Final Magazine Submission

Here is my final submission in the form of a flip through magazine.

Reflection:

I found this very easy to do as all I had to do was create an account on flippingbook, compile the screenshots into a PDF through "iLovePDF" and upload the compiled PDF document onto Flippingbook. Very easy to do. I found nothing difficult about this process.

Front Cover

Contents Page

Double Page Spread

FlippingBook

THECALLING

https://online.flippingbook.com/view/850775820/

Google Drive Link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1exB3jnQ8qj83jyon7eTajbMp3SMxOCRL/view?usp=sharing

Critical Self Reflection

Here is my critical self reflection for my magazine component 1 project

Reflection:

I found this part to be the most laborious part of the process as I had to take a lot of inspiration from my previous self reflection on my storyboard. Though it was easy, it was laborious. I still remembered how to import a Canva presentation onto blogger so I am very pleased with myself about that.

Double Page Spread Development

Here is my development progress with regard to the double page spread

Reflection:

I think this was the worst part of the project as I found it very tough to figure out what kind of design I want my double page spread to be. I did the final submission first and then did the sketch, that's how confused I was. I definitely do not want to make another double page spread like this again. I've seen my friend's pages and theirs are top notch. Coupled with my stupidity and procrastination, I'll never be able to get any feedback on this as I did this part at 3am the on the day it is due. Next time I need to focus and not postpone such important things like this. What I found easy and that I liked was being able to finish this reflection as now I have to move onto the Critical Self Reflection and get that done before school. 

I was able to get some last minute feedback from my teacher on the day of submission so we could work on some final little details before it is ready to submit.

Research

Here is some research I conducted to develop my contents page.

I notice that a lot of double page spreads in my genre contain a whole bunch or words, with there being more space taken up by words than by any visual graphic. This is very displeasing to the eye in my opinion as it takes up a whole lot of space for just words which not many people will pay attention to since they're not really good at grabbing the reader's attention.

However, I noticed that one of my research results found that there is evidence of a pull quote, suggesting that it may well be within the genre conventions and is something I will definitely playing around with.

Drop caps are another thing I see quite regularly on these magazines in this genre. As a result, I will definitely be keeping within that genre convention and ensuring that it is upheld. Another thing that seems to have caught my eye is that each double page spread alternates between no columns to just two or even three. I will be definitely experimenting and toying around with that feature. Subheadings seem to also be rare in my genre so I will be sure to steer clear from using subheadings as not only do they clutter up space, they're just not in my genre as a convention.

What I do like about this research is that it has opened my eyes more to what I should be focusing on and how to stay within the guidelines of my genre conventions. What I dislike is the lack of colour used by the designer of these magazines. Obviously there are some that are very good. However, most lack in any sort of eye catching colour. 

Another feature I almost missed is that the author and photographers are almost always jest a piece of text, with some I notice having pictures of the people. I will try to utilise that feature as part of my article and hope that it all works out perfectly. 

Sketches

Here are some hand drawn sketches for my contents page.

All these layouts seem pretty rubbish in my opinion. It's either too many words or too many picture. I can't seem to get the balance right. Either way, I like the idea of the title in a box coming from the left side of the page. I also like the use of different size pictures. It really conforms to my genre conventions. I will experiment with all the layouts and see what kind of results that brings me.

Visual Development

Here are some visual development attempts for my contents page.

Here are a few pictures I may plan on using for my double page spread. I know I am definitely going to use _MG_9281 as it is relevant to the Christmas part of my article. I may go ahead and experiment with some others. Pictures I think I will definitely not use are the ones with Ps. Stephan holding the bible as I don't think it's relevant to the article.

Final Attempts

Here are some attempts made for my final submission.

My teacher then gave me some feedback and so we changed the layout to have the pull quotes as part of the article and to also include a large white space above the second column which he advised me was necessary given the layout as well as how it works. Not only that, but my teacher also advised me to enlarge the greeting as it would stand out more and signify the beginning of the text. 

Final Submission

Here is my final submission for the contents page of my magazine.

Contents Page Development

Here is my development progress with regard to the contents page

Reflection:

The best part of this section of the project is that I got to unleash my inner potential and creativity to create something that was way beyond my comprehension. I think that without the initial sketches and planning with pictures that I would be lost and that it would've taken me far longer to finish this project.

What I found very easy to do is the research which took me only about 15 minutes. I also found it very easy to continue finishing the contents page once I already had a workable layout that looked half decent.

