Thumbnails And Design

In terms of the layout of my magazine, I have designed some thumbnail images to experiment with different design set ups to see what works best when I come to hand rendering some larger thumbnails and making design outlines on InDesign. These small thumbnails show layout designs for the front cover, inside spread for my main article and the contents page.

As another step forwards to making my layout designs closer to how the final product may look, I used InDesign to create some blockout thumbnails. Using the small hand drawn thumbnails, I created similar layouts by creating columns of placeholder text and blocks that represent the titles, images and block quotes.

Blue- Titles

Pink- Images

Green- Block quotes

Here are my hand rendered designs for my cover, contents and spreads with notes on how I intend to develop each ones, these are just a guide to help with the layout style.

Researching Public Information Films

This is a public information encouraging people to make more complex passwords that are simple to remember. The voice over is enthusiastic and clear and starts by telling the viewer the simple facts about the common mistakes people make when creating a password. The voice over doesn't use any jargon therefore the video reaches out to a very broad audience, even school aged children would be able to understand the video and learn from it. 

It isn't dark and brutally shocking like a lot of videos on internet safety as I find a lot of internet safety videos try and scare you and put you off of using the internet making you feel as though nothing is safe. This video however uses simple tactics that just hint the problems that you may face, for example, a credit card belonging to 'Penny Less' which is a clever pun that will make the audience think and figure out the point that is trying to be put across. 

A positive attitude is enforced by this video through it's bright colours, simply designed animation and happy characters. Repetition is used to make the storyline clear and easy to follow as there is a problem in the beginning and a resolution at the end. The credit card pun was a good idea so it's repeated as the resolution at the end and the name is changed to 'Miss A O'Kaye', showing that the problem is simple and quick to alter.

As an end card to the video, the information about where to find out more about the campaign is given, for example, a website and social media links. This is helpful as people can click straight from the video to read more information and also find similar videos.

Broadening The Mind Map

With 'Young persons political article' at the centre of my mind map. I was able to expand and gain a large collection of creative words that I previously wouldn't have linked to my political magazine. I was able to suggest draft ideas that could be used as a basis for a less generic article in my magazine that aims to change young peoples views on politics and make them interested.

I came up with the idea 'Rising Stars of Politics'. This article has the potential to be a weekly feature in the magazine, each week there would be information about a young person who is becoming involved in politics, whether they're a young MP or just someone who is opening and expressing their views on what could be done to improve the future of politics. But it could also be a larger one off article that informs about multiple young politics from different parties and backgrounds. The article would contain basic information about the young person eg. their name, age, where they're from and their current state of education/employment. After a brief background is given to introduce the young person, it would go on to talk about the young persons involvements and interest in politics with a possible interview or quotes from the young person themselves. Having quotes and interviews makes an article more engaging as you get the unaltered views of the subject of the article.

In terms of layout, the article would be on just one page as a feature that introduces multiple young politicians over a series of weeks, rather than bombarding the reader with information about one person in particular. The article would start with a fact file to introduce the young politician in a easy to read and non complex style. The rest of the article explaining what the young politician does in more detail would follow in columns, interrupted by block quotes to attract attention and give the audience interesting information. I would like to include an image of the young politician and if possible, a picture of them in action/working to show the contents of the article in an image form.

Here are some draft name ideas outlined using words from my mind map.

The Walk Sequence

The walk cycle is an essential sequence of movement in animation. After drawing someone in different positions of a regular walking movement you can produce frames to make your figure look as though it's walking on the spot or walking forwards or backwards.

This sequence of figures is made up of nine different positions, the more different positions you have, the more realistic the flow of the walk looks. You can use as little as four frames for your walk sequence however your walk will look less fluent. 

Using the sequence above as a template for my sequence, I created a layer for the template and another layer on top for my figure tracings. I proceeded to trace over each figure on the correct frame. Then using the lasso tool I separated each figure. 

The next stage was to create another layer called Guideline on which I drew a line as the 'floor' for my figure to walk on. I then place the first figures feet on the line and drew a dot above it's head, still on the guideline layer, to help with positioning. I inserted the guideline frame into nine frames as I had nine different figure drawings. I then locked the guideline so the only drawings that moved were the figures. 

