FINAL PRODUCTS

Production Monitoring Blog - Goal Evaluation

This week I have managed to complete my:

• Finishing touches to FRONT COVER
• Finishing touches and changes to CONTENTS PAGE
• Finishing touches to HOT OFF THE STREET DPS
• Photoshoot for DARE TO BE EXTREME
• Finish DARE TO BE EXTREME - DPS

This week has been the most pro-active week of my production yet! I think that the impending deadline finally got through to me and I have been doing nothing else but media coursework.
I managed to put the finishing touches to my front cover to make it look more professional, and the finishing touches to my contents page. I think that to two now link together better than before and are stronger individually.
I also finished my 'HOT OFF THE STREET' double page spread, after much changing and fiddling with the layout I think that I have finally created something that is appropriate for the teenage audience and something that fits in with my USP.
I did come across some problems with this DPS though. I downloaded Photoshop and InDesign 30 day trials on my laptop at home so I could carry on with the work after college hours (because I was so pressed for time). However I didn't realise that the InDesign version that I dowloaded was the CS5.5, and the college version was CS4. Therefore when I took my work into college on my memorystick it wouldn't work because the software was too advanced for the CS4 version. This was a massive problem because I could do anything more to my DPS.
However, I just carried on with my other work and decided that I would try and sort it out on my home laptop. In the end I managed to overcome my problem and save my CS5.5 version at home (the one I had done all my development on) as an 'InDesign Markup' file. This reduced the file down to the basic text/image layout without all of the advanced software attachments that meant it wouldn't work on the college computers.

Thursday night was the night of my 'Dare to Be' photoshoot. I prepared the flash kit and travelled up to the climbing wall. Before I went I realised that I had another problem! I had my model, the flash kit and myself to do the photography, but I had no one to belay my model as she climbed. I went on facebook and put out a status asking for the help of anyone who could belay, and I got in contact with all the people that I knew COULD belay. In the end I managed to find someone to help me, and the photoshoot could go ahead.
When we were actually at the photoshoot I quickly realised just how difficult it was going to be. My model was struggling with posing on the wall and all of the shots looked very awkward. I had to change my origional idea of what I wanted from the photo shoot (inspiration from the ANTM pictures), and settle for something that was more managable.
I decided that we would come off the rope walls and go onto the bouldering wall. This doesn't require a rope and was therefore much easier for the model to pose on. I decided that in order to get an interesting photo shoot I could climb to the top of the bouldering wall, and hoist the camera up in the camera bag safely via ropes. I then sat a the top of the wall and took photos downwards towards my model. This gave much more interesting photos, and there were much easier on my model.

Because I had such a last minute photo shoot I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get my project finished for the deadline. However, I spent only 2 hours creating the rest of the DPS; because I was going for a much more minimalistic feel to the DPS it was less fussy to create. Therefore I managed to do it quickly (but not rushed) and have come out with a clean-cut result, one that I am happy with first time round rather than spending weeks chewing over it like I did with 'HOT OFF THE STREET'.

I feel that this week has gone really well and I have managed to finish everything on time! My schedule has gone completely ignored because I didn't plan or manage my time very well, however I feel that my hard work this week has paid off and all the free periods, lunchtimes and after college hours spent in the media room have greatly benifited me.

Front Cover - Final Version

Previous 'final' front cover.

Tilted 'Beaute Tips' text so that it bounces your eye from the 'ROHO' title across the top of the page, into 'Beauty Tips' and redirects your gaze back into the centre of the front cover.

I also decreased the spacing between the lines of text on the sell lines, this made each sell line look more 'together' and more grouped.

I also changed the colour of 'HOT' from 'HOT OFF THE STREETS' to the light pink colour of some other text on the front cover. I also added a small 'stroke' to the outline of the word 'HOT' to make it pop and stand out from the rest of the page.

THIS IS THE FINAL VERSION!

'HOT off the Street' DPS Development cont.

After coming back to my idea I realised that I needed to change the font of the names of the girls to something different to make them stand out more. I chose 'Janada Curlygirl' which is the same font as the 'you' in the top right hand corner.

I also added in another pink box in the lower right hand corner as a way to balance out the bottom half of the page.

After thinking about what I was going to fill the bottom half of the page with, I then got my friends to bring in one of the items that they wore to my photo shoot and I took them home to photograph them.
(I also used some extras of my own to fill in more space.)
I then edited them so that they had no background and added them into my DPS along the bottom of the page. This is often seen in magazines where they talk about certain items of clothes and what is good/bad about them.

