BRIEF and RESEARCH
For this unit we have been 'approached by Behance' and asked to present a digital showcase of our work. It is required to prepare from five to ten interactive pages for an iPad magazine that will not only show our work, but also show our personality skills. We have to present a cover page, a content page and basic pages including buttons and hyperlinks.
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I think that this unit is quite interesting right off the bat; I had plans to create a magazine for almost two years now but never had a chance (time) to do it. Thanks to this project I might be able to gain experience with the software such as InDesign and creating magazines in general so my initial idea for a magazine will become much more successful. I have already created multiple websites that might be referred to as 'magazines' as they fulfilled the same role; they had the content page and presented my skills. First website was my portfolio created for the Software Design course in 2015. The other one is my actual website I use everyday to publish my work. In addition I have created multiple interactive presentations for different audiences between 2010 and 2016. I believe that thanks to my previous experience with creating interactive sources of information I might be more productive in this unit and that my work will be of a higher quality.
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Unlike previous units this one gives us only three weeks to complete all five tasks, meaning that I will have to work harder at class and more outside the college.
As part of our research we had to discuss the basics of designing in InDesign. Basically, everything that will be used to create a magazine has to be part of a grid. We have been introduced to this concept with pages of some newspapers and magazines. Teachers asked us to annotate everything and try to put into a grid. I had no problems with understanding that.
I have decided to look for some actual iPad magazines and analyse them, and try to create grids for them.
This magazine decided to go with a simple colour palette (picture is an exception); white, black and grey. Those colours work quite well together thanks to the contrast between black or grey and white. The first thing you see is the picture in the middle as it is the only thing using different colours.
This design is different as it contains much more text. While there are more images than in the first example, they use half as much space.
Considering the purpose of my magazine I think that I am going to create design similar to the first example in order to showcase more of my work.
SCHEDULE
Tuesday 28th February – Task 1/2/3 Pre-production
Wednesday 1st March – Task 1/2/3 Pre-production
Thursday 2nd March – Task 1/2/3 Pre-production
Tuesday 7th March – Task 1/2/3 Pre-production
Wednesday 8th March – Task 1/2/3 Pre-production
Thursday 9th March – Task 1/2/3 Pre-production
Tuesday 14th March – Task 4 Production
Wednesday 15th March – Task 4 Production
Thursday 16th March – Task 4 Production
Tuesday 21st March – Task 4 Production/Task 5 Evaluation
Wednesday 22nd March – Task 5 Evaluation
Thursday 23rd March – finalisation for hand in
Friday 24th March – Final Hand in
INITIAL IDEAS
First design included vertical lines separating different sections.
Second design was created with a specific idea in my mind. I wanted it to look like spilled paint.
Third design was supposed to use different shapes and very limited number of colours. This design would leave less space for content as most of pages would be filled with decorative sets of shapes.
I have decided to choose the first option as I considered it most appealing and clean. However, I have decided to include other designs for some of the pages.
Knowing what my design should look like I started to draw some designs on paper. Unfortunately I did not like them and decided to create them on iPiccy instead.
This screenshot shows my first steps. At the beginning I uploaded another image to extract colours and then checked different variations.
This screenshot shows that changing colours and font can drastically change feeling that comes from the image. I liked that, so I experimented a bit more.
This screenshot shows how I tried to give it some artistic effect. I think that it was a complete failure and it simply looks weird.
This screenshot shows how I tested technique used in the original image (putting two identical symbols one on another but giving them different colours). I decided to not use that.
This screenshot shows that I went back to using original colours. That big A was only to check visibility both on red and black.
This screenshot shows my initial concept for the Contents Page. It was supposed to look like a table with a cup of coffee on it. I placed the actual list of contents on the right side, separated from images.
This screenshots shows how I tried to use more space on the right side.
To keep balance I decided to add some more images on the left side.
FINAL DESIGNS
Photos above show my Main Grids that I will use in order to create my iPad Magazine. Although I am planning to create 8 pages I am going to use only 5 designs as last 3 will be reused.
Creating those grids was a very interesting situation; it was hard to make them look like a series, where all look well together.
PROPOSAL
Thinking that creating any kind of portfolio is a very important step on becoming a professional in any kind of industry, I have decided to be serious with this unit. This unit shows us how to create an iPad magazine and our job is to create the best possible magazine we can. Purpose of that is to gain experience with creating portfolios and describing our work to other people, who have never seen our work before. We have to make it as attractive to our potential customers.
I think that it is a great opportunity for me to show my work and knowledge and how much I have developed my skills during the course.
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In order to create magazine of the highest quality I have created a range of designs and grids. However, plans alone cannot assure any success. Because of that I am planning to follow the schedule. Thanks to that all my work will be created in a correct order and time.