On the Figures layer I moved each figure onto the guideline, each on a new keyframe so that the next frame didn't include the figure from the frame before. After completing this for the nine frames of each figure I deleted everything from the template layer and deleted all of the original traced images, leaving just the figure on the guideline. 

Finally I added a look to the sequence and slowed the FPS down to seven, this left me with a realistic walk sequence. 

Accessibility, Signal and Subtitles

Signal
The signal is the value of how good and clear the audio is. A good signal would mean that there is no competing background noise therefore the audio would easy to listen to without interruptions. 

Noise
A constant wave of audio that competes with audio they you are specifically trying to record, fluctuations of noise go along side an electrical signal.

Interfering Noise
These are sounds with a negative sound quality which is unpleasant to listen to. For example, when you put your phone next to your computer you hear feedback sound.

Somes location with noise issues are:

• Road side
• Busy cafe
• Building site
• Party
• Town centre at midday

Accessibility

There are different things put in place to help the accessibility of media when people have disabilities, difficulties or impediments.

Television has subtitles, audio description and sign language in the corner for some programmes to help people who have difficulties with sight and hearing.

Cinemas offer autism friendly screenings which cut adverts and show the film with a lower brightness and lower volume level. Cinemas also offer some subtitled screenings which are limited.

Radio is purely audio so there isn't a lot they can do to help with accessibility but radio presenters keep their wording as clear as simple as possible and avoid playing loud or offensive sounds.

Online videos such as YouTube have a subtile option on a lot of videos. I have looked at the subtitle settings for one of my own YouTube videos to see how it works. There is an option where YouTube makes a guess as to what the words you want to subtitle are but it isn't very reliable. I watched my video and typed the subtitles real time so that they were accurate, I then adjusted them so that they were as in sync as I could make them.

Beginning To Mind Map

As my magazine is primarily going to be aimed at teenage females with the aim of encouraging them to vote. After mind mapping some ideas and concepts about the aims of my magazine I decided I would like to include an article about the Suffragettes and the right for females to vote. Points I would focus on are:

• Who were the Suffragettes?
• Why weren't females eligible to vote?
• What did the Suffragettes do?
• When did females get the right to vote?
• Key personalities in the Suffragette movement.
• Why it's important for females to use their opportunity to vote.

Here are some images that would work well with the topic of the article as well as the style of my magazine:

As some of my magazine will be in an arty, scrapbook style I think these images would compliment the design because of their vintage look. The images are strong and biased towards making females look good which I hope will encourage teenage girls today that they too can have the same power as the Suffragettes did.

Recreating A Layout

What I knew?
I knew that print publications like magazines had a bleed because industrial printers that print out large amounts of magazines at a fast pace aren't able to be exactly accurate. The bleed means that the ink printed is slightly larger than the paper itself so that the colour or picture goes right to the edge of the publications. 
I was aware that an affective convention of magazine layout is to put interesting or intriguing information as a large pull quote as the readers eye will naturally be drawn to this part of the document, making them want to keep on reading.

What was the task?
As a task, the challenge was to choose a double page spread from a magazine and copy it as identically as possible using InDesign. I chose a double page spread on The Dark Knight Rises that has a combination of large titles, shapes, columns of text and a large image that is printed between both of the pages.

What do I know now?
To be able to recreate the magazine spread I had to use tools I hadn't previously used in InDesign. Usually when using InDesign I work on a single page document but this time the canvas was different with a line down the middle showing the two sides of the double page spread. 
When setting up the canvas I used the bleed option for the first time so that if the document was to be printed the images would go right to the edge of the page and look just how the original magazine looked. I learnt how to create separate columns for text as I had to create 4 columns, 2 smaller and 2 larger, for the text. I used place holder text to fill the columns and used the red cross button to drag the place holder text so that it was feed through to the next column.
So that everything was placed correctly I made different layers for each part of the document eg. background, title, body text, images. This meant that when I used the polygon tool to create my arrow shapes I was able to put them in a layer behind the text so it would be neat and the same as the original publication.
To make the arrows I had to use the polygon tool as my way of drawing. As the polygon tool only allows you to draw simple, basic shapes I had to draw a triangle and put them together. So InDesign would treat the two seperate shapes as one I learnt the shortcut Cmd+G to group the shapes so any adjustments I made would be made to both of the shapes.

