Questionnaire pt 2

Before i sent my magazine to print i wanted to be as consistent as i could, because of this i wanted to create a focus group of those in the age range i wanted my magazine to target and ask them to complete my survey on the digital copy of my magazine before i sent it to print to ensure this is something they would pick up. After each getting a turn to study the magazine as well as the access to a link to re look at the video of my magazine, i asked them to complete a survey via google forms which i could then analyse before sending to print ensuring that any changes that could be made, would be. I shared the questionnaire through facebook and Twitter to ensure that not only will my focus group see it but also my demographic of 17-24 years do, too. I wanted to do this to gather enough constructive feedback as possible as it gives me the confirmation about what my target audience want but also allows to fix any issues they may have. By showing them the online version, i think they preferred it to having a physical copy because it didn't need to be shared around, the magazine was on their screens to come back too.

Progression On Layout

To create my layout for my magazine, as i have spoke about previously, i did this through InDesign as this is what i am most familiar with in terms of layout and design work. As I knew i wanted to create an A4 sized, 20 page document i added this into the settings as well as adding in a 3mm bleed, as requested by the print company i chose to work with. Once editing my images, i exported them through Lightbox and also started to add in my written articles via Google drive, thanks to my flat lay plan i knew where i wanted each of my pieces of content to go and in which order, however i did not feel i had added in enough images from my second photoshoot added into my magazine so i made the document 24 pages long to accommodate this, 24 pages was more than enough but also meant it was divisible by four therefore i would have no issues when my magazine went to print. After adding in my text and images i went about adding in my particular details to distinguish my magazine such as geometric text boxes and adding in my social media promotions also, once these smaller details had been done i left it for the day to reflect, before coming back and perfecting the magazine more like changing my title font from the one i previously liked as i felt it to be too unreadable to other things like trialling page numbers but then removing them because as predicted, i found them too distracting and also over lapping images and text onto two pages as i thought this was a really good way of tying two pages together. All of these small changes added up and the process of creating my magazine layout took around two days (give or take) however i am really happy with my finale product, i am hoping it comes out with no issues but this is what happens when you give someone else the reigns on your project. On reflection, my magazine did change in contrast to my previous flat lay plan, but i had no issue with this. Now i need too collect feedback from my focus group and make any more last minute changes before sending my magazine to print.

Flare photoshoot-Production

One I had completed my recce of potential locations for me to do my photo shoot in, it was time to begin my shoot for the magazine. Including me, there was three of us whom worked together to create a good shoot for me to be proud of, as i wanted this shoot to happen whilst the sun was beginning to set we left at about 6;30 PM for the sun to begin setting, to ensure we would not miss this i googled the day before shooting what time the sun would be setting and planned my shoot around that. Getting to our location was no trouble nor was the issue of weather thanks to it being to beginning of British summer time therefore the weather was reliable, thanks to my previous planning i knew the exact location i wanted to shoot in as well as my previously made moodboard which allowed the model to understand how to stand and positioning to stand with our flares. The sun setting was a huge concern of mine as it can often be unpredictable, sometimes the lighting can be really effective through the trees if the weather is bright enough and others it is too dull and you are unable to see much, luckily for me the sun was bright enough for it to be seen therefore helping the whole photography process along alot more as natural lighting was my only form of lighting for this shoot.

As the shoot went on be began to find a hack of how to shoot with these unpredictable flares, as soon as they were positioned and let off the model must get into postion immediately for us to begin photographing otherwise the flare would get less powerful before running out and so after a while we soon found how to get into the habit of doing so, i found whilst shooting that there was more natural lighting coming from the North of us than above or to either side therefore i made sure to direct my model to face that way so that when I shot that the camera could pick up the light, which it did and i am overall really happy with how my images turned out. When we let off the first flare to begin shooting i thought that lowering the shutter speed of the camera maybe really effective but what i found was that the opposite occurred, turning up my shutter speed so that it was quicker turned out to work best for these images as i found that in speeding it up you could see the puffs of cloud more vividly and with more texture almost, due to this i continued to use this method as i wanted to maintain this look throughout all of my images. I also found that thanks to my mood board i knew the style of images i wanted to take and so there was no experimentation with style of angle was needing when snapping shots, you will see that there is a certain style i was going for and i believe i achieved this. I believe that if i was to conduct this shoot again i would potentially add in more varieties of colour when it comes to the flares themselves but apart from that there is nothing else i change due to how happy i was after the shoot, everything ran smoothly and we did not have any troubles. Here you will find some of my unedited images taken from the shoot;

