Monitoring Post - 07/02/2014

This week I have planned to have 2 out of 3 articles to be nearly finished and at a high, professional standard so that I can gather some feedback from my peers and target audience about what they think of the articles and if there is anything they feel needs a massive change. Throughout the week I will be continuing to create the secondary elements of my pages. I will spend two lessons on each of the article pages to ensure that I am spreading my time across them to ensure that I am completing all of the DPS's in plenty time to make professional touches and have time to make any needed changes before the deadline. I will be focusing on the new DPS's Charity Shop Haul and Statement Wardrobe Pieces building up the layers to create depth and a professional finish. I decided to use a three page scheme for both of these DPS' to give them a different edge and so that I could show off some of my skills on Photoshop and introduce a fun, yet high fashion edge to my magazine and it's articles. I chose to spend monday and tuesday's lessons creating more layers and adding the body article text and basic images to Charity Shop Haul. I edited the photograph which was to be used on the opening page to the DPS and introduced the masthead and introductory paragraph on this page and that was quickly finished within 30 minutes, however I feel I have still completed this page to a professional standard. I had layered up images to create a background in a circle then layered my model on top to create a fun edge. When I showed this to my peers they all said they liked the idea and thought it looked professional. I then proceeded to add the main body text and main imagery into the already placed layout boxes onto my documents. This would give me the base layout to work with and layer up to create a professional finish. I added mastheads, introductory sentences, smudge brush marks and quote inserts. These are all of the basic things to add which will make the magazine look more professional before adding the finishing touches. I then realised that I did not find the imagery effective therefore I will be taking out the photo shoot again in the up-coming days to then place into the article and add with the final finishing touches. On Thursday and Friday I then moved onto the Statement Wardrobe Pieces article which I also decided should be a three page article for effectiveness. I have been using pattern making skills on Photoshop in my Textiles AS course and I decided to use this technique on the introductory page of the article as similar things have been used in Company and Vogue magazine however nothing as effective as this. I decided to twist the images of the models taken to make a large distorted flower shape out of their bodies which I would use as a feature of the opening page for flicking appeal and to draw in the readers attention to stop and read what the article is about. In these lessons I also started adding all of the basics and the extra layers to the Statement Wardrobe Pieces article as I did with the charity shop haul article. I had a solid structure of both of the DPS's finished by the end of the lesson today which meant that I was on track and I feel like I have made a lot of progress this week and are well on the way with producing a solid, professional looking final piece. The homework for this week was to finish writing article three and input it into the InDesign document. My main target for this week was to have a solid draft of articles 2 and 3 and I feel that I have successfully done that.