Image Size And Resolution

These images above of a duck are 2 inches in size but their resolution in pixels per inch have been decreased. The lower the PPI, the less pixels make up the image, therefore making it look less clear and crisp.

An image of the Suffragettes is relative to my political multipage document as my target audience will be young females. The screen size of the image is 620x591 pixels.

Physical screen size in inches

620/72=8.6 inches

591/72= 8.2 inches

Physical print size in inches

20/300= 2.07 inches

591/300= 1.97 inches

Physical print size in centimetres

2.07*2.54=5.26cm

1.97*1272.54=5.00cm

Physical print size in millimetres

5.26*10=52.6mm

5.00*10=50mm

Now I know how to convert an image from it's screen size to it's print size, I need to know how to convert an image from it's print publication size to it's physical screen size and to do this, you must do the process above in reverse.

This is picture of Andrew Garfield as Spider Man from Empire magazine.

Physical print size in millimetres 

127x157mm

Physical print size in centimetres

127/10=12.7cm

157/10=15.7cm

Physical print size in inches 

12.7/2.54=5.00 inches

15.7/2.54=6.18 inches

Pixel dimensions in inches

5.00*300=1500 inches

6.18*300=1854 inches

Physical screen size in inches

1500*72=108,000 inches

1854*72=133,488 inches

6 Word Story GIF

Here is a quick animated GIF I made on Flash using symbols and classic tweens to present a short, 6 word story about what my weekend consisted of. 

Shot Practice

Setting up a shot is something you that you should always take care with whilst doing. The main things you should focus on are the ISO level, aperture and the shutter speed. All of these factors change the lighting of what you're shooting depending on your location, for example if you're outside you aperture and ISO levels won't have to be as high as the natural light will help you out.

Above are three shots that I set up, adjusting the focus, zoom and changing the aperture and ISO levels. I kept the shutter speed at a standard 50, but altered the ISO and aperture due to where the natural light was. The only shot that I feel has good lighting is the final shot filmed from the right side of Tom, I made the aperture higher for this shot was the natural lighting wasn't behind the camera. I think I also should've made the ISO and aperture levels higher on the shot filmed from behind Tom and Becky as the natural light was to the side of the camera. 

When filming inside there is a lack of natural light, especially as it's getting darker so the lighting levels will have to be adjusted carefully so that the shot doesn't look to dark or too full of noise.

Magazine Focus Group

As part of my research to discover the best way to design a political document aimed towards young people, I held a focus group with five people in the class to compare a political magazine with a popular magazine aimed at young people.

I showed them the cover and examples of articles from Company Magazine and Total Politics Magazine along with a list of talking points, those were:

• Target audience
• Layout
• Texts/fonts
• Images
• Image/text balance
• Colours
• Tone
• Is it appealing
• What would you change
• Best features
• Which do you prefer

I also asked whether the group thought the modern, fun design of Company magazine would work as a design for a political document aimed at teenagers.

Overall, the group preferred Company magazine as they liked it's modern layout that was clear aimed at young people. They liked the colours and images used and the fact that they weren't too bold and over the top kept the tone of the magazine mature. One of the main points of Company magazine that stood out was their '#readitandtweet' feature. The group thought that a feature like this would be a point of interest in a political document aimed towards young people as almost all teenagers spend most of their time on social media and it would be a fun way to keep up to date with politics.

Total Politics magazine was very unpopular with the group because of the general tone and layout. It was described as looking like a newspaper that was far too text heavy and the small, boring images didn't break the text or add a point of interest to the articles. Total Politics magazine is an example of the typically boring information that is accessible if you want to find out more about politics, it doesn't appear to a young audience and the group feel as though continuing to produce magazines like this won't help engage young people in politics. 

Magazine Layout Textual Analysis

Marie Claire is a popular women's magazine that focuses on fashion, celebrities and lifestyle. I have decided to aim my political multipage document towards young females so by looking at the features of magazines in general that are aimed at females will help me to discover what the female audience are attracted to. 

