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Preliminary task
In the beginning of the year, I was focused on the preliminary task. The goal was to design a student magazine; during the production, I had to deal with plenty of problems, but got experienced with basics of editing and photography, which helped me massively with the next project. -
Magazine theory
At the beginning of the year, I knew nothing about the magazine industry, let alone the alternative magazines. By the middle of October, I had accumulated enough key knowledge to start my 1st project. -
Photoshop Practice
In my first photoshop practice, I tried to use as many tools as possible, to learn the basics and discover effects that might come in handy in future. In the process I used both magnetic lasso and magic wand, pen and pencil, simple and curved text lines, multiple tone and coloured masks. This said, the image looks kind of overwhelmed and falls apart due to the lack of matching in colour scheme. -
1st Photoshoot
I can point out many different issues with my preliminary photography.
E.g. lighting was disastrous - I should've tried other angles and positions. Also, I should've given more directions (my models look frozen and certainly don't know what to do).
Most issues are connected to planning, as I didn't think everything through; that's why the product was sort of constructed around my final pictures. Further into the course, I planned the visual part of production in detail, and got pages I desired. -
Final pages
The product I got in the end of my preliminary task looked good to me at the time, but having finished the course, I can see what should've been changed. For example, there are a clear overuse of Oswald font - which I thought would hold the cover together at that point - and lack of details, which makes the page look lacklustre and unappealing. -
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Magazine research&planning
During this part of course, I got to know the key concepts of niche/alternative magazines, and planned my oncoming project through to avoid any uncertainty (which was a problem in the preliminary task). -
Alternative conventions analyses
As in the beginning of previous task, I wanted to make sure to understand the conventions of a magazine, but this time it was more specific. Analysing particular issues, I saw the range of tools and tendencies that could've been applied to my magazine, what helped the issue to be recognisable. -
Magazine Pitch
Since this project was much more serious, I wanted to apply all my knowledge to make it as good as possible. Trying out professional targeting and planning techniques, I defined every detail, which improved the work dramatically. -
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Magazine Production
This period of time signifies the actual process of production, during which I applied all the acquired knowledge. -
Photoshoot
This photoshoot isn't as good as it could've been if I was to center my visuals around photography, but since the main part of the issue was illustrated, I planned on doing a quick studio photoshoot (it was intended to be a base of an illustration, so there was no point in assembling anything special). My portrait photography, as you can see, improved in lighting (I lit the half of a face on purpose) and the directions I gave were clearer. The planning helped finally! -
Final Illustrations
I developed a basic level of illustration and got experienced in Adobe Illustrator - something I've never done before, but always wanted! My way wasn't as long as I anticipated, but I got to use multiple different software and hardware - it was a whole story. Eventually, I had a clear understanding of different effects and pens - at that point I was confident enough to include the images in the issue. -
1st Drafts
Learning from the previous project, I wanted to get another opinion on the product. That's why it was important not to stop on these drafts. And there was a lot to change, indeed! (I got rid of unnecessary margins and made the product more sophisticated by altering fonts and backgrounds). -
Final Pages
The final pages were re-edited to perfect the image, and it helped! At that point I used every tool possible in InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, and Photoshop. It's impressive how my work has improved since the beginning of the course!