Test Print
The fist copy of my magazine I had decided to get test printed in case there was any problems with printing, or anything that I had go wrong. When I went to the printers, I checked through this copy and realised that I had to make a few changes.
Firstly, I created seperator pages so that the shoots didnt get lost within each other and there was a clear definition of each one. These pages were gradients of colour that related to the colours in the shoot. Unfortunatley, as I had printed on unglossed paper and the colours were quite light for the printers to pick up, the pages came out with printer lines. I had to resave the images darker and more saturated so thtat the printer would be able to pick up the colours.
Secondly, one of the pages I had forgotten to fill in the text boxes with writing which was relevant to that tutorial. Another issue was that for the captions I have chosen size 6 font and on w few of them i chose white for the font colour. This, as some of the backgrounds came out lighter, meant that the text wasn's visible, so I had to change that. I went through every single page in my magazine on InDesign and adjusted everything.
Final Prints
As these small problems took such a long time to change and the issues I was having previously, I was able to get 4 copies printed and bound before the bank holiday weekend, which was perfect as I only need one to submit and a few others just in case anything happens to the others. I had to decrese the amount of copies I wanted too because of financial issues, but this proved to be fine.
15 copies perfect bound for £140
These copies came out fine apart from a few small hiccups.
The pastel shoot; when editing the magazine again for reprinting, I had redited quite a few of the shoots too because of the prointing quality. Some of the images came out over exposed and saturated colours. I am assuming this is due to the type of paper which makes the ink appear more saturated and darker in comparison to on the screen. Even though I redited these images, they still came out over saturated and darker than they looked on screen, which was really disappointing. I had the same problem with the neon, yellow and arabian shoots.
The quality of the printing does not do the images justice. Another reason why I think this has happened because I chose Laser printing instead of Lithoprinting because of the cost. If I were to do this again, I would have chosen lithoprinting and dramatcially cut the quantity of zines to maybe 3 or 4. The thing is that if you order more copies it tends to be cheaper, but this usually applies when you are buying in large bulks.
The credit lines have mostly been hidden into the spine of the book because of the tight binding. I did allow quite a bit of room for this, but it doesn't seem to have been enough! This was a shame too, however if you make sure you open the pages wide enough you can see it perfectly.
In retrospect, looking through my magazine, I am quite disappointed by the layout of some of the pages and feel that I could have done a lot better. I feel that I could have made it look more like magazine and played around with different ways of laying out the hunts and tips, however this was the formular for most of the shoots and keeps the magazine consistent and simple. It may not show much variety and I hope that the reader doesnt get bored of the same layout and text. I am most pleased with the nail tutorial pages however, I realised that there are a few spelling errors, even though I did proof read the magazine several times but still missed out a few little details.
Online
With the Nail blog running along side my magazine, I have a QR code that directs the reader directly to this blog. I also wanted to incorporate my own work as a stylist onto the magazine and link this to the actual issue of the Zine. Therefore I put a link to my own styling page onto the Nail Blog. This means the reader can gain a full look into my work with also a link on my styling page that takes them to a version of the first issue of San online. The reason I wanted to do this was just in case the printing wasn't exactly what the magazine looked like on screen, the readers have an opportunity too see the images from the shoots at their best.
Sunday 6 May 2012
Wednesday 2 May 2012
End of April to May 3rd
Ombre & Sports Shoots
The advice I had been given on these two location shoots really put my magazine into perspective. At this point I was so busy doing as many shoots as I could for a lot of content within the magazine, I think I started forgetting who my main target audience was and also what the feel of my magazine was. I was told that it was quite youthful and fun and neither of these shoots really conveyed the ethos of my magazine. I took the executive decision and cut all location shoots from my magazine in order to keep consistency flowing throughout. This provided the best option in the long run, as all the studio shots I have done run well and compliment together.
Printers
The quote that was given to me from Indigo Press turned out to be quite expensive and although I had set apart a budget of £250, I couldn't actually afford to spend that much on small amount of copies. I decided to investigate more printing options and found a reasonably priced printers on London Road called Design and Print. They offer student discount as well as good pricing for creating Zines and also provide a large range of papers and stock.
