This evaluation form provides guidance for evaluating creative media projects at Level 3. It recommends using appropriate terminology, staying concise and focusing on key points, evaluating statements, and focusing on work judgements rather than process. The document outlines sections for project overview, research, development, outcomes, personal response, evaluation, and analysis. It provides a framework to critically reflect on successes and challenges, and rate the overall quality of the completed project.

1. L3 Creative Media
Production & Technology
Year Two Evaluation Template

2. Evaluation Overview
This evaluation form is designed to assist you in the evaluation of your projects.
When using this form it is good practice to:
• Use appropriate terminology.
• Stay concise and focus on key points.
• Evaluate and analyse your statements.
• Focus on judgements about work rather than telling a story of how it was made.
Please find the grading matrix here to help you assess you are working at the right level.
Level 3 Extended Diploma Grading Matrix - https://bit.ly/2Jnqj3v

3. Project Overview
In this section you will outline the aim of the project/task and give an
overview of the activates you undertook to complete it.

4. What was the theme of your project and
what attracted you to it?
• The theme of my project was mental health and to help people speak
about it. Initially, the thing that attracted me to produce a product
like this was because the majority of my close family work in the
health and social care sector or have done for a period, and I know
people who are close to me that have suffered from mental health.
So, by creating a fanzine on this topic it is something that is close to
me and my knowledge going into this topic was very basic, which is
something I wanted and needed to expand on to not only have a
better understanding for my project but for my own personal life.
Another thing that attracted me to creating this theme of fanzine was
the interest I have in the industry of health and social care but also
how the media is affecting people’s mental health.

5. What research did you undertake and how
did it help develop your project?
• In terms of research, I did some basic research about mental health and specifically focusing on the
trauma aspect of mental health as one of my interviews was with Joanne Ward, who has specialised
in trauma since 2006; therefore, by getting some basic information on that specifically it would
have helped me when I conducted the interview as I could have asked about trauma and have an
understanding of it. By doing some more aimed research on mental health in the 1980s and 90s as
that is what I was going to focus on in my interviews, it helped me understand how things have
developed since I wasn’t alive to watch the portrayal of mental health change. This helped develop
my project as it broadened my awareness of the severity of suffering from poor mental health due
to certain things in your life, and it allowed me to have a personal connection with the product I
was going to make.
• Researching existing products was a challenge to do as mental health fanzines are scarce, so as an
alternative the existing products I researched were fashion and music fanzines. They were still
useful when it came to making my fanzine as each product I researched and analysed has a
different layout and style of how they present their information. This helped develop my project as I
wanted the key conventions of a mental health fanzine with pastel colours, handwritten style work
etc, but by analysing different styles of fanzines it developed how I would layout my product.
• Conducting audience research helped me decide the route I was going to take in terms of how my
product would be designed. The audience research confirmed I would create a product for 16–24-
year-old, however I was undecided on whether to do a colourful and bright fanzine or a more
sophisticated fanzine, which would still be aimed at the same age rang but be aimed at people who
are looking at this genre of fanzine in a more serious way – both fanzines would cover the
seriousness of it but they would have gone about it a different way.

6. How did you develop and improve your ideas
throughout the project?
• Creating a fanzine on mental health was always the initial idea, and when I started doing
some basic research on fanzines as I was unfamiliar with what one was and the
comparisons of a fanzine to a magazine. By researching different fanzines like ‘Sniffin’
Glue’, which was a big punk rock fanzine in the 1970s/80s, it did make me second guess if
creating a fanzine on mental health was what I wanted to make as I was struggling to find
any fanzines related to mental health; after doing more in-depth research on music
fanzines I decided to stick to my original idea, and I improved my original idea by
speaking to my mother, Joanne Ward who I used for my interview, about finding some
fanzines and magazines on mental health that I could look through to give me a better
idea on how I would go about creating a product that is to a merit grade standard. I also
developed my project even more through my experiments and proof of concept as by
doing the experiments it allowed me to see the different ways, I could make my product
look a certain way – the layout experiment was the most useful as the layout of my FMP
last year was something I struggled with and wanted to focus on this year;the proof of
concept was as helpful because it let me see what an example page would look like

7. What was the outcome of the project/task?
• Overall, I created an 18-page fanzine on mental health which included 2 4-
page interviews with two very experienced health and social care sector
workers, who both gave an in-depth interview. It also included illustrations
and help lines to contact if the reader needs help or just someone to speak
too about anything. The interviews were the strong point of the product as
I conducted them very well, and I cut down both lengthy interviews to a
reasonable size so the audience got the best parts of the interview instead
of pages of writing because I felt that if I put both full interviews it would
be too much for a fanzine as I wanted it to be an easy read. The weakest
point of the product was the illustrations as I am not very good at
designing and producing illustrations on photoshop, so that is a skill I need
to improve on for future projects.

