with InDesign i learned about many new tools:
Bleed
the bleed tool allows you to go over the magazines margin, which means it will let you go over with pictures which gives 5mm less constriction, something professional magazines use a lot to make it flow more natural on the pages. This allows the picture not to cut off and leave small white gaps as it continues off of the page.
Inset Spacing
the inset spacing tool allows you to make sure the text you put in the box does not touch the edges, a more professional look for the magazine. if the text is spaced in equally in all boxes it gives out a much neater and composed look to the text and stops it flowing over at the side
De-hyphenate
the de-hyphenate tool allows you to remove all unnecessary hyphens(long words that have prefixes and flow over the side of the box do this) which makes all words look a lot less messy. after looking into Front, NME and Esquire i had noticed they only use hyphens in words that are double barreled and de-hyphenate everything else, so i did this too.
Drop Text
This allows text to flow from one box to another. this is used by magazine designers to make sure the text keeps flowing naturally and doesn't look broken down. When writing an article it needs to flow mid sentence into the next box so the reader follows the text into the next box and doesn't just stop reading, it helps keep their attention focused on the articles.
Page Break
the page break tool is used combined with the drop text tool to keep the presentation of the text professional so you can align the text as desired. i used this tool to make sure two of my columns of text were aligned so they finished at the same point. this made my magazine look more like NME magazine which makes sure its text looks neat and is easy to read in columns.
PHOTOSHOP:
image mode
image mode allows you to change the photo to a more printable colour set(CMYK + GRAYSCALE) which is useful asit is required that you change from RGB to CMYK or GRAYSCALE. but i also used the image mode 'GRAYSCALE' for the effect of black and white in my photos, as you cannot change CMYK colour photos to black and white so choosing a gray scale would help to emphasize a black and white effect with more boundaries to influence.
levels
the levels tool edits the amount of black, white and grey in the picture. i used this in combination with grayscale to give a stronger black on my photos for effects to make my photos look more appealing and professional, also if the blacks fade away the background it can allow a focus on the centre or main object in the image, so people will actually notice what is in the picture.
An example of the levels tool being used. it has put more grey emphasis on the people in the picture so they are more noticed that in the original black and white picture.
content aware fill
i used the content aware fill tool because it can erase people/undesired object by replacing it with content similar to the surrounding of the area. i used this on my front cover to remove undesired areas, such as overlapping branches(which i did not recognise before entering the photo onto the cover) which would of given a more DIY, unprofessional photographic affect which would not appeal to my audience as there is already a market for unprofessional
BLOGS
By using www.blogger.com i have been able to show my progress with my College magazine and my Music magazine. I was able to post photos, videos and document attachments to my posts to show photo choices, screenshots of progress, a video explaining my technologies used and even though i did not use a document attachment i could use it to post my base draft texts. This technology was aware to me before but i have learned how to maximise its effect and use it to track my progress and evaluate my coursework.
This is the upload screen for Blogger. I have used this technology to upload attachments other than text to my blog so i can show my progress easier, i can also upload screenshots of this Mac to show processes of how i perform tasks, and constructed my final product.
SURVEYMONKEY
another technology i learned of is surveys. the technology i used was a website called www.surveymonkey.com. this website allowed me to ask people, via facebook. this meant that people on my facebook friends could answer my survey and helped me decide what my audience(people aged 16-23) wanted to see(genres, articles, colours) and allowed me to plan via graphs. here is an example of a graph i took a screenshot of for my blog.
above: a graph from SurveyMonkey showing the percentage of people who liked each genre. i chose to base my magazine on the top 3 genres: metal, hardcore and pop-punk
i used this technology to make the ease of appealing to my audience as i can find out what my audience want in the magazine via SurveyMonkey.
Facebook was another technology i used in conjunction with SurveyMonkey as it allowed me to get 20 survey responses from people in the age range i wanted (16-23) of both male and female. the technology of social networking websites allowed me to survey people of a certain age group, similar interests and other connecting factors.
MAC
another technology that i learnt about was the Mac. it has many applications of software that i used (InDesign, PhotoShop, etc) for my project. It has a function of selective screengrabbing, by using cmd shift 4, you can select what parts of the screen you want to screengrab and then they become a picture file. useful for when you are explaining the processes of how you constructed the product,
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