look onto the double page spread. I
think it also adds a little more detail into my
fanzine. Initially I had a very hard time trying to
get accurate lines as I was still trying to learn
how to use the graphics tablet. After I while I
started to get the hang of it. The experiments
on this slide were the best ones which I
created. My favourite fonts are the ‘Michelle
Obama’ and the ‘Emma Watson’ text. I think
the ‘Michelle Obama’ text is very aesthetic and
detailed. It is very delicate which I like. I think
the other two fonts are very messy. When I am
in my production weeks I will take this into
consideration and decide which font would
look more attractive on the page.

14. MAKING IMAGES LOOK LIKE ILLUSTRATIONS
• From my production research, I research how I would make images look like illustrations. With the results from this
research and some of my knowledge of the software I have found my happy medium of doing this experiment. I used
an image which I had taken against a plain background and then added different filters on the top of the image. I
think this worked really well as I got a mixture of results from this product. At this point I don’t know whether I want
to have my whole fanzine in an illustration format or whether I should have some images. If I decide half way through
my production that I want to have some images in my product I would like to use this type of technique to make
them differ from other fanzines.
Original
Stained
Glass
filter
Grain
filter
Fresco
filter
Cut-out
filter
Poster
edges
filter
Water
colou
r
Filter
Stamp
filter

15. PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHS
• From my production research, I researched how to take a good portrait photograph using two YouTube videos.
Using the four tips which I researched I started to experiment with the camera and a model. I wanted a relaxed
atmosphere for these photos as well as making the model look flattering. The main thing which I was
experimenting with was the different angles, I wanted to see what an eye level angle would look like as well as a
high level angle. I captured 50 images and only 3 of them I liked, this is something which I need to take into
consideration when I take a portrait image for the interviewee.

16. • At the end of the shoot I wanted to try the different settings on the
camera, I decided to use the portrait setting, this is the 3 images above. I
think if I used the setting more I could have got to grips with it but I
liked the other images.
PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHS

17. PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHS
To ensure that I get the best images
when I take my images of the
interviewee I will make sure I have
similar settings to the three images
which I liked. To find out the settings of
the images I opened them in Photoshop,
then went file and file info. This brings
up all the information on the photo, this
includes the ISO, exposure and the lens
which I used. The image to the right is
one of the photos which is the look
which I wanted to achieve, I wanted a
relaxed atmosphere and a natural look
on the model. The screenshot next to
the image is the settings of the camera
when this image was taken. This will be
helpful when I take the photograph of
my interviewee I can quickly adjust the
settings and shoot.

18. PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHS
Compared to
the other image
on the side
above the ISO
has changed, in
the image on
the slide before
the ISO was 640
and on this
image it is 800.
This means that
the exposure is
higher in this
image then the
other one. The
lens is still the
same.

19. PORTRAIT PHOTOGRAPHS
This image is the
same ISO which
is featured in
the slide above.
Throughout all
of the images
the pattern
metering is all
the same.

20. FRONT COVER EXPERIMENT
…
Using the same title as the fanzine which I have previously made I
created a front cover. This was a very basic front cover as it seemed as
though that’s what my audience wanted from my survey which I
conducted. I used the two illustration experiments which I had already
conducted. This was a very quick experiment, now when I look back I
would like to make a more detailed front cover and see which one my
audience likes the most. I think what would be very interesting would
be if I added a cover line linking the illustrations to the topic of the
fanzine. The top of the front cover looks very plain so when I am in my
production week I will make my front cover more interesting with a few
cover lines.

21. ILLUSTRATION EXPERIMENT
…

22. ILLUSTRATION EXPERIMENT
This was the first illustration experiment which I
completed was this style of illustration. I really like the
end product but all the steps through the experiment
was very agonising. This experiment took me over an
hour to complete with all the little details. As you can see
from the slide above I started with the lips, this is a very
defined lip as I wanted it to standout against her pale
skin colour. I used a ligher pink to define the lip colour
even more. I then outlined the fae and neck, I added the
hair in which was surprisingly very easy and then the
black shoulder. When doing the eyes I found it very
difficult to create the eyelashes as I wanted them to look
exagerated but not too extravagent. The eyebrows were
very easy to do. I then started to shade in the different
colours, I found this quite complicated as I wanted to
have different skin tones at different light points. As you
can see from the screenshots on this slide you can see
the process of all the different colours. But I really liked
the final experiment. When it comes to my production
period I will decide which style I would like to create.

23. …
ILLUSTRATION EXPERIMENT
This illustration felt very easy to do compared to Emma Watson
drawing. I didn’t want to add a lot of skin colour onto this
drawing as it took too long on my first experiment with Emma
Watson.
I started off with the hair, in all my illustrations I struggle with
doing any set of hair, I find it hard to draw and over complicated,
I looked at various images of Oprah Winfrey and reached an
overall judgement on how to do her hair. With the hair coming
round the face and in front of the shoulders it helped with
creating the face shape. I then started with the facial features.
After trying to make realistic facial features I started with the
colour of the skin tone, as I have previously said I didn’t want to
mess around with the colour as I had already experimented with
doing that for my first experiment, I used Oprah’s actual skin
colour from the images which I looked at, I then used a lighter
skin colour for part of the forehead. I think the only thing which I
was unsure of is the red/orange blotches on the face, this was
meant to bring some definition into her face but looking back at
it now I think it looks silly. The shoulders and neck was quite easy
to do apart from when I was doing the right hand shoulder the
black top looked weird next to the raised shoulder.