The part I found that I disliked it my time management. It is actually a very fun project but I just don't know how to properly manage my time. That is the only real problem I faced. 

I found it pretty boring and laborious to fill in the blog but it is always an accomplishing feeling to finish the blog posts.

Thankfully on the day of submission, I was able to get last minute feedback from my teacher and he advised on ways to make my contents page even better and I was very satisfied.

Research

Here is some research I conducted to develop my contents page.

Here are a bunch of different contents pages from other Christian magazines. 

According to what I have found, many of the magazines of my genre use a white or solid coloured background with black text. Not only that, but many pictures including people rather than locations were found to be within this genre. Therefore I am willing to use this as valid research. I also see that some of them include their church logo somewhere in the contents page. I will take that idea and put it on my magazine contents page. However, I will not be using the Revival 2019 contents which is just a small box in the bottom left corner of the front page. 

I like that there are many pictures of people within the contents page of these magazines. I believe that this style of contents page will be easy to design as it is basic and because I am now familiar with the genre conventions of my magazine. I dislike the use of the different colours and animated pictures. I think they take away from the simplicity and realism that is Christian magazines.

I also like the numbering with shapes over the pictures as well as the columns for information. I will use that for my contents page.

Each of these magazine contents use similar typefaces and fonts. However, there is a range of serif and sans serif typeface which all seem pretty basic and nothing out of the box. I like this as it adds to the simplicity of the magazine. I will try to see if I can replicate this convention. 

Sketches

Here are some hand drawn sketches for my contents page.

Here are a few attempts to sketch a simple design for my contents page. I may not refer to this. However, I am quite happy about this part. I like the inclusion of pictures as it adds a bit of humanly characteristics. I am not too happy about the variety of layouts which may make the contents page a bit messy. I think I would've been able to work easier if I was able to refer to a different genre of magazine like travel. 

With regard to these layouts, I am happy with the top middle, bottom middle, and bottom left sketches as I believe they are the easiest to work with. 

Visual Development

Here are some visual development attempts for my contents page.

I decided to play around with a few different typefaces as there aren't really any genre conventions. I very much like the serif typefaces as I believe they fit in best with my magazine front cover and that it will go well with what I plan to also put in the contents page. I like the bolded serif typefaces too as I think they stand out better on a white or off-white page. 

I dislike the default typefaces like calibri and arial as they seem pretty boring and out of place on my magazine. Therefore I will not use them. I may use them for what I plan on putting on the contents page though, if I can't find a better font to use. The fonts I will experiment will be Trajan Pro, Times New Roman, and Modern No. 20 as they all fit within the genre conventions despite all being serif fonts.

Here is a bank of 11 pictures I may use for the contents page which each are relevant to a story within my magazine. I like _MG_8418, _MG_4828, and _MG_8496 as they seem like they could have a great story behind them. 

I am not such a huge fan of _MG_4905 which features someone destroying cigarettes as a sign of defeating an addiction as it seems a bit odd to include that in my contents page. Perhaps it would be better suited in a different page of my magazine which features a victory over addiction article.

I decided to add four more pictures as I felt that they would be relevant to the contents page if I was to be going to elaborate on _MG_8496. I like them because I think I can make them all work out without cluttering the page too much with pictures. I dislike the level of the guy's head in the picture as it makes it a bit harder to work with when cropping the images, so that means that his head may not be level when I make the collage.

Final Attempts

Here are some attempts made for my final submission.

For this result, I used Microsoft PowerPoint to make my front cover, as that is the only software that I am very familiar with. I did try to use PhotoPea and Canva but I did not find them easy to use. PhotoPea is a free alternative to photoshop whereas Canva is a free presentation creator site with thousands of free templates. I don't like using pre-made templates so I made my own.

After receiving feedback from my teacher, I was advised to make a few changes to typeface sizes such as the one above the statistics and to line up the featured section with the the top of the word Contents. I took his advice and took necessary action to make it look better which included moving the copyright information around until it lined up perfectly with how I wanted it to.

Here is the amended version of the previous page. I like it because it does look better and that the negative space has been filled in. I am very satisfied with this change and I will submit this as my final submission.  

Final Submission

Here is my final submission for the contents page of my magazine.

