Critical reflection!!

Works cited: "Eating Disorders | Adventures of the Incredible Shrinking Girl." Adventures of the Incredible Shrinking Girl. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. "Britney Spears News." Exhale. N.p., 21 Mar. 2013. Web. 24 Mar. 2016.

Final Project!

Here it is!

Operation Cover Page Completed

After hearing multiple opinions, I have decided to stick with Word and that is final! A few people told me not to use it because they thought I would not be able to do more artsy things with my magazine. On the other hand, my friend Camila told me that the majority of her class used either Word or Power point and they came out really nice. I just do not have the time to learn a new software. Anyways, like I said before, Word is much easier for me to use and I am much more familiar with it. So, now that we have that settled, I also realized something that I was missing...COLORS!! I only had one set color to use for my magazine,which was magenta. Therefore I had a lot of white space. I googled color combinations for magenta and these are some that I liked:

I really loved the light blue and the magenta together, but before I committed to it, I took the time to research the color blue and what it represents. Turns out, blue also fits my magazine because it represents inner security and confidence, a feeling that I want my readers to be able to have.

Once again, I have spent another day working for 4 plus hours, but this time I actually made progress and... wait for it...finished my Cover Page!! I mean, I had all the information and pictures before, but now I finally put it all together. In order to build up the suspense for the big reveal on Sunday, I will just show you the mast head of my cover page (which I am quite proud of)

 Don't be alarmed, I covered the rest of the page with a temporary white box, so yes, I do have more than just a title. I also want to point out that since my title is called Inside Out, it is inside and outside the blue lines too (see what I did there?)!

That's all I have for today, you can expect an update on the TOC tomorrow!

-C



Works Cited:
Magenta Color Schemes- Magenta Color Palette." Color Combos. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Apr. 2016.
The Color Blue." Empowered By Color. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 Apr. 2016.

STRESS

For this blog post I just need to vent about my current emotions!!!

A new wave of stress has washed over me. As I have been in my room for the past four hours, I am not liking how everything is turning out. The image that I originally had for my TOC did not turn out the way I wanted it too. I am currently trying to move things around, adjust font combinations, rearrange pictures, etc. I may be even switching softwares...again (oy vey). I know as soon as I can settle on a software that I like I can go from there and hopefully things will move faster. I have all the content, I just can't put it all together. I am probably going to leave school early to work on this because I want to turn in something that I am proud of. I want all this work to pay off and Sunday is right around the corner (which is terrifying). Sorry for the short post, but I must get back to work.

Wish me luck!

-C

Slow but Sure

AHHHHHHHH

Okay so I know I said I would have the TOC and Cover page done by Sunday (fail), but I have been really busy with makeup work and have not had time to properly complete them. I continued working on the cover page immediately after I got back from camping, but I did not expect the amount of time it took to eliminate the background of this picture.

It is a lot more time consuming then it looks. I started to use a program my Mom has on her computer but found that using Power point was easier to figure out. There was an eliminate background option and you had to carefully outline each of their figures in order to take out the rest of the background. Anyway, I ended up with this, which is not bad considering how technologically challenged I am with this stuff.

Then, all day today I have been jumping between different softwares in order to create my magazine. It is much harder than it seems because if you change programs, then you have to learn how to use the other program. I couldn't figure Joomag out and started to get impatient, so I switched to Canva. Unfortunately, Canva only allows you to use their fonts, so If I continued with that software, then I wouldn't have been able to keep my mast head font that I loved. I then decided to download photo shop (which took forever). And just my luck, photo shop had certain aspects that were difficult for me to use, such as clicking and moving a text box (trust me it was not as simple as it sounds). Finally, I ended up falling back into my comfort zone and using Word (so much easier). 

I also captured my final pictures of the food that I need for my TOC

Who knew taking a good picture of bananas would be that difficult (it probably took me over 20 minutes)? I know you're probably dying to see what my TOC and Cover Page look like, but I am going to wait until this weekend to reveal the final product. Don't worry though I will still show you bits and pieces of it in the next few blog posts.

Stay tuned!

-C

The Reasoning Behind the Photos

After taking 100 photos, I now have to decide which ones I like the best. I must ask myself things like, does it look better vertical or horizontal, mid shot or full body shot? As I went through each photo and began to eliminate 90% of them, I realized the only picture I actually explained in previous blog posts was the cover image. So, I want to address my vision for the TOC and for the two page spread. First here is a sketch that I quickly drew so you guys can understand how I want my pictures to look in the TOC:

