Evaluation

Overall, I have really enjoyed this project. If I was to do it again, I would organize myself more. I didn't refer back to my handouts as much as I should of and I think this would have helped me a lot more. I also didn't refer to the brief much, which wasn't clever. I will also learn to say NO to extra hours at work so that I have more time on projects! My favorite part of this project that I have enjoyed the most is learning new skills on Photoshop and also being introduced to illustrator, I feel like these skills will help me with future projects. I have really loved my Wednesday morning lessons they have been so helpful, not just for this project but for other projects that have been running along side this one. My final pieces are not what I imagined they would be when I first got the brief. I originally thought that I would use this magazine project to show my other project final pieces. But as the project went on, I decided to include photography. I'm glad I made this choice as I am happy with how it has turned out! 

Final Inside Spread

This is my final inside spread. I decided to use the photographs that I took for my 'one word' project, and as I based that project on recycled jewelry I decided to also have a jewelry theme to this page. I decided to only use one text even though it is ok to use up to three. I decided to use one text because I wanted this page to look plain and simple. For the title I decided to use alliteration to give it a twist. 

Inside Spread Practise

Today we have been practising doing an inside spread for our magazine. We were given the writing and we had to arrange them to make an inside page of a magazine, this includes a title, the main body text and a quote. The text doesn't make sense, it is a dummy text called lorem ipsum. I decided to base my spread on gypsy weddings so I google imaged it and found some photographs that I thought would look great in a magazine. I decided to use photographs from the same wedding so that it looks like the page is about one certain wedding. The photographs on the left I chose because of the bright colour to catch the readers eye. I changed the dingbat heart to the same colour as the dresses so that there is a kind of colour scheme on the page. 
If I was to do this again I would use more than one text. I would probably use two texts one for the main body text and the quote and another for the title. 

Final Front Cover

I decided on using this image as my final front cover image because it was my favourite one of all the photos I took. I decided to crop the image so that the bag is at the side and the trees are in the background. I came up with the title 'Dream' because I asked one of my peers what they thought of when they looked at my photo and he said 'It looks like something from a dream'. I though that a classy simple font would work well for this idea and I didn't want to have a busy complicated font. I originally wanted to have the text down the side of the tree (on the left) but after trying many different fonts and colours, I felt like the words were hard to read and I thought that this would take the attention away from the picture. So I decided to put the text on a darker part of the photo. The tree was the best place to add the text. I have just included an extremely cheesy quote from the internet.  Instead of using a bar code like most magazines do, I thought that this was pointless because I'm not going to be scanning it. So I have decided to use something that is useful. I added a QR code which, when you scan it, it takes you to my main blog page. Overall I am quite pleased with my final front cover. 

Magazine Layout Practise

We have started today on learning how to create a magazine front cover on Photoshop using layers. Doing this has made the brief a lot easier for me as I now know how to do it and now all I really have to do is decide on a name and the images I am going to use.

Red Bag

Today I have been editing some of the photographs I took for my 'one word' project, on photoshop, to see if I can get any to work for my magazine front cover. To edit this photo was pretty simple. Firstly I duplicated the background to make another layer and I changed this layer to black and white. So now on the black and white layer I used the lasso tool to carefully cut around the bag, I did this is stages to make sure I cut it out perfectly. Once I cut parts out I deleted it which deleted the black and white layer and then the colour photo underneath would show through to make the bag stand out. 

I really like this technique especially the colour red. It stands out a lot and makes the photo interesting. 

Layout

I thought that I should explore the options that I have for my front cover. I have done a quick sketch of the possible layouts for the cover. By doing this I can figure out the best layout for me.

Research

I really like the colour scheme in the magazine layout above. The colours tie in well together and made the important parts are bold and an interesting colour to catch the readers eye. 

I have included this front cover on my blog because I feel like this is too crowded and busy for a front cover. Theres too much to look at and I don't want my front cover to look like this. I would like mine to be fairly simple. 

I have noticed that each magazine cover I have looked at. The model is always looking straight at you as if to say '"buy me".

Another interesting thing I have noticed about some magazine covers is that sometimes a part of the title is covered up by an image but I find it interesting how we still know what the title is, I think that this only happens with well known magazine covers. 

This is an example of how I DON'T want my front cover to look. The text on the title is boring. The 'stop cyber bullying' colour is totally the wrong colour it's very hard to read. I feel like the colour scheme for the whole page isn't the right colour for the photograph. 

Fonts

I have just been looking at different types of fonts on dafont.com 

I have basically just picked out the fonts I like the most and what I think are possible title fonts for my magazine cover.

Today we have been learning the difference between serif and sans serif fonts. Basically serif is a font that is 'fancy' for example ^^'abusive pencil' has little ticks on the end where as a sans serif does not. 'Sans' is french for without. I have also leaned about Kerning and leading today. Kerning is just simply the distance between the letters in the word. Leading is the distance between the lines of text in a paragraph. 

QR Code

When we have done our magazine front cover we have all decided on using QR Codes instead of a bar code like normal magazines do. But as we are not selling our magazines we found it pointless and we wanted something that is worth having on there. Using a QR code will enable people scan the code on to their phone and when scanned will take them to my art blog. I thought this was a great idea and very useful!

                   

Title Ideas

For the title of my magazine I wanted to do my title by hand (as  I am an art student) and then scan it on to the computer. Considering that I have done a lot of sewing in my work I am planning on writing my title using thread and I have also pictured in my head the needle still in to title. I think this is a good way of using my own art work in my magazine cover. 

Polaroid In Photoshop

Today we have been using photoshop to make a polaroid looking image. This was just to get us used to using layers in photoshop. First we have the photo of the polaroid and the photo of Luke. We then put it on the same page on photoshop. I then put the photo of Luke over to top of the polaroid but the photo is too big to fit into the square. So to do this I change the opacity to make the image 'see-through'. This is so I can see the polaroid so that I can cut away the sides of the picture. This way when you have cut away the sides the image will fit into the square. I enjoyed doing this as I found it rather easy and I like the end image. 

Pattern Making

During this project we have learnt how to do a repeat pattern. This involved illustrator. We had to split the photograph into quarters using a guideline (horizontally and vertically). We then had to break the photo up. The top left hand quarter of the photo had to be moved to the bottom right. The same with the other parts of the photo(diagonally). Once we had learnt this new skill all we had to do was save it, open a new A4 document went to edit, then fill and then just added the pattern I had created and then the pattern is printed over the whole page.

Starting The Project

Today was the first day that we have been looking at the magazine project brief. We all brought our own magazines into class and looked at the layouts of the front covers.