Blog Write Up 25/3/14

Blog Write Up 25/3/14

This week the main changes I made to my front cover revolve around the reorganization of the sell lines. I decided to remove the rectangle sell lines as I felt they would control a large portion of the page and overwhelm the audience with too much information to look at in the small amount of time most people glance at a front cover for. 

I decided to make all the sell lines ‘free floating’ on the page without a border and make all the text left centered as to draw the reader’s eye into the center of the page. I also changed the leading of the text to move all the text closer together so that there isn’t as much white space and to make sure the text doesn’t get ‘lost’ into the background because of the empty space. I separated the different sell lines using small grey lines and made sure the text colour alternated between red and black to make it clear where one sell line starts and one ends.

                   Before                                                                                                  After

After all these changes it gives me a larger area for my photograph to be inserted into towards the right hand side of the page, which may require the button sell being moved slightly but shouldn’t cause too many problems. My photograph will be taken in the photo-shoot I plan to have in the next couple of days and I plan to use a dark background with a honeycomb light onto the model to hopefully make it look more interesting than the plain white background I used in my previous photo-shoot.

Blog Write Up 18/03/14

Over the past few days I have had my photo shoot and developed my front cover with the addition of various sell lines, masthead etc. My photo shoot was somewhat successful although the pictures didn't come out exactly how I wanted them for a couple of reasons. A contact sheet of the photographs taken is shown below:

The lighting equipment didn't not function correctly therefore the pictures weren't exactly how I pictured them (the background was darker than I would've liked) although I should be able to fix this when I move onto editing these photographs. The white balance was incorrect and a few of the photographs were slightly out of focus. The photograph I had planned on using for my front cover is "IMG_0157.JPG" found top left and the other photographs if appropriate would have been used throughout my DPS. Due to the problems with the photographs, I plan on having another photo shoot in order to correct these mistakes and give myself better photographs to work with and hopefully improve my final product drastically.

I began creating and inserting more advanced sell lines, including button sells and other designs. I made sure the colour scheme was consistent, using red, black and white as the 3 main colours and using an alternating font colour (black and white) in my sell lines so that the individual sell lines are clearly separate from one another. I also placed very light drop shadows onto the sell lines so that to make them 'pop' out of the page and make it look less flat. A problem I did encounter is in producing the masthead, I began with the full "Your Times Your Life" but that proved hard to make stand out without controlling too much of the page and overall looked too longwinded to be a masthead. Instead I opted for the abbreviated "YTYL" and a tall font on the top left side of the page, so that it looks bold but remains quick and easy to read and recognise. Although I plan on making a few more adjustments, especially when the images have been inserted into the page.

Another technique I used on my front cover was the use of borders on each of the four sides in order to draw the audience's eyes towards the centre of the page and pay attention to the image (once it is placed) and the information placed around it. The top and bottom borders were built with rectangle tools, coloured red to match the colour scheme and with small 1/2 word sell lines that give a small description of what to expect inside the product. The side borders were produced differently, rather than having a solid shape create the border, the text was all aligned down each side, from the sell lines in the top and bottom border, to the sell lines in the middle and even the masthead and barcode. 

Blog Write Up 03/03/14

Before producing my article, I made sure to learn different language techniques to make the article appropriate for its purpose and audience. I learned how to use colloquial language such as contractions and slang and how to produce an opening paragraph in order to encourage the audience to read on and discover what the rest of the article has to say. Plus, how to use a semantic field in my article, which is a group of words grouped by a specific subject, in order to keep it interesting and not over use the same words to describe the same subject.

Over the last week I have learned how to setup an InDesign page, including creating columns, the size and number of the pages and how to add text boxes to organize my page. I placed my text into my project and worked with the leading, font size and indenting to make it look organized and fill the space appropriately. I also learned how to incorporate drop caps into my work to illustrate the start of the article. I also learned how to add shapes into the outside of the project to give the page a borderline that will draw the audience into the center of the page. The layout I produced gives space for the photographs I will take in the next week so that they can be inserted into the project easily after they have been edited. Also, I made sure the layout organized the text into 4 columns (of varying length) and making sure to leave room for the breakout box I plan to include.

In terms of photography, I learned various skills that will help me produce my photographs exactly how I want them to come out. I learned how to use equipment such as reflectors, soft boxes, honeycombs etc. Plus, I learned how to use the equipment to produce different types of lighting such as broad lighting and butterfly lighting. Also, I discovered how/when to use different backdrops and how different colours can produce different connotations and cause different effects of the model. After learning all this I produced a plan as to how I would like my studio to be setup for my photographs, focusing on what backdrops I will use, lighting set ups and how the model will be positioned. For editing the photographs, I learned how to use different effects and tools to edit a photograph to my liking. Using tools such as dodge and burn and heal brush and using auto colour and other colour adjusters such as colour balance and hue/saturation to adjust the colours and the overall aesthetic of the image.