8. Personal Response
This section will explore your thoughts and feelings about the
experience. This will help gain a understand of how your personal
feelings may have impacted the final outcome.

9. How did you feel about the project before
you started?
• I was confused on what the difference was between a fanzine and a
magazine was initially, but once I knew that I was still a bit stuck as I
had no idea what I wanted to do my project on. My initial idea was to
do the 90s rave scene as I did a google search on fanzines, and that
was the first thing that stood out to me, however I did my FMP last
year on that genre, so I wanted a try something different that I didn’t
have as much knowledge on. Once I had found my idea and had a
rough plan of what I wanted to create I was confident in my ability to
produce a good product to at least a pass grade.

10. What do you think about your project development and
how did it help you to refine your idea?
• My project development was very helpful when it came to finalising
my idea because I wasn’t sure whether to stick with my initial idea of
creating a fanzine on mental health or change it to a music genre like
punk rock or acid house/rave - this was because of my initial research
as I had a few good ideas for that genre of fanzine. Overall, my project
development could have been better in terms of researching mental
health fanzines by looking on Etsy, which I did later, but by finding and
researching them earlier on it would have helped my project
development as I would have been able to plan my products
differently.

11. Did you collaborate on your project or engage
contributors, etc?
• In terms of collaborators, I organised 3 interview originally with 3 people
who work in the health and social care sector. Each person had worked in
the industry at different periods of time, so the first interview with Joanne
Ward was planned to be about mental health in the 80s and 90s, which
was a successful interview. The second interview was planned to be with
Dale Ward to be about mental health in the 00s and early 2010s, which was
a successful interview as the comparison of the two interviews was a good
aspect of my finished product. The third interview was planned to be with
Jake Mawer to be about mental health in the modern day, which didn’t
happen as Jake had too much on with work and his personal life, so I was
not able to conduct that interview unfortunately. I think by having the third
interview it will have improved my product, but by not having the third
interview in it doesn’t mean my product has become worsened because of
it.

12. How did you feel when the project was
completed and why?
• When the project was completed, I was very confident with my final
product as a finished the production section with additional time to
spare, so I had time to look over my work and make sure of any
mistakes that I had missed like my spelling when writing up the
interview or images/information/illustration not lined up centrally.
After various feedback from my classmates, friends and family I made
some changes because of the feedback, so after the necessary
changes were made, I was very confident to publish it to Issuu and
put the final product on my Wix site. I was confident and happy at the
end of the project because of my organisation, which I have improved
on since my last projects as that is something I wanted to focus on.

13. Evaluating the project
In the previous sections, you have been commenting upon the project development. The
evaluation may include some similar information but it will also include critical comment.
An evaluation must include information about the good and bad points of the project and it
is important to be honest. Finally, you should make a judgment about the effectiveness of
the success of the project

14. What were the good points about the project/task and what did you
learn from them? [try and think of at least 3, more if possible]
• One of the good points about this project was my subject research as it really helped me
gain a better understanding about mental health, and specifically in the 1980s/90s as I
was uneducated on how the help for people developed and how having poor mental
health was portrayed in the media. By doing the specific subject research on the 80s/90s
it was more useful than doing it on mental health in the modern day as I have a lot more
knowledge on how it is portrayed in the media as I consume it regularly. Another one of
the good things about this project was the pagination and production schedule as I
struggled with my organisation in specifically my FMP project last year as I didn’t plan my
production schedule very well, so therefore with this project I wanted to focus on my
production schedule and pagination to make sure I finished the project on time, but that
I had a clear plan on what I was going to make and when I was going to make it. By doing
a pagination and production schedule it made me learn how important it is to create
both to a good level in order to design and produce a good project. Another good point
about this project was my page concept/proof of concept as it allowed me to get a good
idea of what I was going to create initially in my head, and how it would look as if it was a
full page. With previous projects I have struggled to get the ideas in my head into first
draft of pages, so by doing page concepts it made me learn the importance of them and
how much they help when referring to them in the production section of the project.