Front Cover Development

Here is my development progress with regard to the front cover

Reflection:

I found this part of the process of the project to be the most fun as it allowed me to unleash my inner creativity and learn more about my genre conventions and what I needed to do to keep within those conventions. I ensured that I was able to screenshot every major change and to use that as part of my development. What I found hard was to do this part in a timely manner as I procrastinated too much and left it until the final week to finish this project. I need to work on my time management and management of other stuff so I can balance both school and outside conditions. 

I kept within all the guidelines my teacher set out and I am happy with how it turned out. My teacher provided me with necessary changes to keep within the genre conventions. I am grateful for his guidance and I am very happy and satisfied with his comments and suggestions to make my front cover look better.

Research

Here is some research I conducted to develop my front cover.

Here are a bunch of Christian magazine front covers that I found as part of my research into the genre conventions.

I found that most of them do not have a price or a barcode. However, most do have coverlines and all include pictures of people rather than objects. Most coverlines are also very simple and basic. With regard to typeface, there really isn't a convention. All use different typefaces and alternate between serif and sans serif. I assume that most of them are privately produced for specific churches and are not for sale, but rather are available as a PDF online or available through subscription.

Sketches

Here are some hand drawn sketches for my front cover.

Here is my first attempt at trying "The Potter's Door" as a masthead on my magazine. It turned out that it was too long of a name and would be hard to work with. This is where I got the idea to change the name. I like how it is very easy to play with this kind of masthead, however I do not like how much space it takes up.

Here is my attempt at the masthead "The Calling". I feel as if it is a more flexible name to work with so I will be using this. I very much liked the middle bottom layout which is something I'll be playing around with. I'll expand on the top left, top middle, and bottom middle layouts and see how they go. I disliked the others as they seemed to silly and harder to work with.

Visual Development

Here are some visual development attempts for my front cover.

There aren't really any genre conventions with regard to the typeface, so I experimented with bolded serif and san serif typefaces in bold and normal fonts. I like the look of the first two which are in typeface Merriweather. I will play around with it more on my digital attempts of my magazine front cover.

My teacher then advised me to invert the word "the" as it would make more sense to do so. I conformed with his suggestion.

Here are the best 20 photos I have that I would like to use on my magazine front cover. I will use _MG_8053 and experiment with _MG_7460 and _MG_7506. I like those pictures because I believe they perfectly encapsulate what my church does. I dislike that maybe they may be a tiny bit blurry which will be annoying for me. They all have pictures of preachers which convey their own meaning.

My teacher gave me feedback and said that the third attempt had a bit or emotion, but that the first one was best overall as 

I also saw that _MG_7614 was also a good picture so I experimented with that too. I like it because it takes away the importance of the preacher and conveys a message of the preacher being just as important as the congregation of the church. I dislike the lighting of that picture as it seems a bit dark for a picture taken in the morning.

Final Attempts

Here are some attempts made for my final submission.

Addition: I made the magazine free and the way I will pay to publish it is through advertising and through a budget given to me by my church.

For this result, I used Microsoft PowerPoint to make my front cover, as that is the only software that I am very familiar with. I did try to use PhotoPea and Canva but I did not find them easy to use. PhotoPea is a free alternative to photoshop whereas Canva is a free presentation creator site with thousands of free templates. I don't like using pre-made templates so I made my own.

Final Submission

Here is my final submission for the front cover of my magazine.

Magazine Layout Tutorial

In this post I will demonstrate some basic skills that I learnt in class

Reflection:

At first I thought this was all a bit non-sensical as I thought I knew everything, but after having learnt this process and applying it to my project, I realise now how crucial and essential this part of the learning process was because I always referred back to my sketches while making my front cover and contents page. What I found most interestingly difficult is trying to get the hang of Google Draw as it was my first time using it. Luckily it was pretty easy to get used to using and I think its even easier than Canva.

I started by sketching a few different designs and layouts of my front cover. My teacher told us that this is how we are to develop our magazines. I was able to come up with these six magazine cover designs. They are pretty rubbish since I am not good at drawing at all.

Then my teacher introduced me to an online drawing software called "Google Drawing" and told us to use his template to make a basic magazine front cover layout just to get a rough idea of what we want to make later on.

Here are a few designs I made with Google Drawing. I'm not too impressed by them but they are just rough outlines and sketches for our real development process.

Then, my teacher introduced me to including borders into my magazine to make everything tidy, as well as different colours to ensure some information stands out more than other information. Not only that, but our teacher also introduced us to different typefaces and the difference between a typeface and a font, as well as teaching us the hierarchy of type. Here are a few screenshots of me playing around with these new features.