The Last Step

Well, here it is my final post. I hope you have enjoyed this rollercoaster of a ride as much as I have. So, here is my Creative Critical Reflection...

Until, next time!!!

The Final Product

Well, here it is the final product. So drum roll please… I present to you #MUSE

Final Details

I hate working with little kids!!!!! So, yesterday I had my photoshoot with all my interviewers (I know, I know I’m a bit late but unfortunately for me yesterday was the one and the only day they were available). And I interviewed a girl who is four years old, so she was supposed to get to my house at 1:00 but she fell asleep, so we thought we should wait until she wakes up because then she would wake up all crabby. Well, that didn’t work because she woke up at 3:00 and she was still crabby. I had to call her mom to come and help and luckily she came and that calmed her down a bit but I couldn’t turn on the light because that bothered, and she didn’t want to look at the camera, and she wouldn’t stay still so after an hour of trying (and crying) I took a picture that wasn’t that bad and could work so I decided to just use that one because otherwise, I would still be taking pictures today. Next, was the girl who is 16 years old (to get her was actually easy because all of mine and my sister’s friends are teens so I just used my sister’s best friend who practically lives here). She was easy peasy to take a picture of, compared to the four year old. The only issue with her is that the one time I needed her to stay she had to leave, and since I took so long with the four year old I had ten minutes to take her picture so I didn’t take the exact picture I wanted but I took a picture I was happy with. Luckily the adult I used was my mom so I was able to get the perfect picture I wanted. I then went on Pics Art and for the little girl picture I highered the brightness a little bit,highered the contrast, lowered the highlights, increased the saturation, and increased the shadows. For the picture of the teen, I higherd the highlights, increased the saturation, and lowered the contrast. As for the picture of the adult I was pretty happy with the picture so I didn’t want to damage it too much but, I did higher the saturation a little bit.

Yesterday night I also had a family party, and I as still missing a picture for my editor’s note, so I was looking for inspiration and then I got it, while my mom and her friends were clinging glasses. I got them together and took a picture of them clinking their glasses. I then went on PicsArt and took off the color of the picture for everything but the actually champagne in the glasses, so that the champagne can stand apart from the rest of the image. I then cut out the silhouette of the girls in all the pictures.

Today I put everything in their layout and made sure it was what I had imagined it to be, and I was pretty happy with the result. Something, I want to mention is that I did change a question in the interview of the child and the adult and teen interview. Something else I want to mention is how I wanted to include images of the girls when they were younger but unfortunately, I didn’t have any pictures of when my mom was younger so I thought it would be odd if I included pictures of all the girls younger except the adult. So I decided to just not to add pictures of when the girls were younger. Another thing I want to add is how I decided to have my two page spread to be in a more casual tone to make it seem as if the writer was having a friend to friend conversation with the audience.Well, I think that explains everything see you soon.

(P.S. Can you believe this project is almost done!)

Table of Contents: Part 2

Well, hello again. So I decided that I will update you guys on the table of contents. So, as I mentioned in my previous post I was debating on whether or not I should do a two page spread for my table of contents. So, as I was looking at my ad and both of pages of my two page spread I wasn’t content with it specifically with my ad because my magazine is a higher end magazine with an artistic twist to it. So, my ad had to be something high end and I don’t think I was able to capture that so I decided I’d rather scrap it. Next is my two page spread so as I kept looking at it I realized that it looks kinda repetitive so I decided that I am just going to keep one of the pages. The next problem that I found was to decide which of the two pages I want to keep. But, I wasn’t 100% happy with either image so I went on PicsArt and took the original image I took off the shoe and highered the brightness a little bit to make it look cleaner. After that I decided to add an effect they had called Plein Air I then decided to take out the color and darkened the effect a little bit since the shoe is white, so it can be a noticed a bit more. By doing this I thought I was combing the two images by keeping the original colors but also adding some type of artistic effect. I also decided to change the font to a more straight and clean font that way it matches the font that I used on the cover. Since I decided to add three more cover lines so now there are seven stories on my table of contents. I also decided to keep the same color scheme by having the page to be white and the font to be black and the image I decided to add is also black and white correlating with the color scheme. Here is the image I decided to add to my table of contents:

