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

Fawn Magazine Stage 2 - Week 5

This week I followed up with Faddoul, as I was still quite interested in doing a shoot feature on them. I got an email back from Jessica the head designer at Faddoul saying that she hadn't initially seen my email and would be very interested in loaning product for our shoot. With that in mind I started planning the shoot.

The garments were very sophisticated and sleek, so I thought the look needed to be high fashion. I decided I wanted to shoot it in a studio to achieve this look, which worked well as Cheryl was shooting a shoot on location for me so we would have one of each appearing in the magazine. I came across some images in Surface magazine that I fell in love with, and decided I wanted to achieve a similar look in the editing process of my shots. It was almost like a blurred high contrast effect that added a point of interest to the images, and really made them stand out.

I finally found a hair stylist for the shoot, a lady named Nicola Johnson that worked with a friend of mine. As well as doing hair she is also a make up artist, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise as the make up artist I was originally going to use was not available on the day I wanted to shoot. Gaia worked her magic and managed to get in contact with an amazing photographer Ben Scott, who on top of agreeing to shoot for us also offered up his studio as the location.

In addition to all the shoot preparation I also managed to go and shoot graffiti art walls this week in St Peters. There is a cute little alley way called May Lane about 5 minutes walk from St Peters station that was full of incredible graffiti art pieces. I got some great shots from my trip there.

JB

Fawn Magazine Stage 2 - Week 4

I spent a lot of this week following up on emails I sent in week 3. After getting good initial interest form both Emma Mulholland and Violet & I, I did not get replies from my following emails which caused me to worry about the shoot sections.

I decided to contact a few more designers that had interested me. These designers included Faddoul and Evyie. I had a great response from Evyie, saying that they would love to be involved. I did not receive a any response from Faddoul.

During the week I posted an advertisement on Pedestrian TV looking for a hair stylist for the shoots. I had already found a model willing to work with me, as well as a photographer and makeup artist, although I was still missing a hair stylist.

I got a lot of response from the ad about people interested in working with Fawn, however none of them happened to be hair stylists. One email in particular had caught my eye from a lady called Cheryl Tan. She was a freelance fashion stylist trying to get her work into publications. By looking through her portfolio it was easy to see she was incredibly talented. She had a couple of shoots that were already produced that she said I could use. Unfortunately the shoots did not fit my winter theme, so I contacted her and asked is she would be able to put a shoot together in 2 weeks for Fawn Magazine's Winter issue. After confirming that she would be able to, I was able to check that item off my agenda to free up more time to focus on the business side of things.

As for the emails I sent to advertisers, I got responses back from Qantm and In.cube8r saying that they would be happy to advertise. Qantm said that they would be happy to contribute a monetary amount to me while In.cube8r were interested in doing an advertising space swap on our website.

In addition to this I continued to work on my layout and created a post for the website to start generating interest in the site.

JB

Fawn Magazine Stage 2 - Week 3

This week I spent a lot of time contacting people in regards to content and advertising. I spent hours looking through the designers on Young Republic, an online store for emerging Australian designers. I bookmarked quite a few that I liked, but there were two in particular that I found that really stood out to me.

The first was Emma Mulholland, a quirky young designer who has just recently broken onto the fashion scene in the past year. I thought her design would be perfect for a shoot as they are so out there and different from anything else I've seen.

The second was Violet & I, which designs were quite opposite to Emma Mulholland's designs. These designs were feminine and pretty. It would be quite a contrast if we had them both featured in the magazine.

I ended up contacting both designers about being featured in the magazine, and got a good initial response from them.

In addition to this I started looking into which advertisers I could contact who might be appropriate for Fawn. There were a few that firstly came to mind; Qantm College, Capital L (a boutique where I casually work), Young Republic, The Finders Keepers and In.cube8r.

I sent emails with attached media kits to all these companies, with a proposal for advertising with Fawn. Through this research of advertisers I had an idea to include an article on In.cube8r in our Fawn Feature section. There was quite an interesting story behind the company and thought it would be perfect to include. I added this into my email to Isy the Founder of In.cube8r, asking if she would be interested in a feature as well.

JB

Fawn Magazine Stage 2 - Week 2

Taking advice from my first meeting with Leonard, I began to research possible delivery platforms for the magazine. The first possibility was to export the magazine as an SWF file to be used on the website. This meant no external operator was needed. However this method required my web page width to be quite large, as there would be no zooming capabilities.

The only other suitable platform I found was Issuu, an online publishing platform used by many of the other online magazines I researched. This seemed like my best option as all you needed to do was upload your PDF, then use the provided code to display a read on your website. It also included an element of interactivity to the magazine, as any URL's or email addresses would automatically link for the reader. It also means that my magazine would become a part of the Issuu online database of magazines, which means people searching that database would be able to find my magazine easier.

I set aside some time this week to meet with my friend Gaia. Gaia had helped me with my initial phase on Fawn, and was going to come on board for this second page and help with the marketing and content development of the magazine. During our meeting we discussed where we had left off with the project, making notes of all the areas of the magazine that still had content missing.

During this meeting we clearly defined what we wanted from each section of the magazine. Through this we came up with ... distinct sections. Fawn Bits, Fawn Loves, Fawn Features, Fawn Illustrations, Fawn Talks, Fawn Style, Fawn Studios and Fawn Jobs.

Here is a quick run down on what each of those sections would include:

• Fawn Bits - This would include a seasonal calendar, in particular showcasing upcoming events.
• Fawn Loves - Items or news that the Fawn team personally love.
• Fawn Features - 2 feature articles. This was to be the graffiti article shoot and one other undecided.
• Fawn Illustrations - This would include a spread of illustrations from my friend Candice.
• Fawn Talks - 2 designer interview. This was to be an interview with designer Kiran from Kid., as well as one other undecided.
• Fawn Style - 2 fashion shoots.
• Fawn Studios - An image heavy spread and interview on a local studio.
• Fawn Jobs - A featured creative job interview

Lastly I started creating mock up layouts for Fawn. Leonard suggested I design the magazine first then input the content when I had it as it would be easier. I took inspiration from other magazine layouts and started creating layouts for the Fawn Studios page and Fawn Illustrations page.

JB

Fawn Magazine Stage 2 - Week 1

After taking some much needed time off I got back into the swing of things with a fresh outlook on the magazine.

During this time off I decided I was not happy with the original design concepts I have created for the magazine, so in this first week I began to create new style sheets for Fawn. I wanted to style to be quite simplistic, focusing heavily on designing original layouts. I took inspiration for other magazines such as Frankie and Yen, as well as online titles such as the ASOS magazine.

In my first week I met with my new supervisor Leonard Sii. As Leonard was taking over as supervisor for my project, I spent this time going over my plans for Fawn Magazine. I filled him in on my plans to redesign the magazine, and also mentioned that I wasn't happy with the design of the website anymore as it reflected the design style of my previous magazine design. I also discussed the fact that I was very serious about turning Fawn Magazine into a business and would be continuing on with it after my time with Qantm was finished. He suggested I start looking for advertisers as soon as possible, even if they were only able to contribute little every little bit would count.

This suggestion changed the direction of the magazine slightly, not only would I need to focus on creating content and an eye catching layout for the magazine, I also needed to think about the business side of thing. This meant looking at things over the long term, not just short term goals to complete my project.

JB