Please excuse the awful drawings, the point was just to get an idea of the layout across. Each image represents a cover line that was on the cover page. Most of the pictures are going to be close ups. As you can see, there is a mix of vertical photos (inspiration from the TOC example that I showed a couple of posts ago) and a horizontal photo. The horizontal picture is of the eyes of Camila and Emily and represents my two page spread article. One reason why the picture is horizontal and not vertical like the rest of the images is because this is the cover story and I want it to be highlighted/easily noticeable in the TOC. In the actual article, I will be using the pictures of Camila and Emily each writing positive words about themselves in the mirror that outline their reflection. I will talk more about why these photos are significant for the article later. The first vertical picture (I have not taken yet) is going to be of a smoothie and goes with the cover line 10 Simple and Healthy Recipes Using Ingredients You Probably Already Own. The second picture is the one I took of the close up on Camila's feet in the air as she jumps on the trampoline. This photos represents the cover line Fun Activities That are Surprisingly Great Exercise. The third photo is of a hamburger (I tried) but I will probably change it to a healthier food that is high in carbohydrates. This photo matches with the Myth Busters: Carbs are Not the Enemy cover line. Finally, the last one is the close up of Emily planking ( I actually love how that picture came out) and goes with the cover line Amazing At Home Workouts. I plan to have these pictures by the Features section of the TOC and then include other articles and their matching pages below that section.

This weekend, I am going camping, but I am still committed to finishing my TOC and Cover page by Sunday. I just felt like I needed to explain the pictures that I took yesterday.

See you Sunday!
-C

Lights, Camera, Action!

I finally took the pictures today!!!!

This was almost impossible to organize with Emily and Camila because things just kept coming up. They were supposed to come at 4:30, but then Camila notified me that the majority of her work got deleted from her computer (she is working on a magazine also) and that she was unable to make it at that time. Aside from that, Emily was already not the most thrilled person to be featured in my magazine due to her busy schedule. We decided to push the time back and meet at 6:00 instead, but at 5:45, Camila called me and informed me that she had to drive her sister to an appointment (ugh). Luckily (after some pleading here and there), I eventually got them to come and I think we got all the pictures I need that has to do with Emily or Camila.

Side note: let me just say how anxious I was the night before as I continued to come up with all the pictures I needed and how I wanted my TOC to look. I knew that this was basically my only day to film with both Camila and Emily at the same time and did not want to miss anything. Also these photos are not edited yet!! For most of them I will photo shop Camila and Emily into a white background

Without further ad, I present to you.. the pictures:

Beginning the TOC

YAY
Finally I set a date to take the pictures for my magazine! Although it is past the date, I planned to be done with my cover image. I am still going to try to take most of the pictures I will need for the whole project on Thursday with Camila and Emily.  Yesterday in class, we read an article about time management and it helped a lot. It provided some great tips that I will definitely use as I continue to work on this project. I will provide the link to the article here if you want to take a look at it. I already have been utilizing the tips and my own personal goals in two ways, the first being the writing of this blog post. I barely had any homework today and was dying to take a nap and relax but I knew I had to work on my project considering the due date is basically two weeks away. Self-discipline is super important with long term projects and prevents procrastination (which I tend to do a lot). The second way was after reading the article, I had to adjust my mental deadlines that I planned to strive to meet.   My new goal is to be completely finished with the table of contents and the cover page by Sunday. This way, I can have all of next week to work on the two page spread. I really cannot do much more with the cover page until I have taken my pictures, so Thursday will be a much more exciting post. In the meantime, I am going to work on my table of contents and the kind of format I want to use for it. 

I know I want mine to be visually appealing. I do not want it to be boring and too simple like this one.

Although it is easy to follow, I would probably just skip over it if I saw this in a magazine. Instead, I want my TOC to take after the qualities of these layouts.

 

I’m not too crazy about the words being vertical on the first magazine because I feel it may be hard to read, but I still love the look of this layout. It is simple but still catches the eye. I also love the second TOC taken from Self fitness and health magazine. I like the different categories that include things like features and departments too. Features highlights the top stories in the magazine and departments can be used to show different categories such as Food and drink, Workouts, etc. I think I will mimic the use of the different sections in the TOC and the layout of the artsy images, which really do a good job in standing out.

Since I am not going to be doing my two page spread on food, I still want to make a healthy recipe and include it into the magazine somehow.  I will take pictures of the food that I create and incorporate that into my TOC and list it under the Features section. Next I will take a picture of Camila and Emily (I don't know what they will be doing yet) and use that also. Finally I want to take a picture of someone doing an at home workout maybe in a garage or something. These are just ideas for now and I will continue to come up with more ideas to do with the TOC tonight.

Thanks for reading!

-C

Works Cited:

Sliwinski, Michael. "Download Productive Magazine #7 with Michael Hyatt about Productivity, Leadership and Social Media." N.p., 17 Feb. 2011. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

Campbell, Kristine. "Magazine Spread: Table of Contents: Features." Flickr. Yahoo!, 29 Oct. 2010. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

"30 Eye-Catching Table of Contents Designs." Best Design Options. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.

Time Management On Long Term Projects." Cal Poly. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2016.