15. What challenges did you face and how did you
respond to them? Try and think of at least 3...
• One of the challenging points about the project was the interview
practice we did as a class. I have been an interviewee before for job
interviews and educational purposes, but I had never interviewed
someone before. I am a confident person so conducting the interview
itself wasn’t a challenge for me but thinking of questions to ask
someone on a topic I wasn’t overly passionate about, which made me
do research on the topic in order to ask interesting and open
questions was a challenge. However, once I started asking the
questions, I thought of follow up questions on the spot to ask the
interviewee, and since his topic was sport( specifically American
Football ) I had an interest enough to want to ask questions relating
to his answers but thinking of good questions was a challenge for me.

16. What were the negative points about the
experience, and what could you have done to
improve them?
• One of the negative points about this project was trying to plan and conduct 3 interviews
with 3 different people. It originally started as a challenge as since the people I was
interviewing were all close family, therefore it made it easier to contact them and ask
follow up questions to get them to be available for the interview. However, this proved to
be more of a challenge than I thought as they all have busy work and personal lives, so to
have time to answer the questions in their spare time was a big ask. I did manage to get
2/3 interviews, which was more than I expected, so by not getting all 3 planned
interviews the challenge turned into a negative, as I had to adjust the plan and
production schedule to fit my deadline, and it wasted time as I had written the interview
questions and information to go with the interview. In order to improve and overcome
this negative I could have planned only 2 interviews instead of 3, so I didn’t overload
myself with work, and I could have tried harder to follow up the interview by contacting
them more, or I could have planned an interview with another person in a similar line of
work – I thought I was struggling with time to finish this project on time otherwise I
would have conducted another interview with a different person.

17. How would you rate the final piece? [think along the lines of
poor, satisfactory, good or excellent...justify your rating]
• I would rate my final piece at a strong satisfactory/pass grade, but
with my production being as strong as I think I could edge into
good/merit grade. The reason for it being a strong pass grade is
because I have completed all the tasks to a good standard, however
some are better than some for example my production section is
stronger than my research as I prefer producing products instead of
writing about existing products. My final piece could be regarded as a
merit grade because I think my production meets the requirements,
but my written work would be the sections that would lower my
grade; therefore, I think my final grade will be satisfactory/pass.

18. What is your opinion of your final piece? What
elements do you think are successful and why?
• My opinion is that my final piece lived up to more than I thought. As I
had not made a fanzine prior to this project I was unsure how it was
going to go as I was used to creating a semi-profession/professional
magazine that has all the key conventions, but instead I had the
freedom of creating a fanzine. The most successful elements of my
project were the production and my organisation throughout the
project. The reason for my production being a successful element is
because I finished it on time to a good standard where I portrayed
different skills in photoshop, and it appeals to the target audience
very well. My organisation was successful as the whole project was
either completed on time or with time to spare to look over it all and
make the necessary changes due to my feedback or added details.

19. How well did your project apply the characteristics
and conventions of the medium you worked in?
• My project applied to the conventions of a fanzine by the information,
illustrations and design being catered for the target audience of a mental
health fanzine. In terms of illustrations, the majority of the illustrations
featured in my fanzine are from the internet and I have edited them a bit
but not massively. To add a more personal feel to the audience I could have
done more hand-drawn illustrations on photoshop or drawn them on
paper and scanned it. The information on my fanzine has been applied very
well to the conventions of a mental health fanzine as it is all relevant from
the interviews to the article to the helplines. The design of my fanzine
applies to the characteristics of a fanzine as the pastel colour scheme goes
well with the style, and the design of having a friendly and personal look to
it makes it more inviting for the reader, which applies to the conventions
very well.

20. How did you design appeal to your target
audience?
• My design appealed to my target audience as it was unisex 16-24 year
olds, so by having a relaxed and friendly design with a pastel colour
scheme it appeals to what the audience of a mental health fanzine
would be looking for, because originally, I had the colour scheme as
bright and bold colours, but it was overpowering and with the Dale
Ward interview the different sections of the page looked blocky, so by
changing the colours to more pastel looking colours it made it more
inviting for the audience to read.

21. Analysis
In this section, you will focus on the details of the project and make
sense of what happened in the project. You should demonstrate how
your decisions informed the project development and the success of the
outcome.