24. INTERVIEW EXPERIMENT
My project is focused on interviewing people so I thought what would be better than experimenting with
conducting an interview. I interviewed sim who was in my class, seen as though it was an experiment I
decided to use a Tascam recorder after learning more about it in my research. I felt as though the
interview went well, seen as though Sim doesn’t know much about feminism I decided to make her into
an singer songwriter as I feel that is an easier way of interviewing someone. I created 10 questions which
asked Sim about her singing career, these were just guidelines as I think it is always good to go off on
tangents when interviewing someone. I kept following up with little comments which she made which
ended up with a good interview. Before I started the interview I tested the recorder, seen as though we
were in a busy café I wanted to see how it would work seen as though this is what I will be doing when I
go out to interview people, surprisingly the sound levels worked really well and I was happy with the end
result. This experiment makes me very excited to when I get into production. I think the only thing which I
would like to improve when I go out and interview is work really hard when it comes to the interview
questions, they are only a back up and a subject starter but I felt like they could have been more detailed.

25. UPDATED PROBLEMS

26. DATE PROBLEM SOLUTION
04/03/2019 When I started my planning I had no
idea what content I wanted to include in
my fanzine. I felt this was because I
didn't do enough research and I didn't
notice what contents were breaking up
the articles.
Go back and look at different fanzines.
See what contents they used to break it
up. Add this details into my research
PowerPoint and how this has impacted
my planning.
13/03/2019 When I was creating my flat plans I
wanted to create the type of text which
will be at the top of one of my articles.
When I started up on Photoshop my text
seemed very shaky and not very smooth.
After asking Dave what I can do he
suggested to try illustrator, after you use
the pencil tool it automatically smooths
the lines out. This was good to know as
it will help when I am in my production
week and I can create the text on
illustrator so it looks more professional.
18/03/2019 When creating the titles in illustrator I
didn’t like the size of the pencil as it
looked way too chunky for a delicate
title which I want to create.
I googled how to decrease and increase
the pencil size. After looking at the
website adobe i found a forum which
asked the same question. I found out
that to decrease the size of the pencil its
“[“ symbol and to increase it is ‘]”.
21/03/2019 When creating my titles today, I noticed
that when I drew curved lines it added
extra lines and made it look rounded.
This is something that I didn’t want as I
felt it look very messy and
I googled what this could be. I came to
find out that there was an existing
stroke, to fix this problem I had to make
my brush size smaller and my stroke a
larger pt.

27. DATE PROBLEM SOLUTION
28.03.2019 When drawing the fonts, I felt like it was
adding detail which didn't need to be
added. Originally I had planned to draw
all the titles myself so it looked more
handmade and aesthetic. I now realise
that this does not matter, looking at
some of the fonts it looks handwritten.
I have decided that I will use fonts from
dafont.com. I think this will be so much
easier and I will have more time to
perfect my illustrations, article and
poems.
03.04.2019 When experimenting with my fonts I
came across the fact whether in a fanzine
the title fonts should all be the same,
originally I had planned that they all
would be different fonts, but looking at it
now I feel like it doesn't look right. My
problem now is what font I should use.
Look at the front cover which was
popular in my audience research what
the font looks like. As I want to get a
homemade and written style. After
chatting to Dave I realised that the fonts
which I have previously chose aren't the
same style, I wanted to go for the
calligraphic style and some of the font
which I have chosen doesn't match this
style
06.04.2019 When I was looking through my
planning, I noticed that I had wanted to
take photos of my interviewees. I knew
this was going to be a problem at the
start of this project because I wouldn't be
able to travel to India just to get a photo.
Instead I asked the interviewees to write a
brief summary of themselves to the
audience can relate to them without
seeing them. I could have asked for an
image of them but then it wouldn't have
matched with the style of my fanzine with

28. 13.04.2019 When I was improving my production
work, I struggled with getting the text to
go on the same line.
To make it end of the same line I had to
correct some of the character styles so
the text was more spaced out and had
more space between the line above.
When correcting the character styles, I
finally got it to end of the same line
16.04.2019 I started to finish my product when
another tutor spoke to me about the two
images on the feminist page, saying that
they don’t really match with the
illustration theme, I completely
understood.
To make them more graphic, I started to
use the filter gallery on them so they
looked more like the theme of my
illustrations, they don’t look like photos
anymore, instead I think they look better.
20.05.2019 With my printed off finished fanzine I
tried to staple it, however my pages were
too thick to staple.
To fix this, I used a staple gun to staple it
all together, I then had to bed the staples
down in the middle of my fanzine to
bend them down. This was a very easy
solution and works very well.
DATE PROBLEM SOLUTION

29. USING ILLUSTRATOR INSTEAD OF
PHOTOSHOP
• As I have previously said in the slide above how Photoshop makes my
lines when using a graphics tablet very shaky and not smooth. This
image to the left is an example of what it looked like after drawing one
word of my title. At the bottom of this slide is the text which I created
using illustrator, straight away you can see the difference. I didn't want
my work to look messy and unprofessional as I wanted all my titles to be
neat and precise. I'm glad that Dave taught me how to use illustrator
and how I can get my titles to perfection. When in illustrator I also
messed around with the different brushes and fonts which I could create.
After messing around I created this text in the blue colour, this was a
different font to my earlier experiment but I think it looks more
professional and it was more of the look I was going for my first double
page spread. Considering that I haven't used illustrator before it was
very easy to navigate around and create a bit of text which I might add
into my actual fanzine.

30. PROBLEMS WITH ILLUSTRATOR STROKE
On the 21st March I noticed that
when creating my titles I was getting
a round corner which made my titles
look very unprofessional and not
neat. I decided that I would ask my
tutors why this is happening, they
had no idea why this was happening
as they had never seen something
like this. I decided that I would
google a solution, this is something
which was brand new to me as I
didn’t really know how to use
illustrator. It turned out that the
stroke was too small for the size of
my brush. Instead to create the thin
design I had to make the brush size
smaller and the stroke bigger. This
worked really well and I was happy