Major Update

I know, I know I haven’t blogged in forever. But this week has been hectic between this project and school I have fallen a bit behind. But, I’m back and we are on week four and the deadline is quickly approaching (as in this project is due in less than a week!!!), and there is still a lot to be done. Although this weekend I made a major dent into what had to be done. As in I have the cover, the table of contents and the editor’s page done. I have most of my two page spread down and the ad is still coming along. So, as you can see I was a busy bee this weekend. Anyways, I think I would use this blog post to explain how I got everything done. So, let's start with the cover on Saturday my friend came over and before I had boughten a white sheet and hang it up on a wall in my room because I get the most natural light. But, when she got to my house the day went from a sunny spring day to a spring storm day. So, I found this lightbulb I had in my garage which emulates natural light and I got my sister to carry a lamp near the camera and believe it or not it emulated natural light.  

Unedited Edited

Above is a comparison of the unedited and the edited picture of my cover model. With my unedited picture, I was quite happy but I wanted to make my picture look a little more natural so I downloaded the app PicsArt and I increased my brightness, decreased my contrast, and highered my saturation. I did this to brighten the picture even more. Once, I was happy with the picture I downloaded the app Photo Lab and I used the effect Cubism Acrylics and on top of that, I layered the effect Crayon Strokes Abstract. I layered the second effect to make the lines less harsh, below is a picture without the layered effect and with the layered effect. Something else I want to mention is that with the original picture I decided to not edit out her loose hair and I didn’t have her apply any make-up to further show that this is a normal girl and that in a way she is breaking away from the usual expectations of how covers are perfect and blemish free. Once I had my two pictures edited exactly how I liked it I used the app Pic Collage to split their faces and combine them, to get my final result.

      With one effect       With two effects

Once I had my cover image I went on Canva and they started looking through their magazine templates, and as I looking through them I knew that I needed a template where the picture wasn’t the whole cover because it would be too overbearing. And as I started looking I found a template that I liked but I didn’t know if it would have worked for my magazine so I started playing around with the tools and effects and I found my cover. So I decided to make the background white so that the cover image could stand out, to make it stand out even more though I decided to add a red effect to the picture it’s super subtle but it helps the image stand out from the white background. Then I decided to add a dateline but I had to move it a little bit to the right so that the color wouldn't blend in with the hair that much. In the bottom I added my title, and I decided to go with a straight, simple font. Underneath the title, I decided to add a selling line. This would be present in all issues of my magazine and it describes the three main topics of the magazine. And on the top, I decided to add the Q.V. Code because although the main way I would distribute my magazine is through subscription, you could also buy at certain bookstores. Overall, I decided to go the more artistic route, while still keeping it simple and modern.

Next, the table of contents so I originally thought of making it a two page table of contents and add an ad and an editor’s letter but my original plan for my table of contents was to have the text going around the shoe, the same shoe on both pages but on each page have the shoe facing a different way to make it look as if the shoes were walking but I came upon two problems one when I strived the add the text around out it looked too cluttered and messy and it didn't look good so I decided to trash that and then I was just going to still use the same shoe, making it look as if it was walking but the shoes would be on the side of the page. Well when I tried to move the picture to make it look as it were walking, the page looked awkward and it didn't look right so I trashed that idea too so now I was just going to have the same shoe for both pages on the same side and I liked it but my peers thought it looked repetitive so then I asked my friend and she gave me this idea of having one page making it look normal and add an effect similar to the one that I used in my cover on the other page to the shoe of the other page. I really like this idea, but I am considering to only have a one page table of contents and let the other page be an editor’s note, and just scrap the ad and the second page but I’m not sure.

As for, the editor’s letter I have it all written up but I’m still playing around with the format because I know I want to keep it very clean and simple, but I also know I don’t want it to look boring. So, I am testing out different templates on Canva.

Now, for my two page spread I really tried to focus as to why our style changes so much as we grow up, for the first page and the second page is just going to be the interviews with the girls of different ages. I plan on keeping the same theme of clean and modern, but I would also like to incorporate an artistic twist. This is where I am having problems because I don’t know exactly how I want to do it.