22. In what ways was the overall project a
success?
• The overall project was a success as I completed the project before
the deadline, therefore I had time to get more feedback and make the
improvements recommended by my peers and teachers. This was a
success because I have struggled previously with handing work in on
time, and because of this I did not have time to make the
improvements from feedback, so this was a success overall for this
project. Another success was thinking of an idea and sticking with it
because in previous projects I have changed my ideas a lot, and
mostly it has had a negative outcome as it has never been quite what
I expected to design and produce, but with this project it was a
success because I stuck with my idea and developed it as the project
went on.

23. What elements did not go well and why?
• The elements that didn’t go as well was the photography side of the
images I used. The images I used were either taken by me or taken by
the person; the images I took were not going to be used for any
projects as it was a photo of family members, so I had no intention of
using them – I did try and organize to take the photos again when I
found out I was doing this project, however due to other
commitments by the people in the images I wasn’t able to do so.
Instead, I edited the images slightly and added my own take on it, but
it still wasn’t as good as it could have been.

24. How did your skills develop during the portfolio? [remember,
skills aren't just technical, remember things like organisation,
time management, communication, etc as well]
• My skills developed during the portfolio as I learnt the importance of
time management and having a good production schedule to follow,
and this developed as the project went on because I learnt the
importance as the project developed because I understood how a
good production schedule helps you massively. Another thing that
developed was my photoshop skills as I learnt more things in
photoshop that I did not know how to do before, like adding strokes
around images, which will help me massively in future projects.

25. What meaning and messages did you want to
convey and were you successful?
• I wanted to convey the message that people are not alone when
suffering from having poor mental health, and that is okay to speak
out about it. I was successful in conveying that message as on
multiple pages I or the interviewees spoke about it, so therefore I feel
like I was successful when conveying that message.

26. What feedback did you get from your peers
and viewings?
• The feedback I received was very positive, however there was a few
changes people recommended I made it improve this project even
more. The main improvements was the opening two pages as people
said it lacked the vibrance from such a positive fanzine, and with it
being the opening pages of the fanzine it is something I will consider
for my future projects as if the opening pages aren’t good then the
reader will not continue reading.

27. What would you do differently in the future
and why?
• I would like to do more original illustrations instead of importing them
from social media and Google, which is a skill I need develop if I want
to feature that style for my FMP. By creating more original illustrations
I think it adds a more personal feel to the fanzine and feels more
homemade instead of industrially made.
• I would also take more and better photos for the full fanzine, whether
that is for the interviews or as a replacement for some of the
illustrations. I would do this because again it adds a more personal
feel to the fanzine, and looks better.

28. What knowledge have you gained that would help you in the
future to improve your project? Also, what knowledge from
academic literature and professionals has helped and why?
• The knowledge I have gained from this project such as the
importance of time management and the importance of thorough
research, which will help me massively for future projects because
the research is vital in gaining information on the topic that your
project is based on, and researching well it sets the project up well,
which allows me to create a good project. Having good time
management will help me in my future projects because it lets me
plan my project and figure out what I need to do by certain dates.

29. Action Plan
This section will identify what you would do differently in the future and
identify ways you could develop.

30. If you were making a similar project in the
future, what would you do differently?
• The things I would do differently was have a better back-up plan for
when things go wrong, for example not being able to conduct my
third interview because I should have had another person I could
have interviewed as well as Joanne and Dale. Another thing I would
do differently would be to take more photos as it adds a more person
feel to the fanzine, and it shows more skills being used.

31. How could you develop your skills for future projects? Please
identify the appropriate resources and courses. For example,
webpages, tutorials, books, short courses and qualifications.
• I could develop my skills by improving my production skills in
photoshop as using photoshop to a good level is one of my
weaknesses in my work, so by improving this through YouTube
tutorials such as - How to make your photos LOOK BETTER FAST!
Photoshop Tutorial – YouTube & Photoshop Basics: Everything You
Need to Know to Edit Photos – YouTube
• My research skills can be improved as well because when I find
products/material to research it seems the right stuff to research at
the time to help me later in the project, but later in the project it
doesn’t help as much as it could have, so that is something I will work
on.

32. What personal attributes could you develop to
ensure you are working at a professional level?
• Overall, the only thing I need to change to be working at a
professional level is to submit my work a bit earlier in order to get
feedback earlier, so I have more time to adjust and change the
necessary changes. Other than that, I complete everything that is
expected to the expected standard.