I told them the budget I had in mind and they were able to work around this amount with the stock I had in mind. I chose to have recycled paper because of the texture it has and because I want my zine to have a homemade and illustrated feel to it, as if they are special and only of a limited amount. They were extremely helpful and would ring up the same day for quotes and I was able to get a few test prints before I chose on paper.
The content of my zine was going to be roughly 80-100 pages and when I had gone to the printers to get a test print, they had mentioned that stapling (saddle stitching) was only available for booklets under 68 pages, otherwise the staples would be too small. This meant i had to look at other ways of getting my zine bound. I had to compromise with this issue, because although a zine is generally a thinner saddle stitched book which is a one off and all hand made, I am creating a guide which is more like a magazine than a zine, and the content is much more important than the way it is bound. So the only option was to get my zine perfect bound. This meant that the price would go up from 40p per book to about £3.00 as the pages are printed and glued individually, which has also meant that in order for me to be able to stick within my budget, I had to cut the quantity of copies dramatically.
My final stock is recycled, matte paper which for the cover is 310gsm and inside pages are 160gsm.
The first estimate for 38 copies D&P gave me was £250.00, but I wasn't able to afford that, so I have negotiated down to 25 copies and they have promised it will be under £200.00. Realistically, I only really need minimum of 5 copies, but normally the more copies you buy the cheaper it is in large quantities. Also, it will be handy to have quite a few as I can take them to interviews, put one in my portfolio and give some to people in industry.
I was given a deadline of 30th of April for when y zine had to be in for, but on the day we had encountered a few problems with the set up of the zine and so we had to postpone until the day after. Then on the Tuesday, I had requested for one fully copy to be printed and checked over by myself, before all 25 copies had been printed, in case of error. Luckily I had asked to do this as when I got this copy back, I had realised that some of te pages I had made were too light for the printer, so therefore you could see ink lines and also i had forgot to change the text on one of the tutorials. The printer then said we were able to change it and give them the PDF on Thursday morning (today) with the revised PDF.
Indesign
I had my document set up with by the Graphic designer I had interviewed for my magazine and she had helped me with the grid lay out and also with page numbering. However i had encountered a problem whilst inputting the content; she had put the page numbers onto the master page but they were appearing on the front and back covers. This is obviously not what I had wanted and as i spoke to my technical tutors about this problem, they advised me to individually put the number in. However, as I was nearing 90 pages and didn't want the possibility of the numbers not lining up, I then found out that you can adjust items on a page by unlocking the master layer. This problem was then averted!
Another problem I had encountered was with the set up of the document that the printers had requested. Because my zine had over 68 pages and needed to be perfect bound, this meant that the pages had to be set up individually, rather than double page spreads. Changing thing had them moved all the items on my pages, so a few times I had to rearrange everything and make sure that everything was lined up, and if I had full bleed images, thy had to be the correct measurement. Luckily, all of my images are in one folder and all my fonts were saved so throughout magazine production there were no errors or images missing.
Editing
As I was researching throughout fashion magazines previously, I had noticed a certain style of editing that most photo retouchers use and after a long time searching I found out that the style is called cross processing. This is the process of making sure all the tones and colours in your images are even and balanced. It also adds a blue tone to the dark areas of the image, which in turn gives it that professional and high end fashion look. Because I found this out quite late and went over all my images using this process, it delayed the completion of my magazine for a few days. Nevertheless I am really pleased with the images i have re-edited and feel that the standard of my work has gone from student to professional, I have learned more skills on Photoshop and also feel as confident in Indesign.