Online Presence

During my FMP presentation i committed to creating an Instagram page for my magazine as i believe that this form of social media best reflects what my magazine is trying to portray through moments such as 'PhotoOfTheDay' i can show to my potential audience the style i am trying to show such as fashion pieces I am enjoying or the behinds of scenes of photoshoots we did that day, i believe that creating an Instagram account is key in my success as a potential brand due to the fact that the majority of brands have forms of social media, especially magazines which are more likely to have every form possible! In creating my Instagram i can stay connected with my audience and also may attract new readers to the page, which can never be a bad thing. I chose Instagram over any other form of social media due to its image based appearance as i have incorporated photography into my magazine i wanted to remain consistent with other platforms too, with Instagram also, you can incorporate pages to have certain themes therefore i was to remain consistent with posting onto the page after this project was done i could create themes of images based on each month of the magazines issue, which i think is a really cool aspect to Instagram.

 

Overall, i am happy with the process I have made so far. Creating this Instagram page means i am in the 'Home stretch' of creating my magazine and finishing my FMP altogether, it must be said i still need to complete my magazine fully and send it to print and also do my post production work however i feel like i am on top of things and am happy to continue to until the deadline. 

Online based version of my magazine

Before deciding to go with a print based version of my magazine for my finale version, i played around with the idea of creating a digital version of it as i believed this is what would be most popular, after doing my initial survey i discovered this wasn't the case! Therefore i went with a print based version. This hasn't stopped me creating a mock up version of what my magazine could have looked like however, to do this i created it through Issuu.com an online magazine publishing website which i found through my secondary research on layout, this website also came recommended to me based off the rating of some similar to me, also creating a magazine. I wanted to create this just to see how things in my magazine could look differently is i had chosen to do so online, i also wanted to do this so that it is easily readable to those i ask for feedback from on my questionnaire, especially my focus groups.
                                     

Progression reflection after trial print

After creating some mock ups and print trials of how my magazine could possibly look, i needed to get in order my re editing so that i would not mess up when my magazine was sent to print. After dulling down some of my images slightly for them to look better quality when it comes to printing, i wanted to put them into Indesign to see the space i was working with before i cropped my images down or any other drastic changes. As i said, i wanted to do this in InDesign as this where i would be creating the rest of my layout for my magazine therefore i ensured to add my 3mm bleed as requested by my chosen printing company as well as ensuring my images were of an A4 size to see the size of space before cropping some of images down or enlarging them to fit space as well as add in text or text boxes. I found this whole process quite easy to do as i kept with my colour theme throughout the magazine and so i found it easy to find a variation of shots that all tied in together giving my magazine a nice consistency of different images. One issue i did run into however, was that due to the fact i didn't use a tripod for most of my shots i found a lot of my images to be off centred and therefore they did not have equal proportion to them, this was difficult as it meant having to spend a long time editing these images to allow for their orientations to equal.

First Print Trial

Once I had used a mix of Photoshop and Indesign to alter my images for the magazine in ways i thought were really effective, I decided to make four example pages of what my magazine could look like and then print them to see if there was anything i wanted to alter. Once printing the images, a lot of changes i wanted to make on reflection were to the colour as i found the image lost quality once printed due to my printer to begin able to deal with the high saturation, of course i know that my printer is not of a high quality that will be like the ones of that used when i send off for my magazine to be professionally printed however since i did not want to take any risks i knew that it was best to edit them down slightly just to ensure i would not need to re print or waste money.

Before evaluating this page, i feel it should be acknowledged that yes, the print quality is poor; i'm a student, i cant afford new ink! Anyway, this is one of my photography pages in which the title is one side and image the other, overall this is my favourite of the pages printed out, i cant fault the image itself as i believe that the colouring will withstand printing, however i believe i will need to change the colour of this text box as it is grey toned here and i do not think it will look that great with the theme of the photos. Another dislike for this page is the thick lined boarder around the outside of the image, i believe i will removed this as i do not think it allows the image to flow nicely altogether. I didn't add page numbers to this mock up and i do not believe i will either, i am too concerned i will mess the counting around and end up numbering the pages incorrectly! On top of this do not think that i have enough pages (24) for my magazine to require it needing page numbers therefore i do not think i will be including them as i do not want them to distract from the image for example.

