Contents Page

The first page I have fully developed is my Contents page. I wanted to keep it quite simplistic, yet bold, inkeeping with my other designs. With this in mind, and remembering the boxed "computer window" designs of the similar existing products, I decided to seperate each different elements (Contents, Editorial, Credits and Pictures) out into sperate boxes.

I also wanted to get an inkeeping visual stlye which would spread out across the entire magazine. My choice for this came when trying to decide a colour scheme. After trying various different colour schemes, Iwent back to using just a black and white style. It was bold it was effective, but it was laxking visual flair. I decided then to have some contrasting colours against the background, aiming for vibrant colours. After starting different combonations, I had quickly gathered a pink, a light blue and yellow. I liked these colours, and realised I could use CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Balck) as my design style, furthering the conept to make it look like a "pre-print colour" design style.

I liked this design/theme choice as I fell if done right, it will add to the slightly electronic feel I am giving to the magazine while also being a relatively original design style choice. I then used my sketches to start building the contents page on Photoshop, fcousing on the seperation of the elements. I then added the bright colour contrast and decided on a different way to present the contents. I decided to use this to push forward the brand awareness again. So i used a Zig-Zag pulse, where each peak of the pulse was a page. I thought this was a creative way to push home the brand even more. Adding Colour squares with numbers, and fixed height titles worked as the titles for each page.

 I then moved onto each section, in keeping with my visual choices from before, for instance, using the same colours and fonts from the contents section. For the gallery section, a selection of images qith corrosponding numbers to the contents page to show what the subjects are about.

I looked at my initial research when looking for other material to put on the contents page to make it look more professional and full. I had noticed that most had an editorial page, where the editor briefly discusses the magazine (and this is especially good for a new magazine as it is a good place to explain what the magazine is all about. Next I used a Publisher credits section. This window briefly describes the personnel who work on the magazine, contact details and pther informstion such as websites, copyright notices and other legal notices. As it is a one man project, this was ndeed a very brief section but helps add to the professional look.

When creating the graphics, I used layer groups to seperate out each element. With so many layers and different components to each element, it is important to keep things seperated out so as not to get confused. It is also useful for organising things, keeping different parts in sight, whilst others are hidden to create the bigger image. Also important was using the Photoshop Grid option. This puts a grid onto the screen for you to work over, making sure things are properly alligned and such.

With the contents page completed, I can continue the visual style to the rest of the magazine.

After taking some criticism for the contents page it was decided that, while the design was good, there wasn't enough colour or visual flare to the image. I was stuck on how to improve the colour without devaluing the bold visual style. In the end inspiration came from my completed front cover. Using a grid (representing a kind off heart monitor/lie detector feel to Pulse of the Contents) and finally colour circles, using the CMYK style from before to give extra pop.

Creating Content Part 1

With the majority of written work and the pitch completed it's time to move onto actually creating the content. This involves putting all skills learnt and all your plans in to practice to create the final product.

We have to consider 3 different elements to the magazine, the Cover, Contents Page and a Double Page Spread. An important factor to consider is the content of this double page spread as this will effect the images choices and headlines of the rest of the magazine. As shown in my pitch, I have decided that my content will be about the booming popularity in American sports such as American Football, Baseball, Basketball and Ice Hockey, and looking at the University/College Leagues and the Male and Female games.

I will start by sketching out various ideas, and testing layouts on the public instead of just jumping into production.

Font Justification

Today we have spent a lot of time thinking about why we use certain fonts and why we present and place them the way we do. Looking at my own chosen main font, Makisupa, I looked into why I was using it. I like makisupa as it is a "fixed width" font, which is something I like very much in design. It gives it a boldness and grabs the reader. Next, the slightly squared off sides give it a "techy" computery effect which I think suits the electronic connotations of "Pulse".

I have emailed the creator of the font, asking about it's history and creation:

The name "Makisupa" comes from an aspiring cartoonist, Kevin Jameson, who scanned the
characters and requested that I make a font of them. KJ says it's the title of a Phish
song, a fact I can neither confirm nor deny....I'm not a Phish fan. Gimme Pink Floyd and I'm happy.

I will be using Freshman as my font for headings and subheadings on my double page spread. This is a traditional Collegiate font, used in many American Sports and in College Memorabilia. 

Custom Fonts

When designing my masthead, as stated before, I used Makisupa from dafont.com. So as to be more original, using Adobe Illustrator you can add shapes and details to the words to make them your own.

To change my masthead font I decided to square off various corners of the characters. To do this I created white and black square shapes to lay over the words, either effectively rubbing an area out (white) or adding further to the letters (black). Creating one square at a specific angle, I can then copy and paste multiple versions of the same shape and reflect the shape if they need to be in a different direction. This means I can keep a relatively similar angle to each of the corners. I then loosely place them in their positions. As they aren't precisely placed, this still keeps the slightly jagged, imperfect style of the text.