I proceeded to add text to the images to explain what is great about the product and give some helpful style hints and tips.

I used my stylish charity bracelets of a way of filling in more space, but also as a clever way to stick to the USP of my magazine.

As an after thought I added in some handrawn arrows that I created in Photoshop as a way of adding something a little more fun to the page, and they also make it more clear which body of text is meant to be with which item of clothing.
Again, small details just bring the whole page together, and I think that the arrows make it all the more professional.

I also really like how I have overlayed the test and products in some places, it gives more depth to the DPS. Also, the clothes have been tilted in different directions so that your eye is bounced along the bottom of the page and it is made more engaging.

THIS IS MY FINAL VERSION!

'Dare to Be' DPS Development cont.

                               
My two images.

I put them into black and white to try and decide which one was stronger, and that is how I came to choose the one on the left.

(As you can see the one on the right is much weaker in portrait now it has been rotated.)

Image inserted onto my already begun DPS.
Page number style exactly the same as it is on the 'HOT OFF THE STREET' DPS. Only I changed one side to black and one side to white to make each of them clear to read.

Added in the article and subtitle.
I also took the kicker that was previously below the title and overlayed it onto the image to fill in some uninteresting space.
Inserted drop caps on the first letter of the article - it looks more professional and highlights where the beginning of the article is.

Coloured  box added where the new kicker will go.
Used the colour picker to pick up the colour of the models top - hence creating a strong colour scheme for the page.

Kicker added.

Extra article added to fill up space.
Quotation boxes added to highlight certain things that the model said within the body of the article.

I decided that I didn't like the coloured box, it didn't fit in with the page. So I deleted it and changed the text colour of the kicker to the colour that the box had been, and left it on its own below the title.
I also added in oversized quotation marks to the page... this is something that I had seen once before in Cosmopolitan and I liked the idea that you could just glance at the page and know that someone had been interviewed from the quotation marks. I chose the colour grey becuase it fitted in with the colour scheme but wasn't overpowering at the same time. You can also easily read the black text over the grey.
I layered them beneath the text to give more depth to the DPS, and overlayed them onto the image. This tied in both sides of the article because it had previously been very detached.

THIS IS THE FINAL VERSION!

'Dare to Be - EXTREME' FINAL IMAGE CHOICES

I chose these two photos because they had the strongest angles and composition.
The fact that I was at the top of the wall looking down onto the model meant that I catured an interesting perspective that the readers hopefully aren't used to experiencing.
It also added to the 'climbing' feel of the article because it was taken at such an obscure angle!

I chose this image in the end because I had edited it with brighter colours, it is more visually engaging and I need a portrait image for my articles layout.

I know that I can easily rotate the other image to portrait from landscape, but I feel that it is stronger in landscape, and this one is stronger in portrait.
The angle of her face in this image shows off more cheekbone and her eyes pop - which makes an attractive (but unusual) beauty shot.










(I took all of my images in RAW so that they were fully editable on Photoshop.)

23/2/12 PHOTO SHOOT 'Dare to Be - EXTREME' DPS

'HOT off the Street' DPS Development cont.

I changed the title to a thicker and bolder font so that it stood out more.

I also changed the 'personal profiles' title to the same font and the same colour, because on reflection of the 'bubble' it looked out of place and really amateur.

Even though I have everything on the page that needs to be on the page, it looked really empty. Therefore I experimented with some background colours...
This pink background fits in well with the colour scheme of the page, but doesn't look very professional. Also, the bottom half of the page still looks empty, and there's a huge gap underneath the 'personal profiles' title that needs to be filled.

Even by adding in another colour; it didn't fill up the page.

The light blue and light pink colour scheme correlates too well with the front cover, and it looks too 'little girly'. It's not very attractive from a teenage point of view.

Therefore I tried an alternative approach, I added some colour by placing light pink boxes individually behind each of the girls. This looked a lot better than the previous attempt at adding colour, and even though the images overhung the boxes sometimes, I liked the layering effect that it gave.
However, there's still problems with the blank spaces on the bottom half of the page. The personal profiles still look really univiting and boring.

Although I liked the fact that the images overhung the coloured boxes, the text around the girls did not look good.

