Thursday, April 12, 2018

3rd Quarter Revisions

After hearing feedback from my peers, I made some touch ups in my magazine setup and layout. One suggestion I got was to add more people into my magazine to make it seem more consumer friendly. I took this suggestion and decided to do a photo shoot with some of my family members. These photos turned out well and I chose three or four I thought would look good in my TOC and article pages. I then took two of these photos and placed one in the TOC, including a new reference to the feature article it relates to, and one on the second article page instead of some less relevant photos. Another critique I took note of was having the photos on my article pages not centered with the article columns. I readjusted the layout of the article, the second page specifically, so that these photos were in alignment with the text. This followed a more conventional pattern and made the layout look more professional overall. After making these changes,  decided that I liked the new design. It looks much more professional now and also more consumer friendly since the inclusion of other people in magazine photos makes the article topics seem more relatable and feasible.

Monday, April 2, 2018

3rd Quarter Submission Feedback

   After presenting my quarter 3 submission, I got some very valuable feedback from my peers and teacher. One suggestion they made was to maybe adjust the layout of the pictures on page 2 of my article. This would make the photos centered with my column rather than skewed as I have them now. I might look into changing this and comparing the two layouts. If I do end up changing it, I will add this change to my use of conventions post since it would be more conventional for my to change the pictures to centered with my column. Currently, my use of skewed photo positioning is less conventional and my partner has the same off-centered technique I utilized.
   Another critique I was given was to add more photos of people into my article page and maybe even to my cover page. I think I will use this advice and borrow a nice camera from my teacher and take nice, high quality photos of some of my friends to incorporate in my issue. This would make the articles seem more relatable to readers to they can view other people doing the same crafts they might be inclined to try. It would also increase the variety of photos featured in my magazine since the majority right now are all of objects and food I wrote my feature article able and relating to the titles of some of the articles in my TOC.
  A final piece of feedback I was given was that the layout of my draft pages were all very colorful and organized in their layout. I will try to even improve on this aspect of my issue by adjusting the positioning of my article photos and any other photos I add to my draft. I will also do any adjustment necessary to improve the professionalism and organization of my magazine. Overall, the main changes I will implement into my final submission will be slightly adjusting the layout of my article pages, increasing the amount of photos of people throughout my issue, and improving the professionalism of my magazine.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

3rd Quarter Submission

     For my final draft submission, I made a variety of changes to improve the professionalism, visual quality, and organization of my magazine issue. My first revision was editing the captions on the cover page to fill the empty space and make the title page more intriguing to consumers. This allows readers to immediately know what the topics of the articles are in the magazine. I also changed the title page to a more bold, professional font that will pair well with any cover page design. My final revision was to add branding to the bottom of our pages. It includes the issue date (month and year), magazine title, and page number. This allows readers to be able to see which issue the magazine is on any page of the product.


Tuesday, March 13, 2018

CCR Draft #4

   Throughout our project, we utilized various forms of technology and computer programming such as Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft Word, Photoshop, editing in the iPhone 7 photos application, and research through Google Chrome. In Microsoft Publisher, we designed and laid out our cover page, TOC, and article page drafts. This software allowed us to edit the positioning, font styles, and overall layout of each page. In Microsoft Word, I setup my flat plan. This software allowed me to type in various text boxes and relocated the different titles or page labels within the flat plan. The software also allowed me to stay more organized than other methods.
   In Photoshop, we both used this app to not only edit the quality of our photos, but also start the beginning drafts of our cover pages, TOC's, and article pages before starting the next draft in Publisher. This method allowed us to professionally alter out photos and repeatedly readjust our beginning drafts. In the iPhone 7 photo application, we used simple photo editing techniques to increase the saturation and contrast in numerous photos to make them stand out more and look more visually appealing.
   Finally, in Google Chrome, we both used this search engine to perform extensive research and learn as much as we could about magazine layout, production, and distribution. This helped us do the best we could in all aspects of the project, especially distribution, which neither of us had much experience in. Overall, the assistance of technology incorporated in various aspects of the project helped us create an exceptional product.

Monday, March 12, 2018

CCR Draft #3

Throughout the creation of this product, both my partner and I improved our design skills, writing abilities, but most importantly our production skills. This was through lots of research about our genre topic and different production and distribution methods used by magazines similar to ours. Additionally, we both improved in our techniques used in creating the overall design of our cover page, table of contents, articles, and instructional sections within the articles. For example, after research of magazine companies such as Good Housekeeping, Better Homes and Gardens, and HGTV Magazine, we discovered that the majority of their cover page designs used features such as having a professional font for their title, using different solid colored shapes behind their text captions to allow the text to stand out more. They also decided to utilize a cover photo that a central focal point that easily attracts viewers. Bright colors were also used to make the title page more appealing and eye catching. We incorporated all of these techniques in our title page and throughout our TOC and articles pages. In addition to research of similar products to our project, we were able to develop our production skills through trial and error, testing what we though looked the best, what didn't work, and how to fix it to make it look better or more professional. This was done a lot on our cover pages as we changed our cover photos, the color and font of our title name, article captions, and the layout of those captions as well. Overall, the use of extensive, educational research and trial and error allowed us not only to perfect the look of our cover pages, TOC's, and article pages but also to improve our production skills in this project area.

Creative Critical Reflection

Creative Critical Reflection