Well, I think that’s pretty much everything see you soon!!!!

Short, Sweet, and Simple

As promised today’s post is going to be short. Yesterday, we had our second peer review. So I started explaining my project to my peers and they really liked my idea for my two-page spread. They also recommended that when I interview the people for my story, I include pictures of their style for when they were younger. I didn’t think I was allowed to do this because they wouldn’t be my original pictures. But, when I asked my teacher she said I could use them but I can’t include them as part of my five original pictures required. Something else I asked their advice on was what to make my cover image and one of my peers recommended I take a close up picture of a girl, and then have that picture be half a regular face and the other half be of graphic design like the one below (I know I already showed you this picture but I really liked the type of graphics they use here). I liked this idea because my cover story is about change and most of the stories on my table of contents are about change. So I think if I use this as my cover it would be a good representation of the contents of the magazine. After that, I should them what I have been doing for my table of contents and they liked it a lot. My peers, also really liked how I wanted to add an editor’s letter. Other than that they thought that I was on the right track.

All there is to know about the cover

As promised earlier this week this post is going to help explain the ideas going around my head as to what I want to do for my cover. So first is first, the title. As previously mentioned, I decided to call my magazine #MUSE (F.Y.I. I am not 100% sure if I want to use only caps lock but when I mention the title I will write it out in caps lock for consistency). I decided to go with this title because I thought it was the most original of all of the title options. But as I started to research what muse means, I was happily surprised to find out that one of its definitions is a goddess that inspires a creative artist. I liked this because I think many people usually don’t realize that fashion is a type of art, and one of the goals of this magazine is to explore this concept and break away from the stereotypes that people think of when someone mentions fashion. But muse, along with a majority of the other words in the English dictionary, have various meanings and one of the other meanings muse has is to gaze meditatively or wonderingly. And this is how I want my readers to be; I want them to question the world and make their own conclusions about things and not be restricted by stereotypes. But muse isn’t the only part of my title; I also used the hashtag and I wanted to use the hashtag to appeal to the younger audience reading the magazine. Although my target audience is 16-30 year-old women, I believe even the higher end of the spectrum can relate to the hashtag (I mean my mom is 47 and she looooves hashtags).

The next part that I want to explain of my cover is the color scheme. As I began to research color psychology and looking at all the colors, I realized that all the color palettes that I like where accented neutral color palettes (an accented neutral color palette is to use neutral colors such as black, white, and grey and then add a pop of color such as red, purple, blue). And then it hit me I want every issue of my magazine to have an accented neutral color scheme but each issue would have a different accent color. But for the one I am creating here I don’t know the exact color I want to but here are some of the colors I am leaning towards:

As you can see I’m looking for colors that are very bright, and vibrant to help them pop. I also chose these colors because this magazine would be the April issue which is at the beginning of spring and spring is known for its bright colors.

Next, I want to talk about the font I want to use. So I know want my font to be very simple and clean because my plan for the cover image is to add graphics. I don’t want an elaborate font because I don’t want a cluttered cover. I’m unsure if I want it to be very straight and symmetrical or if I want it to be curved but still simple and classy. I think the way I’ll decide what font I want to use depends if I make my title in all caps or all lower case letters. I believe that if it’s in all caps, I would prefer a straight symmetrical font, yet if I choose lower case then I want a more curved font.

Now the biggest part of the cover, the cover image. Once I finally decided what I wanted my two page spread to be I knew that I didn’t want that to be on my cover. So, I’m kinda stuck on what exactly I want my image to be. All I know is that I do want to combine graphics somewhere with the image.

And lastly, the cover lines. So, what I decided is that I don’t want to add any extra cover lines. The only cover line I would add would be of my cover story but I am still debating this since my two-page spread isn't the cover image. Although I might add one because most magazines have at least one cover line corresponding to the cover image. Anyways that pretty much explains my cover,  until next time

(P.S. sorry for the two long posts in a row I’ll try for the next one to be shorter)