Front Cover – Skills and Tools The Masthead:

First of all, I got the font from ‘dafont’ ‘Gothic – Modern- Gods of War’ so I screenshot that.

I used the crop tool to crop out the rest of the page

I used the magic wand tool to remove the background.

I used a drop shadow in a black colour; this made the genre of rock more apparent as dark colours are more associated with rock. It was the first time I used drop shadow and after discovering this used it a lot after.

I also applied a thin white stroke to the masthead – this was to make it stand out a bit and separate the drop shadow out from the text.

With the guitar, I added a drop shadow of electric blue, the colour suits the target audience as bright colours suit young audiences and teens, it also suits the genre as bold colours as well as dark go with rock.

For the first time, I linked layers between the ‘b’ and the guitar and used text wrap to position the B in front. I did this to further emphasise the genre of rock as electric guitar stereotypically portrays rock and in the questionaire

Text Manipulation

“New kids”, “ Revealed”

This is text that act as lures into the magazine and highlight aspects of the cover lines to emphasise them and create hype – it is effective to create excitement to teenagers.

I used the Text shaping tool to make the text into an “arch” I was able to manipulate it so that the degrees of the ‘bend’ was to my liking.

I also added a basic drop shadow so that they stand out from the background

Cover lines

The cover lines didn’t go as I planned, if I had located them in the left sector- as intended – the image would have been blocked so I moved them to the right and brought up the main cover line so it stands out as the main cover line. However it still makes sense that the main cover line is in the left region of the cover because conventionally important elements are placed here.

I inserted a rectangle, with the shape tool. I used colour overlay to change the default colour so

it was grey I applied an electric blue drop shadow. I used a black stroke to define the rectangles more To save me from inserting the same rectangle

repeatedly I ‘duplicated’ the layers – to save time. I Moved the cover line text over the rectangles and

used the keyboard arrow keys to move them to central. I found this a more precise way to move objects.

After this I linked the text with the rectangles with ‘link layers’ so that if they had to be moved I can move the whole thing.

Pug

I had altered the pug from what I planned as I planned to giveaway 5 posters but then I felt it was better as: “3 free posters” because it turns into a pun which would appeal more to the teenage audience I’m aiming for.

I linked the three images together – with ‘link layers’ I used the stroke tool to add a thick electric blue stroke – to make this lure stand out The images were naturally dark so I manipulated the image with brightness and contrast tools. The “3” is a font from dafont, to which I screenshot, used magic wand and the crop tool. I believe this font looks

modern and so applies to teenagers of today. “Free Posters” is arched – using the text shaping tool.

Page Numbers

I changed my mind with the page numbers as initially I planned to have them at the end of an ellipses like with a lot of magazines. I decided to put them in circles so they stand out and draw more attention as they’re important aspect of the contents page.

I inserted a circle via the I added an electric blue

to enclose the page number and highlight it. I inserted text in

type a number of times in order to keep the consistency of the magazines and form a house style.

I used the keyboard arrow keys to move the page numbers into the circles

I duplicatedrepeat the process over and then renamed the layers and changed the page numbers each time.

I linked the layersanything needs moving everything could move. I had gotten into a habit of doing this because it really helped and saved time.

For the page numbers over the images I used a square toolthey conventionally should stand out more than the other page numbers as it goes with a illustrated article.

Double Page Spread- Skills and Tools

Main Image

In Photoshop…

I used the ‘Magnetic Lasso Tool’ to trail along the edges of the models and cut out the rest of the background. I found this was a reasonably quick way and accurate ay to cut it out. It is conventional to have the main image without a background which is why I did this.

I used the “Eraser tool’ to get rid of any in between bits or background the lasso missed. I changed the size of the eraser with the ‘Master diameter’ to suit the erasable area appropriately. The challenge was to have a steady hand in doing this – there were time I accidentally cut into the model and have to undo.

I then saved this as a JPEG

Indesign.

I inserted a frame and used ‘place object’ to which I placed the image.

I went to ‘fitting’ and selected ‘fit proportionally into frame’ so that the image was fully seen.

When I inserted the text I used ‘text wrap’ as initially I tried to shape the text around the image myself but it wasn’t professionally done.

I set the text wrap to ‘identify the edges’ – then there was an area I didn’t want the text so I edited the edges where I manipulated the ‘anchor points’ which resulted in the ‘path segments’ being altered. In the end the text flowed the way intended.

Interviewee Names

I highlighted each name and used the ‘TT’ tool aka “small capitals” This made the text into capitals but still at the same size as the surrounding text.

I also used the underline tool on them

I did this so that the names of the artists stood out and it was clear who was saying what.

Questions

I used colour manipulation on each of the question to make them stand out

I picked the colour from the ‘RGB scale spectrum’ – although I encountered an issue where it didn’t allow me to have a colour I wanted.

Neithertheless I made the colour into a ‘swatch’ – this is so I can make the other question into the same colour easily with my saved colour.