This is the article I wrote for my DPS.

Identity theft isn’t a big deal; you go online you enter your details, you buy some bits and pieces, and you’re made up with your purchase. Someone else goes online, they buy some stuff and then buy more and more and more, they’re very happy with their purchases. However they’re using your details. Who cares, it’s only your identity, and it’s only A CRIME! Identity theft, like Chlamydia is on the up and if you’re not careful you could be a victim. Form a recent questionnaire that we carried out, results showed us that twenty percent of males and forty percent of females didn’t know how to protect themselves from identity theft. Also one hundred percent of males and eighty percent of females said they use the internet for shopping, meaning they are more at risk of identity fraud than people who don’t shop online. Shockingly sixty percent of sixteen to twenty-five year olds don’t use password protection. Are you one of these people? You’re more likely to use a condom then protect your personal information right?                      

There are many forms of identity theft, some you may not be aware of. They include card swiping, getting your post stolen, theft of your wallet or purse, using spyware over the internet and some thieves may even go through your bins to look for personal information. All of these things if you’re not careful could happen to you and you may not even realise it. Bet you can’t believe that 1.8 million people last year were affected by some form of identity theft, and there may be more as many people are unaware? Want that to be you? Identity theft is a malicious business and could not only affect you but your family too. Say you do happen to get your identity stolen by an ‘online conman’. Now that in its self it a major worry however this will not just be for the criminal’s personal use...

 Identity thieves are more often than not linked to organised criminal networks (scary thought I know) and they could be using your money to fund bigger and more dangerous scams such as human trafficking, illegal immigration, drug deals and terrorism. So by not protecting your details or destroying personal information you could be providing evil geniuses and criminal masterminds with the power to create things even more horrific than Jedward on speed. Think about it, spending a few extra minutes of your time on password protection/security is worth it when the consequences could be that bad. You’re not only protecting yourself, you’re protecting the country.

Now, if you’re still not getting the message and all you can think about is that awful pull you had last night here’s something that’ll make you shit a brick. When you think of identity theft you imagine getting your money stolen and maybe having to cancel your credit card. But imagine losing your job, getting arrested and being accused of paedophilia. That’s right, this actually happened to a man! An innocent man, and as grim as this topic may seem you should be scared because it could happen to you. Being an eager internet shopper perhaps like you, ‘Mr. X’ carelessly didn’t use any internet protection when buying or playing online, this ended up in his details getting stolen and unfortunately was arrested on suspicion of owning, downloading and selling indecent images of children over the internet. Long story short he now doesn’t talk to his family, is unemployed and well his life is pretty much ruined, however luckily the real criminal scum was found and jailed for a very long time.

But don’t panic just yet, there are many easy ways to stay safe and avoid life destruction. Firstly, think before you give away any personal details, is this website trustworthy? Sometimes it may be hard to tell, so if the website or company is not well known or you’re not too sure about it then it’s more than likely to ‘screw you over’. When it comes to your financial documents one way you can dispose of them is to shred or burn them, never just bin them as personal information can easily be taken this way. You can also install internet protection software, so if you’re lazy or just don’t know how to protect yourself, protection software does it for you. (Obviously check to make sure the protection itself isn’t a scam). Finally the easiest and most important thing to do is simply keep your wallet safe, and don’t be handing out your ID to anyone, particularly someone underage; you don’t know what they’re going to do with it. This is the easiest way for people to get hold of your identity, simply by picking your pocket. So remember think before you ‘do’, (this top tip can be applied to more than just identity theft, if you know what I mean).

evaluation write up

Evaluation Write Up

Producing my product look a lot of time and effort but in my opinion it was well worth it. I’m very pleased with the end product. I think the double page spread looks slightly armature and maybe with the use of extra brush tools it would look more professional, however I’m very pleased with the front cover. I think it could pass for an NME front cover. There was a lot of editing involved. Firstly, I had to shorted my article as it was slightly too long for the dimensions of the page and let’s say too wordy for what my target audience would want. At first the paragraphs were few and very long, but on the finishes product they were nicely balanced out to make my article an easier read. As far as the text to image ratio is concerned I think that it’s a good balance. The double page spread isn’t over power by neither image nor text but the image is big and striking enough for the reader to be entertained and kept interested.  I did have to compromise with the size of the font though. I think it would have improved the overall look of the DPS if the font was a little larger however, this would have meant deleting more of my article. Over all I did think my article put my message clearly as with the mix of humour and facts makes it an enjoyable read but still gets the reader informed, which is what I think readers of NME would enjoy. For my stories unusual angle I wrote my article in a slightly taboo way with inputs of sexual humour, relating identity safely with safety in a sexual relationship.

My images I thought turned out well. I enjoyed taking the photographs thoroughly and I think photography is one of my strengths; however the images I’d say are more informative than inspirational. My photographs are like a warning, you won’t inspire to be the person in the photo as they are a victim of identity theft. I suppose it would be seen as a positive as the reader would feel superior to the person in the magazine making them feel good about themselves, unlike when a young girl is reading a fashion magazine and gets depressed because she’s not ‘perfect’.  So therefore my images are a window to the future self of what could be you but not what you want to be you. In both my images the eye line in on the top third of the page, or just below. There is no superiority in the photographs as both people (models) are in bad situations so I tried to keep the eye lines level.  The model in the foreground is a victim and the model in the background is the identity thief. I purposely chose similar looking models, petite, short hair, pretty, unsuspicious looking. As much as they look the same they are so very different. The model in the background (criminal) has a darker skin tone and darker hair, to make her look more dark and mysterious, like she has a secret to hide. The model in the foreground is fair with light hair and in a dress to convey a more innocent appearance. The models I deliberately dressed them in black and white stripes for a hint of an old school ‘jail bird’ look. I was going to hand cuff them together but I decided not to as I thought that it would be too much and wanted to keep the image simple.  The expression in the models eyes is also very different. The model in the foreground looks rundown and fed up where as there is determination and perhaps achievement in the eyes of the model in the background. The emotion in my images I’d say are moving. You feel sympathy for the girth in the foreground. For my lighting I used two different types of lighting, so I’s get a dark moody effect in the background to make the (criminal) more dangerous looking. The lighting I used was butterfly and narrow lighting. butterfly lighting in the foreground to create a lighter tone on the innocent person and narrow lighting in the background to create an ominous, dark shadow.