I then condensed them each onto 2 or 3 lines, and brought them in close to the girls' body. This made the whole page fit together better, and they didn't run into eachother as much - making it easier to distinguish which annotation was for which person.

I thought that the boxes looked quite plan, so I experimented with adding different distances of noise and blur to the outside of the boxes.

I decided on the box with the smallest amount of noise around the outside, and also changed the box shape on the 'Last Month's Winner' model to make it easier to distinguish that she was different from the other girls on the page.

After looking again at my DPS, I thought that the boxes looked to bold and 'stuck on' the page.
Therefore I added a gradient to them, in the hope that they would look less distracting and look like they were disappearing into the page.

Further development of this gradient idea led me to add it to the personal profiles also, but change the direction of the gradient by 180 degrees so that each of the boxes looked like they were disappearing into their counter part.

I then changed the 'Last Month's Winner's' auto shape back to a box because I thought that the oval looked out of place on the page, and it ruined the asymmetrical feel to the DPS.

After looking back at my magazine DPS that I was using as inspiration I deleted all my background box ideas in frustration because I decided that I didn't like them and that it didn't look professional enough.

I then added in 'stickers' that are often seen in magazines, and overlayed them on top of each girl. On these stickers I included a quote from their personal profile about their own style. I like this idea because it adds another dimension to the DPS, and makes it more visually engaging.
I chose the colour light blue because it goes well with the bright pink in the colour scheme, and also goes with the ROHO in the top right hand corner of the page.

I created an advert for the 'ROHO website' and gave instructions to the readers of what they can do to vote for their favourite. I thought that this would be a good idea because I suddenly became aware of the fact that I had provided no way for people to vote for their favourite to become the month's winner!

I created this on Photoshop, and also created a 'Last Month's Winner' title to go above Nicky P that was made with the same colours and style as the advert. This made it clear that the two things were related, and framed Nicky P in a way that it was made obvious she was different from the other girls on the page... Something that I had been trying to do unsuccessfully before with the different shaped background.

I realised that I could easily make the page look fuller by adding the personal profile to the image itself.
By text wrapping the personal profile around each image it gave to two an even stronger link to each other. I then added a seperate paragraph to each that included everything each girl was wearing. This looked a lot tidier than the annotations had previously, and it was easier to read.

I also added little page numbers to the bottom of each page. Something that I had forgotten to do previously, but was an absolute essential! I also broke up the the magazine name and issue from the page number with the same small flower detail that I used on the front cover between the issue and the 'FREE'. I think this adds something a little more special to the page, and the smallest details show that there has been a lot of thought and care taken with the development of the DPS.

I now have created the issue of having even more blank space that I have no text to fill.
Therefore I added in a strip of color to break the top half of the page up from the bottom half... I was hoping that this would give me some ideas of what I could do in the bottom half, but unfortunately I had none.
I also changed the annotations around 'Nicky P' to a similar layout of the 'Name Wears' of the others. I also needed to fill in some blank space around her image, so I asked some of my other friends opinions of what it was they liked about her outfit and displayed them as comments that had been left from 'voters' from the last issue!

Therefore I cropped down the strip of colour so that it just provided a background for the text that outlined how people could vote. This made it clear that this was an individual body of text, and seperate from the other things on the page.

I am going to leave this DPS for now and try and think of some ideas of how I could fill up the space... 

'Dare to Be' DPS Development

This is the start of the layout that I plan to do for my 'Dare to Be - EXTREME' article.
I don't have my images for this article yet, so I just used an internet image for the meantime.

I used the font 'thin lines and curves' for my title, I kept the colour black to make this article appear more professional/less 'girly' than the rest of the magazine. I also think that the mature appearence of it makes it stand out from what you would normally expect from a girly magazine.

Contents Page FINAL

I didn't like the colour of the dress, it wasn't the right shade of pink. Therefore I changed it to a completely

different colour, blue. It is still keeping in with the colour scheme but is a much more flattering colour on the model.
I then changed the colour of the subtitles to the same pink as the page numbers because the new blue of the dress made the contents page more blue than pink - so I needed to re-address the balance.
I also added in a 'Nicky P Wears' so that people could see where the clothes she was wearing were from (just like on the 'HOT OFF THE STREET' DPS). It also fills in some of the blank grey space near her head.
I am much happier with this contents page.

THIS IS THE FINAL VERSION!

Production Monitoring Blog - Goal Evaluation

This week I have carried on with my front cover and also my contents page because I came across come colouring issues, and have made a good start on my 'HOT OFF THE STREET' DPS.