I will create my magazine using Adobe InDesign as I have been introduced to this software by teacher. Thanks to the documents she gave me I will be able to overcome all technical problems.
I shall save all files in the root folder created specifically for this task. Thanks to that I will have no problems with finding files I need. In addition, it will be easier for me to upload all assets and indesign files to Moodle, if I need to.
I am going to write reflections as I move forward with work. This way I can avoid unnecessary work in the end where I have got files but no reflections for work behind them.
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I believe that thanks to that I will be able to do my best and pass this unit with the best grade possible.
PRODUCTION
After opening InDesign I have created new project. I made a mistake in the first step, as I have changed number of columns. and then added grid.
Because of that first page was full of lines. The worst thing is, I noticed it just recently, after setting up all other pages!
Happily I made a mistake that saved me in the long run - those lines were applied only to this page as I forgot to double click and edit the master page.
After setting up the master page (adding grid to it and that black and red boxes in the corner) I wanted to finally put something onto my pages. After putting background I wanted to put titles and text in general. However, I did not have font that I wanted to use (Fredoka One). I thought that solution was simple - just install it. So, I after downloading and installing that font I tried again. And failed again. It seemed like I made something wrong. In order to solve that problem I have checked InDesign forums and found a way of installing fonts. You have to download it and then put it in the InDesign folder. Unfortunately, I was unable to do so as it required admin account.
Because of that I had to spend an hour on finding font that I like and is similar to the original one.
After finding a nice set of fonts I was finally able to proceed with work. I have uploaded all backgrounds and images. After positioning all assets I have wrote descriptions for all pages and additional notes and created hyperlinks.
Master Page
Shapes
1st Page
Background Image
Text
Button
2nd Page
Background Image
Text
Text
Text
Button
Hyperlinks
3rd Page
Background Image
Text
Text
Text
Text
Text
Button
Video
Video
GIF
4th Page
Background Image
Text
Images
Text
Button
5th Page
Button
Text
Background Image
Text
Text
Video
Video
6th Page
Text
Text
Button
Images
Background Image
Background Image
7th Page
Text
Image
Text
Text
Button
8th Page
Text
Background Image
Image
Image
Text
Text
Button
FINAL PRODUCT & EVALUATION
.PDF as .EPUB is too big to upload on wix
I was happy to hear about this unit - I have planned to create a magazine someday anyway, so having it to create for this course meant that I did not have to wait for that 'someday'. I have already created portfolios before, so I have expected this unit to be not challenging at all. Fortunately, I was right, as the software was not hard to use.
Thorough this unit I wanted to showcase my skills and abilities. I wanted to show others that I can easily use newly-met software with easy and take it further, use it well. I wanted to do so as such skills are very beneficial in the future, where I might have to work with people using other software that I do. In that case it will come very helpful to be able to understand that software with no problems.
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Thanks to the purpose of this unit - to create an iPad magazine I could save a lot of time; I had much less planning and work than with any other unit. It was not because this unit was easy but because I could re-use assets created in previous months. Because of that I did not have to plan every single graphic - I just had to plan which images I should use and where place them. It saved my a lot of time.
Creating that magazine was really interesting for me; I really liked the process I have decided to use. Firstly, I had to create backgrounds. Then I had to put texts, images and videos. At last, I had to create hyperlinks and buttons. I think that this way was much more productive than how I usually do things - do everything at once for one area and them move one to another and repeat.
During the production process I had almost no problems - I could not install font I liked.
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I believe that I was able to create this magazine successfully thanks to my time management and quick problem-solving. I worked accordingly to the schedule - excluding the last week, where I had much less work, as I have done everything a bit sooner. Because of that I was able to use that week on enhancing my portfolio and this very wix page.
I have created two versions of this magazine; one in PDF (to print) and one in EPUB (interactive). I found it very weird that PDF loses interactivity but not all of this; buttons and hyperlinks worked but not videos.
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I think that things I have learnt through this unit will be very helpful in the near future, where I might finally start working on my magazine and stop using Blurb for InDesing.
LEGAL and ETHICAL ISSUES
How people see art may vary, considering that people have different beliefs and tastes. Because of that some complications might occur. For example; I did not know that any of my graphics can ever offend anyone, however, it looks like some people may get upset because of pictures like Ice Tank.
Basically, some people might think that showing a tank - symbol of war, technology, human's existence next to the mountain of ice represents something I did not think of, like promoting global warming. This example is quite exaggerated - but still applicable as some people really think this way.
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When it comes to legal issues - they should never occur as I am always using my own work and always write down sources to all references.
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However, if I happen to upset someone with my work I would like to stress out that I have never planned to offend anyone. All my work was created in order to pass the course.