My introduction is a sort of reverse shock style I suppose, it starts of quite light headed then, about 3 sentences in the shock factor is brought out.  I chose to do this because not thinking you’re going to be shocked then being shocked is much more shocking then being shocked straight away, sort of like identity theft. You don’t know it’s happening then, boom, you’re a victim. The language I used was certainly colloquial, as using a formal language wouldn’t have appealed to my target audience. The overall tone of my article is comical and informative, however it does get rather dark in one of the paragraphs just to put forward a little bit of seriousness and shock factor. The read speed is neither fast nor slow; it’s an easy going article and is meant to be an enjoyable read.

I loosely stuck to the three colour rule, using the main the colours of black, white and yellow, but occasionally using read when I wanted to make certain things stand out. With using a lot of yellow made the magazine look slightly industrially, but as the topic was on identity theft I thought using a yellow was suitable. I could however have use more alliteration etc in my article, but there was lots or alliteration on my front cover as well as the use of ellipsis’ and wordplay/ rhyme.

I chose to have three columns filling up just under half the page, the majority of the page is taken up by the main image and there is the use of a breakout box on the left hand side. I’m pleased with my text to image ratio as I think if there was more text it would be too text heavy for my target market.  The main focal point is the main image/photograph, which is placed just off centre to the right, I did this so the article didn’t get over looked. I think the images of a DPS are very important maybe more important than the article itself, after all a picture does speak 100 words. There is a lots of question headlines in the product as I think a question makes the reader interact more, it’s more personal. Using alteration and work play I think makes an article much more fun and memorable.

Final skills audit

This is my skills audit, it states what new skills I have learnt throughout the year.

Final Project.

Below is my final DPS and front cover projects. I applied all my skills I've leant throughout the year, such as InDesign and Photoshop tools to help create it. Some of these tools included the burn tool and the text wrap tool which I used the most. I learnt how to use these through tutorials throughout the year.

And this is my final front cover design.

Images for my dps.

These are some of the photographs I took that could have been used as my final image in my DPS/front cover. I played around with different lights to create different moods and tones.

Northern Echo Caes Study

Northern Echo Case Study

The first northern echo paper was published on January 1^st 1870. The paper was started by a man called John Hyslop bell.  It’s most famous editor was W.T. Stead.  A company called Newsquest own the paper; however it is run by Peter Barron (editor in chief).  The paper is a regional daily paper and has an independent political alignment. This means they print the newspapers daily and always have to be on the ball for fresh new stories. A resent survey showed that the Northern Echo sold on average 42.000 copies a day. The paper has four editions and covers the areas; Darlington, County Durham, South Durham, Tees Valley and North Yorkshire.

Within a newspaper there are a number of different job roles; Editor in chief, Deputy editor, business/features editor and chief photographer. All these people are heads of department and they oversee and make sure that their department is working to a top standard. The Northern Echo’s editor in chief is Peter Barron. He is responsible for seeing the paper off. He has to make sure it’s suitable and readable, presentable and legal. He makes sure that the content of the paper is suitable for its target audience and that there are no mistakes in the paper. He owns £80,000 a year and is in charge of the whole of the company.  The assistant editor in chief is Nigel Burton; he manages reporters in the newsroom and decides who cover what. Without this member of the newspaper team, the paper would be in chaos as certain jobs might not get done. Other editors include Scott Wilson, the sport editor and Own McAteer, the business editor. They both earn around £27,000 a year. The editors rely on contacts they have made and information from social network sites. A good relationship between companies means that the news paper cannot just save a bit of money but also gain trust.  The chief photographer Richard Doughty may get up to 5 picture jobs a day, meaning that he must be on the ball when it comes to his work.

Another division of a newspaper is the production staff, including Sub Editor, Journalist, Photographer and the trainee journalists. Sadly the members of the production staff are more likely to be made redundant as cut backs have had to be made. The sub editors are the people that put the paper together. Their job roles include making headlines, arranging things on the pages, checking stories, detecting mistakes and cropping and managing photographs. Next is the journalists, they will expected to take on the sub editors role. This means that there is a massive amount of pressure on them to get the job right first time. On average each journalist is expected to gather 6 items a day as they need to jam pack the newspaper with interesting stories. Journalists will attend council meetings, contacts local campaigns and even call the public services for stories. To be a good journalist you need to be feisty, hard working and dedicated to the job. Journalists that work for the northern echo are slightly different to other journalists that work for national newspapers. They have to act as part of the community and have far more accountability. They have to have respect for their readers as with it being a smaller newspaper they have a stronger relationship with them.  However before you become a journalist you need to train. Trainee journalists start on a wage of £16,000 a year and after a year that increases to £17,000. They train for 2-3 years. To begin with they cover stories from around the local area, they then progress on covering stories from further afield.