This mock up section of my magazine is the content pages, overall i also really like this. My image on the right hand side will be the on the of images i will need to re edit to dull down as my printer could not handle the high qualities of editing tone, which is fine. Other than that my only other draw back is the contents page itself, i really like the layout as it ties the two pages in together nicely but my only issue is that i feel like the purple section is too distracting for a reader to look at and read when the contents is therefore i will need to play around with this page more and see if there is any other way of laying the images out correctly. Other than this i am happy with this layout page, i like how the text box over laps into the text page also giving the page a tie in, i like it!

Overall, i am really happy that i decided to print pages out before sending my magazine to print professionally as it means i can nit pick the areas i do not like of my magazine and really give them the finale touches or re do their layout to ensure no issues. Printing these pages out has given me a better vision of how i would like my magazine to be styled, i have been able to see which of my colour selections do not work when printed so now i can change their opacity amongst other editing features as well as allowing me to do alternations to areas such as text positioning which i am glad i have given myself the opportunity to do. In doing this process i can leak up my previous research and experimentation process into my current production allowing myself to be self critical and analyse what i have done and how i can improve.

Progression So Far-Production and mock up of magazine.

After I had completed my shoot I wanted to experiment further using the with my front cover using the images i took to see if i could create a mock up of what my magazine could look like. I began by exporting some of my preferred images into Lightroom and editing them slightly to allow them to look bolder and more professional photography based, I picked three images which varied from each other to show how my front cover could take different forms.

This is my first mock up of my potential over;

As you can see, the left image is the unedited and the right could be my potential cover, overall i liked it however the busyness of my background takes away from my title which is not what i want as i want a minimalist cover (no contents summaries etc) therefore as such as i like this cover, it is not one i will be using. 

I wanted to create this potential cover to see a cover that did not have a filter over the image, honestly i do not like this cover very much. My first issue lies in the static space behind my model which i can do much with, as you can see in my edited picture i tried to crop the image heavily but i was still not happy with the image overall, the second problem lies in in my editing, as much as i tried to adjust the lighting balance the image still looked dark and did not do the glitter justice. For both of these reasons i have dismissed this as a potential cover.   

This is the last cover i experimented with, i created this one slightly different in the sense that in stead of exporting the image after editing it into directly into indesign i took the time to crop the image down and also add a board around it to make the image stand out more from the white page, i really like this effect especially as the image is landscape and my magazine is portrait but i think i have made it work therefore i may use this cover for my magazine. 

After completing this task, i did the same thing for the images i took using outside photography however since my blog post on experimenting with editing which goes into more depth when talking about layout etc i will not talk about it in this blog post. From creating these mock ups i could see how my images would need to be manipulated for when my official magazine mock ups begin, such as how the images would need to be cropped and also learning the techniques used in photoshop for touch ups such as getting rid of blemishes and other imperfections, overall, my favourite mock up is my finale creation which is the contender i may end up using for my front cover. As spoken about, i need to ensure i pay attention to detail in creating my front cover, as it is the first impression but i am happy. 

Shooting for my magazine

After completing the research and the experimentation necessary to begin shooting for my magazine, the process could begin. As this i have spoken about in previous blog posts, for my cover shoot i wanted to do this in our studio space due to the lighting i wanted to use and also the plain backgrounds which i can then alter to my liking. Thanks to my previous test shoots and endless research i knew pretty much from the get go in the studio space just how i wanted my shoot to go, i needed to do the basics like set up my back drop, ensure lighting was working and in the position i wanted before moving onto the applying the glitter to my model to begin shooting. Thanks to my previous work on creating an inspirations mood board on the make up i liked the glitter was easy enough to do with the use of adhesive, the whole process took less than 20 minutes before we could begin shooting. To begin with I had my model sit down, this was because the lighting hit the glitter and reflected out really effectively as i had found from my test shots however after looking at the shots i had taken i wanted her to stand, i wanted this because then i would have a variety of shots to play around with afterwards. After I had taken some shots without using any coloured filtering, i wanted to add this in. I added a blue filter into my model, which was just as effective. It worked really well with the blue glitter i had used on my model and the shots came out just how i would have liked, on reflection i believe that the images i liked the most were of the model sat down and luckily i had taken enough of the ones i had liked to add into my magazine later on.