The process below shows how I got from the original masthead design to the reworked font style:

The Original Design



Construction Guidelines show the placement of the boxes to square off the corners



I can also manipulate the text in Photoshop. There are far more options in Raster so I have a lot more options. During Harry's lesson we went through different ways of changing the text. We looked at using selection tools to delete parts of the text. Then with the eraser tool you can choose different brushes to create distorted effect. Next, using the Horizontal Masking Tool, you can type over a background. The mask then selects this and the user can sperate this out. This gives a picture background or fill to the text. Next we added symbols to the text, overlaying a smae colour custom shape to customize the shape of the text. Then using the Darken layer style, putting three different colour layers of identical type makes and colour bleed effect. Lastly the Colour halftone creates a comic book style dotted effect.

 

Pitching

For the last few days we have been working towards our pitch infront of the class. Although all our documentation has been created to help support and boost our presentations, the last few days have been spent creating the pitch.

Starting with a brief planning stage, I planned out what I would be doing. With a large 2 page mind map spread, I mapped out the way my Prezi presentation would flow with headlines and a few brief comments so I would know what to write about. I find jumping straight into Prezi isnt a great idea as you can quickly get lost or stuck, and you need to know how its going to move or flow. Also, a prezi can't be easily printed off as one document of evidence, so evidence of planning shows what you have actually done.

The next step was producing images for the presentation, following my plan. These were small things and didnt take long.

I finally went onto start the Prezi process. I have used this software before for my previous pitch so knew a bit more about it than before. Although the interface is quite simple I would say I used frames more to group important information together or to zoom into pictures, like on a moodboard. I, used more sweeping and rotations then before as well, Although this can be quite in your face to the audience, when used subtly it can keep the presentation intresting.

I finally pitched my idea to the two groups and was quite pleased with how it went. I feel I may have added more on what I would actually create. This was something I feel I got wrong on my last project as well so will put more focus on in my next pitch.

Student Magazine -Initial Ideas

At the very start of the project as a test I started throwing down some Initial Ideas. Here I used the working title "On Campus" so I could try some different combinations. Using Adobe Photoshop at home, I drafted some ideas on layout and style. I wanted to keep it simple and stylish, using an imitation helvetica font initially. My first ideas are below:

After doing some research of existing products, I not only gathered some ideas on presentation but also about the name. Now using the name "On The Pulse" I used my initial ideas to mock up something for the new name, furthering my use of symbolism in replace of actual text.

The above picture was made with the vector based Adobe Illustrator, which i now had installed at home. I thought in the end this was a negative design move as the the logo really didn't work as well as any of the Initial ideas, and thanks to my rustiness on Illustrator.

After a couple more lessons with Simon using the software and developing some of my own tricks, I sat down and tried to just simplify, returning to my original thesis of it being simplistic but stylish. i was now also building more of a feel of what my magazine would be, after creating my mood board and through further research i was going to go for a slightly more alternative style while still appealing to a wide audience. Now with the tag line "Finger on the Pulse", suggesting the magazine knows what is cool, but it knows what is up and coming and cool. Changing the name finally to "The Pulse" I created this logo:

Here I had retained the symbolism, but simplified everything down. The font is Makisupa, and the edgy quality was found when playing around with the software. Illustrator has a tool called "Live Trace" which is used to attempt to convert Raster to Vector. Using it however I found, especially with typography, it made the edge slightly jagged and imperfect. I really liked this so instead of installing the font, I screen printed the words on Photoshop, bought them into Illustrator work space and Live traced, giving me the different effect.

With the logo and branding done, it makes it easier to now know what I will be doing with the rest of my magazine.

Student Magazine

We have now been given the brief, for ASH Publishing, asking for a cover, contents page and two page content spread for a new student newspaper, the name and design style of which we can come up with ourselves.

The first step is the production schedule. We have a lot more freedom (and pressure) on this project than the others. We have been given the time frame for the project and deadlines for the pitch and the whole project. it is up to us to map out our time effectively and meet our own deadlines. Using past schedules as a frame of reference i made a new one using Microsoft Excel, mapping it to my own needs. This included achievable quick deadlines for written work, allowing me to leave more time for the more creative side such as ideas stages and the Pitch (where I will be using Prezi once again).

New inclusions also included a "Completed?" column. These cells have conditional formatting and three rules, Y, N or started. Now when I enter any of these values the cell changes to show Green for Yes, Red for No and Yellow for Started. This gives me a visual way of seeing at what stage i am at with which section of the project.

We have also been doing many reports and investigations on digital graphics with Simon. These focused on Colour Space, Raster/Vector, Typogrpahy and magazine layout (See earlier post)

Project 3 - Print Publishing

Our next project is focusing on Print. The end product will be a cover, contents page and a two page spread for a student magazine. We will be creating our own concepts and working independtly throughout the whole process.

