Fawn Magazine Stage 2 - Week 12

The final week of production was a stressful one. Although I had finished the layout I spent a lot of time going over everything and fixing any flaws that I saw, as well as inputting the correctly sized images into each section. This took quite some time which pushed me back on other task.

I finished editing the photos for the shoot and input them into the layout I had already designed. From this I moved onto finishing the editing of the cover shot. No matter how I tried I could not get the background to fully erase from the image without destroying the loose strands of hair. I couldn't leave it the way it was as the background was visibly noticeable on the Fawn logo. I decided that instead maybe I could use an image that I had already edited that was easier to separate from the background. I chose a font on image and input it into the cover layout. I was actually pleasantly surprised with the result, the image suited the cover far better than the previous image, and I had none of the same problem with it. I decided to use this image instead.

I exported a trial version of the magazine for Ben, so that we could test it on the Issuu website and reader. I exported both printed and interactive PDF's and gave them to Ben to put on the site. Both worked really well, but Ben suggested that we use the interactive PDF as the file size was a lot smaller than that of the printed PDF.

Last week I emailed all of my contacts regarding image caption, so this week Gaia and I met and went through inputting caption into the assigned spaces. It took us some time to write all the captions, as most people had really only responded with a description of what was in the image, that really wasn't appropriate for a caption. In addition to this she also helped me write the Editor's Letter, which was proved quite difficult. I kept it simple, informing our readers what we were all about and what it took for us to get the issue to them on time. 

Finally on the final day of trimester I proof read the magazine with Gaia and went through correcting any spelling errors, and correctly formatted the text. Once this was finished I exported the final version of the magazine and emailed it to Ben so that we could send the magazine live.

That night I sent out a Facebook update telling everyone that the magazine had launched and to check it out. That night I was bombarded with friends, family and stranger who had liked our page saying that they loved the magazine and were amazed at the job I'd done. It was such a great feeling of accomplishment to find out that people love the magazine just as much as I love it. And as I said in my Editor's letter although it seems like in some ways we've reached our final destination, it's very clear to me that this is the start of something truly wonderful.

JB

Fawn Magazine Stage 2 - Week 11

I started working on the cover art this week. When we had originally done the shoot, one look in particular was going to be used as the cover shot. Whilst editing this I realised it was going to be incredibly difficult to use this shot as the cover image, as the models hair was quite messy and there were lots of loose strands of hair in the image. I enlisted help from my partner Jeff in editing this image, as he is quite skilled in photo editing. He showed me a way that I could separate the back ground from the image by creating a mask from the image levels rather than deep-etching the image which the pen tool (which is virtually impossible when going around hair).

I used a unedited version of the image to start designing the cover. Choosing a colour scheme for the cover proved very hard. The main thing I wanted was the colours to work harmoniously with the image I had chosen. Secondly I wanted it to also reflect the colour scheme within the magazine. Ultimately I decided to use the colour fawn for the magazine logo. The colour worked perfectly with the image and of course tied in with the magazine name Fawn.

I chose to keep the page design very simple. I used the copy font from inside the magazine to write the season and year, as well as the issue number and individual titles of all the companies featured. I felt it was unnecessary to clutter the page with text like many other printed magazines do. They use text to draw people into buying their magazines, all my over needed to do was inform people what was in it, so that they could decide then and there is they wanted to read it.

A well as continuing on with my photo editing, I also finished a couple more layouts this week. I put together both the Kid. and In.cube8r layouts, both of which I had been putting off as I was having designers block coming up with an interesting layout design. Taking a some off from them gave me a fresh outlook when I came back to it, and I managed to finish the designs ticking of some of the last layouts from my list.

JB

Fawn Magazine Stage 2- Week 10

This week I continued with the photo editing I had started from last week. As this was such a large job I chose to do this editing in bits and pieces so that I wouldn't become bored with the process and still had time to work on other areas of the magazine.

At Ben's request i adjusted the original banners I designed to fit the new banner spaces on my website. Ben worked on implementing the new design into a custom Wordpress theme, the end result which I am really happy with. The new design is very modern and completely reflects the design of the magazine, with heaps of design features being used through out both design tying them together perfectly.

I designed layouts for both the shoots today. The final images that came back from Cheryl were amazing, she totally hit the nail on the head when it came to the style and theme for the shoot. I couldn't be happier. I found it difficult to add the images from both shoots into my pages though, as Fawn Magazine's pages are slightly shorter than A4 which means some of the image was getting cut off when it shouldn't be. I managed to design both pages in a way that made sure none of the images were cropped, and both layouts were individual in design from each other.

Lastly after gathering all the final content for Fawn Loves and getting Gaia to do write ups for all the pieces, I started laying them out int the magazine. This task was much more difficult than I originally expected. Considering the design style was so simple, it was so hard fitting all the content and images on each page, and still have them look pleasing to the eye without cutting everything. It is very hard working with a lot of content and limited space. I finally managed to fit everything and I'm very happy with the final results.