Shadowing was a really important aspect i wanted to incorporate into my photo shoot, something i didn't talk about during my test shoot as a had to use a black background but it is something i kept in mind during this photoshoot. To ensure my shadowing was really effective I played around with the shutter speed of my camera whilst changing the lighting to each side of my model but also so that the lighting was directly above her to see which shadowing i liked best, this really helped in ensuring i got a variety of shots to play around with. After doing most of my shoot using a tripod to ensure a balanced photograph i wanted to experiment with just holding the camera, on reflection i am happy that i chose to do because most of the shots i liked best were of my angling the camera from below my model as this allowed me to include the shadowing i spoke about previously, as she was sat down i could get a good amount of shots this way without causing discomfort to her. Overall, my shoot didn't take long thanks to my test shooting and previous planning as well as the fact i could be critical of the photos i had taken quickly and learn how to rectify the situation soon, thankfully as my shoot focus was on the models face, i didn't need to include outfit changes like others did therefore i could save time that way. My issue fell after the i had finished the shooting and exported the images onto my Mac, it had taken well over 300 photos of varied photographs and most of them were very similar, if not the same! therefore i had to spend a long amount of time going through and deleting the ones i did not need, however in stating this i am really happy with the photos i did keep which i can use for my magazine.

Experimenting with the editing process

As part of my experimentation process before test shooting for my magazine using studio lighting and flash photography i wanted to ensure that i knew the style of alternations i wanted to make to my images after taking them using Photoshop and Lightroom (Adobe). In doing this not only does it allow me to practise the skills i have previously learnt in these programs but i can see what effects i like but i can also play around with the saturation, brightness etc to see what i think is really effective. From my research, i do not believe my images will need a lot of editing however to ensure my images are looking crisp and clean cut when my magazine goes to print they will need to be adjusted slightly. As the images i plan to include in my magazine involve a lot of colour i want to edit them to adjust the tones used making the images as vibrant as possible without distorting the images or making the look pixilated, as i do not know the style of images i will be using for my magazine yet, expect that i will have at least two double page spreads of images and three single spread images inside my magazine as part of my content i began with these; I selected this image, ensuring it had no obvious editing or filters to show a before and after. I wanted to work with coloured flares for the inside content of my work therefore i found an image that had this incorporated into it.

As this image had some unnecessary background to it, i first opened photoshop and removed it using the magic wand tool. In doing this the software can recognise which part of the image you are trying to remove and does it for you, once completing this task i was left with is image;
However i was not happy with the empty space surround the image therefore i selected around the image before filling it, i changed my settings to 'Content-Aware' leaving my image to look like this;

Now, if you look closely there are small lines were the image has been duplicated to fill the white and i did not like this either so i used the spot healing brush tool to remove the lines/blemishes. I found this really effective and gave me the outcome i was looking for meaning that i could then export my image into Lightroom to edit the image itself.                                                                                                                           Once exporting the image into Lightroom ensuring it as a JPG. I then began manipulating image with effects to see what fit best, i have little to no experience with Lightroom therefore i found this part of the task to be particularly difficult, however after adjusting i found myself enjoying it more and more as well as learning which was benefit it when it comes to editing my own photos.

 As you can see some of the effects used were really successful making the original image unrecognisable in contrast, i sampled with adding black and white however i do not think this is necessary as the whole point of the image is its contrasting colours and i did not want to make away from that. The second image is my favourite as it gives more depth to the original photo without losing any quality of the original photo, using this effect is something i will consider when it comes to the editing process of my own shoot as i think it is really effective. Once i had edited the photo more, i wanted to transfer it back into photoshop to manipulate the image further, adding in text boxes and watermarks to image showing how i could incorporate this image into a potential magazine spread. After playing around with 'Lighting effects' i was happy with the image and wanted to then begin a potential magazine spread, exporting the image into Indesign as i feel this software is best for layout as well as finishing touches. Before beginning my editing process i ensured my page size was of A4 as this is the size i will be working with for my magazine and after exporting my image in the editing commenced, as i have such a busy background image i wanted to add an extra detail so that my writing would stand out therefore i wanted to add a filled in text box to make my text stand out. Overall i think this was really effective, however on reflection i would use such a busy background to add text on top of as it is difficult to know where your eyes should look, its too distracting. I will remember this when i create the layout of my magazine.
After creating my basic mock up of what my magazine could look like, i wanted to take this another step and   experiment with other layouts i could use. I began by playing around with the postioning of where my focus image sat, as I said I found my image too distracting for the text to go onto of the image therefore I wanted to change around my layout. For start i moved the image out of the entire page so that it sat in one corner, from my research I had found it really effective for images to over lap two pages, it really brought the pages together so that is what I tried. Overall, I really liked the edge it gave my potential layout, it is something I would genuinely for my magazine. I think that the writing over lap ties the two pages together however the text can still be read which I really liked. For experimentation purposes i also wanted to see what it would look like if my image took up the whole page, however i knew that i would not like it due to the fact that the text cant be read. I do not think that the page came together as well therefore i will not be considering this for my magazine.