I first task was analysisng briefs. to better understand what is being asked of us, it is important to research the different terminology in briefs and know the different set ups of each different style. Looking at the formats, we saw multiple different briefs and picked out there features, such as whether they were negotiable or non-negotiable, 1 entrant (Contract) or multiple entrants (Tender) among other things. We would also estimate the resources and skills needed to complete each brief, which came from looking at what they were actually asking for (the end product).

We also mind mapped out the process of a pitch. This was useful as a recap of how you would go about planning production but was also effected by the new knowledge we had learnt.

I now know more about the brief, and now when reading our new brief for ASH Publishing, I know more of what is expected of me.

Layout and typography

Simons lesson were spent analysisng lyouts of different magazines and typography styles and associations. Important here was also the different terminology used, which is needed to understand the different technques.

Firstly looking at magazines, it was good to see how the designer of a magazine sees the layout before the content is added or it is sent to print. Guide lines define the spaces for pictures, header and subheaders and the body copy (the main body of content) are distributed into columns. This is a convention of nearly all printed media (outside of the novel format) and puts text into columns across the page. These are spaced out by gutters where the space between columns is used to define to columns themselves.

This was useful for getting ideas into how I would actually layout the pages of my magazine. Before hand I hadn't really thought about how I would lay this all out, but it is clear that it is important to meet the readers standards of presentation.

Next we learnt the differences of the two different typography formats, serif and sans serif. Although this was something I knew about before it was good to get more of an idea of the connotations and reasons for using each type. Serif fonts are the ones with the "hands and feet" on the ends of the letters, for example Times New Roman. Serif fonts are those without these such as Impact. Both can be used on the same page but it was important as the designer to understand the reasons for using each type.

Lastly in the day, we looked at using effects on typography in a vector workspace, Adobe Illustrator. this was good not only for learning to use Illustrator (which I have used before but my skills definetly needed polishing) but also for scouting out effects to use when it comes to designing the content for my work. I focused mainly on manipulating the shapes of the type faces as i felt these were the  ones i was most likely to use, as colour or other distortion effects often needed rasterizing.

I am now writing up the results of my investigations and about the things i have learnt to help me with my final product.

Project 3 - Skills Profile

Skills Profile

1.      Have you ever undertaken any work that has required you answering a brief?

I have done a few brief based projects before at college and high school. All of these have been practical projects where an end product, final or prototype, has been made. All of these have needed research to answer the brief as you need to know how to meet the various criteria for the client.

2.      Provide a summary of all your skills you have already that will help you in this assignment.In terms of practical skills,I have intermediate level skills in most aspects of Photoshop. From simple aspects such as transforming, adjustments, layer styles, blending options filters, magic wand, lasso’s, changing colours and some higher level aspects such as the pen tool/paths.

I have skills in creating market research surveys and gathering results. This will come in handy to see if the product has hit the target market.

3.      What skills are you looking to develop while working on this assignment? Include both practical and theory skills.There are many areas where I am either looking to improve or learn something new. Firstly, I don’t have much experience using the text tool before, and when using a smaller size I have struggled with pixilation. So techniques for creating clear text would be useful. I’d also like to learn about keeping a colour palette or consistency in  an advert, to develop a visual style. I will also need to look at different regulations for print advertising such as the legal and ethicals of it. Hopefully, skills and knowledge learnt on previous projects will help me to find this information.

4.  Skills I have developed during the project:Firstly, I have developed skills in independent work. We have been all but left on our own in terms of how we structure our time and development, so I have had to learn how to organise ourselves, and work independently.

Although I have used Illustrator before, I got a lot more indepth with the program on this project. Mostly looking at text, we looked at basic skills (which was a good recap for me) text filters, layer styles and effects and composition. We also got a much deeper understanding of the theory behind Raster and Vector graphics. Skills with these programmes also included using Raster and Vector together for a more effective output.

I have learnt lots of skills in Typography, mainly understanding why we use different fonts and what they are trying to say. This helped us justify our own typographic decisions, such as masthead fonts, body copy fonts etc. When the designer knows what message they are trying to give out, they can use fonts as a powerful but subtle message to the audience.

I also learnt about the terminology and templates of magazine layout, looking at image placement, columns and gutters, folios etc. This helps me understand how I will layout my magazine when it comes to production and help me plan for the future.

In Photoshop we learnt many new effects, also mainly concerning text. There were many techniques here. The type-mask tool helps you get textures from other images. Then with your own designs, you can distort, recolour and blend text to gain multiple different effects.

I have learnt how to use layer options in a new way. Say if you had a an image with a drop shadow and other layer effects on it. By right clicking the "f" on that layer you can seperate out all the effects into different layers. So you would have a seerate layer for each effect. This allows the user to edit as they wish.

I have learnt about the actual printing of the finished piece. Most importantly the bleed option. The industry stanrd puts it a 3mm and this adds a safe area around the page allowing you room for perhaps the movement of the paper in the printer etc.