I thought that I had finished my contents page and could write it off from the list, however when I came to create my front cover I came across some CMYK issues and the colouring that I wanted to apply to my front cover didn't look very nice. Therefore I had to waste some time choosing a new colour scheme, changing the contents page colour scheme, and also changing the colour of the dress. Eventually I did pick a colour scheme and I am happy with it, I think that my front cover is looking really professional and although it has gone through a lot of layout changes, I think that I have finally managed to find one that works. Hopefully I won't have to come back to it again, and I can consider it as a finished job.

I have also started my 'HOT OFF THE STREETS' DPS, it is looking quite promising although it is quite basic at the moment. I am going to have to work really hard on it to make it look engaging, and hopefully by the end of next week I should have it pretty much finished so I can concentrate on my second DPS.

'HOT off the Street' DPS Development

Bold title at the top with a kicker to the side. The kicker is a little explanation about what the article is, and gives the reader an overview of what they can expect from the article.
Large images are easy to see, and are all proportionate to each other.
Alternate names next to the models because they can't all fit in on one level... 

Made the images smaller because there wasn't enough room to fit in any text around or underneath the images.
Title made bright pink and eyecatching to grab the attention of the reader.

Creation of 'personal profiles' title icon in Photoshop.

I later deleted the yellow text to just make a pink bubble with the words essentially 'cut out' of it.

 My ideas for this double page spread are to have each of the models on the top half of the page with annotations of where their clothes are from.

I will then have their 'personal profiles' underneath their position on the page. These profiles are questions about themselves (like a mini interview) and their own style.
I chose bright pink as a colour scheme for this page because I thought that it was quite funky and eyecatching. The blue dots across the middle of the page act as a seperator between the image area and the personal profile area.

Addition of 'personal profiles'.

I changed each persons name to the same bright pink as the title of the page. This makes it stand out from the rest of the profile, and makes it easier to identify the name of the girl.
I also shifted all of the names of the girls up to the left hand side of each of their heads so that they were all on level. This makes the page more symmetrical and professional looking - whereas before they were at different heights and it looked messy.

Front Cover Development

Small flowery detail between date and price, tiny detail that I noticed the professional magazines used... Therefore I chose my own shape to use because even the smallest details pull the whole thing together and make it look more professoinal.

(Zoomed out view.)

Adding in the enigmas and sell lines, text wrapping around the image to give it space and look less cluttered. Changed the font along the bottom to the same font as 'Charity Shop Chic' because otherwise there would be three different fonts on the front cover - which is too many. So I cut down the number of fonts.

Autoshape to draw attention to a certain article, an idea that I picked up from the front covers of 'Glamour' and 'Cosmopolitan'.

Too much white space in top right hand corner.

Experimenting with making the masthead larger to fill in the white gaps.
'N.East UK' to specify the area that the magazine is targeted at. (For example if the magazine was taken national each different region would have their region on the top of their version of ROHO).
In front of image - makes the masthead easily readable, but there aren't really that many visable layers, so there's less depth.
Also changed the font of the 'HOT OFF THE STREETS' along the bottom because the other font was too fussy, and there were too many fonts on the front over. I want to keep it to only 2 or 3 fonts so that it isn't too distracting.

Same as above, but the masthead is beneath the image. Text is less clear and harder to read, but gives the front cover more depth.

Top right hand corner. Fills in the blank white space, is more clear than the the version before hand AND it gives depth because it is partly behind the image. Although the side that says 'ROHO' is rather empty because the letters have been given spaces between in order to fill in more width.
Possible improvements - make the letters thicker and wider, with less space between... but then the letters would be as wide as they were high, and professional magazines always have tall thin letters as they look much better than short fat letters.

I moved the 'Beaute Tips' autoshape from the side of the models face to the top right corner. By making it smaller it is less intrusive on the page, and it also fills in the problematic blank space at the top of the page.

I could then make the title wider and bolder to fill up more of the space on the left, and by keeping it behind the image there's more depth to the cover.
I also added on another autoshape - an opaque circle. I saw a similar thing on a 'Cosmopolitan' magazine, it is acting as a teaser to get people interested in the magazine because they have something to gain from it. The autoshape also  fills in the gap left after the origional 'Beaute Tips' autoshape was moved.

I think that this version and changed layout looks a lot more professional than the previous one.