As you can see from my developments, once finding a layout i liked i then pushed it further to find the best outcome for myself. My personal favourite is the image is centred in the middle of the page, i think this is a really effective use of the space i have been given. I wanted to create these mock ups so that when i shoot with the flairs as i intend to, it gives me some perspective on how i should shoot and from which angles as well as what to avoid. By mocking up my potential layouts not only has it re confirmed my skill set in the likes of photoshop and lightroom which has given me the confidence to continue with my original shooting ideas. from my edited pictures and converting them into backgrounds it has confirmed that i must beware when editing my actual photos not to make them too dark otherwise i cant add text onto the image which can cause alot of difficulites for myself.

Using test shoots for experimenting with potential front cover

As part of my experimentation phase I wanted to use my magazine cover test shots to come up with some examples of what my front cover could look like, experimenting with not only the styles i could create for a cover but also taking practise in the softwares i would be using for the real thing. I began with choosing very different images from my test shooting to show variation as i do not know which style of image i will use for my real front cover, i ensured to use two photos one with coloured filtering and one without.

 To begin with i set about editing the basics of both images such as the brightness and saturation however before all of this, when opening my photoshop document i ensured to change the sizing of the document to the give myself a realistic idea of what i am working with, in this case A4 sized paper for printing. As most of the alternations i wanted to make were just enhancements of my original images, much like how i want to edit when it comes to my real magazine, i gave myself as much creative freedom as possible to enrich the colours of the images as well as play around with possible morphing techniques for the colour of my images, these were some of the possible images i came up with; As you can see, i did not do morph the images, i just enhanced what i already had, much like i plan to do with my actual magazine. I wanted to focus on enriching the colours of each photo therefore i mainly focus on editing the vibrancy and shadows of my photos as well as the split toning tool which really helped when editing my split toned images when using the coloured film over the lighting to shoot. Overall, i am really happy with how my editing went, it has opened my eyes to what i can do and how to find the correct balance without over editing an image or over saturating it.

 

Once editing my images, i selected two of the images to create two example magazine covers, to do this i exported my images and opened my ready made photoshop documents of an A4 size and downloaded the font i have decided to use, as spoken about in my experimentation on font blog post. After exporting my images into photoshop i wanted to edit them further slightly, as it was just finishing touches i went onto the effect slide down down and selected the 'Auto' edit tool which touches up the images to give them a better quality, overall i really liked the touching edge it gave my images so it added it to both potential front covers. Next up i added in my title, i wanted to experiment coloured font however, as you will see i believe it gave my magazine an unprofessional finish therefore i will not be adding this into my magazine, I will just have to edit the darkness of my images so that text can be seen, i also edited the fill and opacity of my text to experiment with how this would help and yes, i believe it did. When it comes to editing my magazine I will not be as timid with the tool. After editing my image and adding in its title, i added in a barcode to add the magazine potential, overall i did not like adding it in as i believe it distracted from the image, the same could be said for content clues on the front cover, i did not like this therefore i did not add this into either of my potential magazine covers.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  After reflecting on my created covers, i wanted to take this on step further. I had seen a boarder around the outside some magazine front covers that i really liked, with the title above. I thought this was really effective and something i wanted to incorporate into my own magazine therefore leaving my two magazine covers above as is, i imported one of my images into InDesign to see if i could recreate some thing like this image; When using InDesign i ensured i included a slug and bleed as specified by my chosen print company which was 3mm. On reflection i am really happy with my way my experimentation went when it comes to adding a boarder into my work, it was simple enough to do without me wanting to break down and cry. As this image is just a mock up of how my cover could look, there are some imperfections however when it comes to editing my images for my magazine i will not be so lax about them.





By me creating a mock up of what my magazine could look like it has really pushed my understanding in software such as InDesign, i am happy with my basic understand which i can develop on through tutorials during college time but i have now practiced important techniques such as adding in Bleeds to the outside profile of my page layouts. In doing these mock ups it has also made me re consider important aspects of my cover shot such as insuring that i do use my white background as the dark background was extremely hard to work with when adding in fonts etc, it has also made me consider the types of shots i do. I must remind myself to keep the camera portrait instead of landscape to help myself fit the image onto the page without dis morphing the image, after creating my front cover i would also like to create a mock up of the inside of my magazine too. That way I can play around with layout and transporting documents from one software to another.