JB

Fawn Magazine Stage 2 - Week 9

When I met with Leonard a couple of weeks back I was talking to him about redesigning the website as I no longer felt that it reflected my current magazine design. I was originally going to redesign it myself, however Leonard suggested that I get some 2nd year Multimedia students on board from Qantm, as there were other more important things that I should be spending my time on.

This week I had organised to meet the guys that Leonard had brought on board, Reuel, Jacob and Ben. The fours of us plus Leonard met at Qantm and discussed what it was I wanted from my new website, not only in terms of design but also functionality.

From this meeting the boys went away and put together two appropriate design for me. I used these two designs and combined the elements I liked from each to create a final PSD version of the website design. In this design I also added all the fonts and colours that were going to be used in the magazine so that the website and magazine would tie in nicely together.

On top of this I also redesigned the EDM template so that it would match the design of the website. This was then emailed to my team which would implement that design in to my MailChimp account which would be used for my newsletters.

I began work on my photo editing this week. I decided to do a little trial and error first, to see whether I was able to achieve the same effect I wanted to use that I saw in Surface Magazine. Afer a few tries I got a combinations of blurring and overlaying images that worked really nicely together, so I noted what setting I had used an moved onto actually editing the images.

JB

Fawn Magazine Stage 2 - Week 8

Since getting a lot of the content out the way I could focus heavily on the fun stuff this week, designing layouts! I finished off the final touches for The Distillery layout, as well as designing Graffiti Art and Fawn Bits layouts.

I had planned on gathering pieces for the Fawn Loves and Bits sections quite early on in the production process, unfortunately due to lack of time and priorities they kept getting pushed back as I had other more important deadlines to meet. So I spent this week researching items that could be used is the Fawn Loves and Bits sections. My focus was more on getting each section finished, so I started looking for Fawn Bits pieces until I finished then moved onto Fawn Loves. I found it very difficult to find pieces for Fawn Bits, there were lots of great competitions and events, yet all of the happened in the same month May, and I needed 3 pieces for each month (May, June and July).

I finally managed to fins the appropriate amount of pieces for each section, then sent each item link off to Gaia so she could do a little write up for each bit. I then proceeded to find images to be used with the articles, which proved just as difficult as the previous task.

In addition to this I recontacted a few of my advertisers in hopes that the ones that hadn't replied yet would get back to me. I finally got a response back from Young Republic saying they would be very happy to do an advertising swap with Fawn Magazine.

JB

Fawn Magazine Stage 2 - Week 7

Only a short post this week as I didn't manage to get much else done this week due to the shoot taking up most of my time.

The shoot went off without a hitch. I almost had a last minute cancellation from my model Amanda, which put me into a panic. She was so lovely though, and declined a paid job so that she could model for Fawn Magazine. The final outfit selection looked absolutely wonderful on her and all of the pieces worked extremely well together.

We managed to work our way through each shot fairly quickly thanks to our highly skilled team, and were out of there be 5pm. Which in terms of day length for a shoot is quite short. Gaia and I went through the photos on Ben's computer and picked out an edit of all the photos that we liked and wanted to take with us immediately.

From that selection I went through and selected each individual shot that I wanted to appear in the magazine. One of each outfit that we had shot that day. I chose shots based on not only how good the image tuned out, but also the angle and pose of the shots so that we would have a variety different shapes to work with in the final images. I believe doing this will make the final edited shoot more visually appealing to readers.

Lastly I managed to find some time to layout out the Distillery article and images in the magazine. I used a combination of images we had shot on the day of our interview, combined with some amazing shots the team already had. I think this is one of my favourite layouts so far, it's very image heavy which I like.

JB

Fawn Magazine Stage 2 - Week 6

This week I had an interview and studio tour organised with the Distillery, a letterpress studio found in Darlinghurst. I had my heart set on featuring a letterpress studio for this section, so was thrilled when they got back to me confirming it all. Letterpress is such a beautiful underrated art, I really wanted to give it more exposure. Gaia and I went to meet with Jen Fontaine the Operations Manager there. Jen was so lovely, she answered all of our questions and let us poke around through their samples and the old lead type they still had lying around. We also got to see a few demonstrations which was insightful. It's a very precise art that takes a lot of patience and skill.

A lot of time this week was spent preparing for the shoot that would be happening next week on Wednesday. I had confirmed all the resources for the shoot and just had to go and pick up the clothes from Faddoul's PR agency Sweaty Betty, as well as the clothes I was going to borrow from Evyie. 3 days before the shoot I got an email from Evyie saying due to unforeseen personal circumstances she would no longer be able to provide clothes for the shoot. In a last minute panic Sweaty Betty saved the day by providing me with some extra filler pieces and jewellery to shoot.

In addition to all this I also managed to do a little bit of designing. I lay out a few of the page that required no content, such as the masthead and stockist pages. I also designed 2 different banners for the website. These banners were to be place holder banners for the site until I get real advertisers on board. I had the idea of using a sky writing plane and a hot air balloon that would have 'advertise with us' written on them so that people knew that they were able to contact me in regards to advertising within this space.

JB