Print - Production Experiments Done!!! Joe Duffy
- 2. Front Cover Process I chose the film Alien as my experimental piece as in thinking, I remembered the film was nearing it’s 40th anniversary. I believed that most magazines would create an issue for a famous film hitting such a milestone so decided this would be a good choice. I chose that Photoshop would be a good programme to make the cover on, with it’s maneuverability making the process not very tedious. I then decided how the page would be laid out on the base level, thinking the original poster for the film with the very recognizable egg should be central to the cover so that it’s more eye-catching to a viewer. Along with the simpler design of the rest of the page, this image is made even more vivid to the reader’s eye. While suggesting the egg's pivotal placement, I decided to try out laying an image behind it, that being the film’s famous catch line “In space no one can hear you scream”. I achieved this by cutting the egg onto it’s own layer while placing the text layer beneath it. While the egg obscured the entire line, I believed if someone was really going to buy this issue specifically, they would more than likely know what line was being shown. I decided to create a small paragraph under the egg to suggest why the reader should be interested in the magazine, detailing the reason this film in particular was being celebrated. To go along with this idea of intriguing the reader, I placed little boxes of text to show what was inside the magazine. I put these on the top half of the cover where they were more likely to be seen at a glance, make some text bold as well as capitalized to show their significance in this issue only. The colouring of the names also helps them stand out from the rest of the text, similar to how the egg was portrayed. I obviously wanted to have the film’s title near the top, in it’s well known font, centralized and very prominent against the black background. I had to create a magazine name, so to go with the theme of film, I rather quickly came up with the name “Fantastic Film” as I believe alliteration can help make things memorable. Last but not least, I added a barcode to the cover, in the reverse colouring to most to blend in with the overall design, while also keeping it out of the way of the rest of the page. However I placed it at the top so it still wouldn't be
- 3. Reflection • I believe the small text boxes at the top of the page advertising the contents within are an effective way of drawing the reader in and could be placed anywhere on the cover along with it’s colourful and bold text. Another element I believe would be good to include in my final product would be having a central image to catch the reader’s eye, but with my selected theme perhaps less subtle imagery would be used, especially considering what my demographic would be. I will have to see how to blend a simple design to make the imagery and important text stand out while also making the cover look particularly exciting to interest younger readers and slightly older people.
- 4. Double Page Process I chose The Avengers as the theme for my double page spread as I believe there was a lot to write about each character’s origin and how they came to be a part of the team. I placed the classic logo at the top of the page to highlight it’s importance and so that readers would see it a lot easier than if it were hidden at the bottom in small font. Along with this, I wrote a small description of what the Avengers were beneath the title for those who may no have heard of the team, therefore including a larger audience. I tried to maintain the comic theme of the spread by using the Comic Sans font, relating to the comic font of classic Super Hero issues of the past. Bright colours and bold text made important parts of each description stand out in the reader’s eye, keeping especially younger children, interested in what was being wrote. The text is slightly angled to also provide a more dynamic look to the article. Images of the characters, in their more classic look to coincide with the specific theming, go alongside their description of origin to add a visual treat for the reader to enjoy. To add to the comic theme to a further degree, I implemented stylized sound effects throughout the page, producing more imagery to go with the text. However, while there is imagery placed around the pages, the background is pretty baron, with a lot of empty, white space that could disinterest younger audiences so to improve this I would but a vibrant background, similar the sound imagery. Another area of improvement would be having a better planning of position for images and text, to make it less messy looking. To do this, I believe I would have to create all of the content on Photoshop as I have far manoeuvrability compared to InDesign. Also on a personal level, I find the InDesign programme to be difficult to use.
- 5. Reflection • I am going to place an image with the according description for the most part so that I can expand my audience to younger audiences who may not like reading too much as opposed the demographic of adults who are more interested in the moves and trivia of the character. From my experiment, I plan to improve by leaving far less empty space by adding more imagery and description. I will attempt to, as I did in my experiment, keep the theming of the source in my product.