The headline is written in the trademark Marie Claire font so that regular readers will automatically notice it on a shop shelf and also non regular readers will recognise the repeated style which may intrigue them to purchase and read the magazine. The headline is pink which matches the colour scheme of this months issue of the magazine, the colour scheme will change to compliment the cover image and in this case the pink text used ties in with Pixie Lott's pink toned make-up which is visually pleasing as the text and image compliment each other to look professional and neat. Pink is the stereotypical colour which is used to target a female audience and the use of pink almost automatically suggest that the audience of the document is strictly just female. As my document is primarily going to be aimed at females but most of the information will also be relevant to males I don't want my main colour scheme to be pink but I would consider experimenting with a purple colour scheme.

Buzzwords 'Best' and 'Life Changing' are used on the front cover, they are used to attract your attention to the articles inside the magazine and emphasise the interest and importance of the articles. The reader knows that the story won't be life changing but by seeing the words written down they are likely to want to discover how great the information really is. Buzzwords are very affective because they make the reader question whether what they're about to read really could be the information they've been wanting to know for a long time. The use of buzzwords makes the magazine publishers seem confident about their content so I would like to use buzzwords on the front of my political document as I think that they will be good at adding interest to a topic that is usually considered boring.

The cover line on the front of the magazine is 'Fashion Forecast' followed by a smaller strap line that reads 'Cool spring trends- plan your new look now'. When I read the cover line and it's strap line I noticed that alliteration has been used throughout, alliteration is attention grabbing and also cuts down bulky sentences as what 'Fashion Forecast' really means is 'this is what we will predict will be in fashion'. The strap line underneath also has an alliterative feel with the 'plan your NEW look NOW' continuing with the subtle alliteration keeps the strap line snappy and interesting rather than too informative. A large amount of information is unnecessary on the front cover as the aim of the front cover is to encourage the reader to want to read what is inside the magazine, so if the explanation on the front cover was too in depth then the reader may not open it up. 

The most effective style for a women's magazine is to have a large, attractive image and minimal text that is punchy and intriguing. Marie Claire's cover is appealing to a female audience firstly because of the colour scheme and secondly because of the way they tease the reader into wanting to read more about the segments advertised on the front cover. A casual, gossipy tone is used to sound friendly and inviting and although my political document is on a more serious topic than women's gossip, I think that if I create a chatty and casual tone the audience won't feel as pressured to try and take in lots of serious information. 

Symbols On Flash

You can use flash to create a Symbol which is like a master for when you need to repeat an object. I created a simple symbol to practice the process. Firstly you click Insert> New Symbol the name your symbol, I named my house and then drew a house, which I can find in the library under the name house.

Holding down Alt to create identical copies of my house, I created a line of houses and coloured them. Once I had my row of house I clicked Modify> Convert To Symbol and named the new symbol 'Street'.

On separate layers, I replicated my row of houses and resized them as well as altering the brightness to add more depth, to look like a town scene. I then added key frames at the beginning and end of the timeline for each layer so that the street would remain the same throughout the movie clip. 

To turn my town scene into a scenario, I added a new symbol and named it Car, then drew a car. I created a new layer on my timeline and named it car one so that I could place the car on this layer. I placed the car on the edge of the left hand side of my scene then I created another key frame further up the time line and moved the car to the right side edge of the scene. 

The point of adding the car is to have it moving across the scene, so on the car layer between the two key frames I right clicked and chose 'Create Classic Tween' Now when I press play, the car moves across the scene. 

Statistics On Young People Voting

• The green 'Electorate' section on the chart is the amount of people eligible to vote and the red 'Turnout' is the proportion of those people who did vote. 
• The highest recorded turnout for an election was in 1910.
• The country with the highest turnout is generally Wales and the country with the lowest turnout is usually Northern Ireland.

• Since 1964 you can see there was a decline in the turnout of people aged 18-24 voting in the General Election, however in 2010 there was a significant rise in young persons turnout compared to the previous election.

• The chart above shows the turnout of young people at General elections compared to all of the older eligible voters.
• It is clear that the young voters are the minority ad especially in 1997-2010 the amount of young voters compared to the rest of the voters is considerably less.
• I think this may be linked to the fact that as the world becomes more modern and teenagers have a lot more to engage in, the thought of voting and being interested in politics is almost unconsidered. Therefore, I think it is extremely necessary to create and get involved with campaigns to encourage young people to start voting otherwise the amount of young voters will inevitably continue to decrease. 

Aliyah Dar. (03/07/2013) Elections: Turnout [online]. Availible at: www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN01467.pdf.  [Accessed 02/01/2015]