Identity & Layout
Creating an identity for my magazine was quite a struggle at first; I had a picture in my head of exactly how I wanted my zine to look like, but executing it is the next big step. At the start of the InDesign document, I put in all the shoots I had edited and a few boxes of Lorem Ipsum, but found that once I had started to think about the content, where the boxes would go and what works well on the page, I could see the magzine come together. This made it a lot easier to gain an understanding of how I wanted the layout to convey they mood and feel of my magazine. The logo was designed by myself and was inspired by a modern, clean hipster look but mainly is quite subliminal for the number 3. As my magazine is named San, which is three in Japanese, the triangle seemed to be the perfect match for the title. I have also created the Japanese numerals with in the three triangles of my logo, and used these to head each chapter page. My tutor was worried that the meaning of the name wouldn't be recognized because it is in another language, but because everything in the magazine revolves around the number three I think that it will be obvious. However to reiterate it and make sure the reader is not confused, I have added an explanation in my editors note which has the meaning of the word, the ethos of my magazine surrounding the number three and also the logo. I feel that the consistency with this number gives the magazine more of a purpose, substance and something that would set it apart if it were to be contributed into society. As there is a lot of thought and meaning behind the concept, it could stand more of a chance in sustaining popularity. Hopefully the content matches up!
Fonts
My main inspiration in layout for my magazine has come from Asos and Company's high street edition. These magazines are fun, clean, simple and playful, which I guess is how i would describe my style. I like to have a simple design layout with straight and neatly lined up edges. Therefore it was quite easy for me to choose fonts. I had decided on the fonts I wanted in my porposal and have stuck to them ever since. Although this is true, upon looking through other magazines, there are at least 4/5 different fonts that is consistent thorughout; whether it be for captions, titles, subtitles, taglines or credits. With my editorials I have downloaded a few fonts from the internet that generally correspond with the theme of the shoot.
The fonts I have chosen are:
Microsoft San Serif: Magazine title, contents and contributors
I was drawn to this instantly because i wanted a font that would look as if it were making a statement. I had planned for there to be a full stop exactly for this purpose and because the font is quite large and harsh it gives that direct bold statement i was after. Firstly i was going to use this for all the titles in my magazine, but one of y friends from an advertising course advised me that it was too harsh for the content and style of the rest of the pages and he showed me a softer font that then complimented the page greatly. Kozuka Pro - R
Kozuka Pro - R- Shoot/editorial titles within magazine
This Japanese font I would never have normally chosen i f i wasn't shown it because it's at the end along with all the other oriental fonts. I just assumed that these fonts were only for oriental characters. Regardless, this font is much softer and curvier than Microsoft San serif and relay compliments the rest of the pages.
Learning Curve- subtitles, pricing explanations and subheadings
Having chosen this when I was doing my proposal, I knew instantly this was the font i wanted for the subtitles. When you think of a zine, you immediately think of hand written and hand drawn sketches and this was precisely the reason i chose this font. It has a nice cursive slant which isn't too elaborate and stands on its own.
Helvetica Regular- main body of text.
I chose helvetica because it was recommended to me by the graphic designer i was working with. She had told me that it was the most popular and easily read fonts used and it was aesthetically pleasing too.
Cailbri (large capitals) - pricings, credits, captions
I was inspired by the fonts used in Asos for this font. Asos magazine uses all capitals for captions and use of bolds which looked pleasing to the eye and was easily readable too.
Presentation of Magazine
I have decided to make a box from thick card stock to hand in my magazine in. I have been looking on the internet for A5 box templates, to get the exact measurements, however am finding it quite hard to find. The printers I have been going to have said they can print my logo and colour onto 330gsm card and this is the thickest weight they are able to print on. The thickness of this is the same quality as to the cover of my magazine, so I am a little worried that it won't be thick or sturdy enough to properly holdy my magazine. I will give it a try nonetheless, and if the card doesn't work I plan on buying a ready made one and putting my logo onto it.
Front Cover
Choosing a front cover has been a bit of a task. I had to choose a shoot that looked professional enough to feature as a front cover, but also styled in such a way that it is relevant to spring summer 2012 street/catwalk trends and also appeal to my target audience. I chose the "Grunge" shoot as after I had cross-processed the images, they turned out to be my favourite, most professional looking images.
The part I found hardest was placing text with the image. The image I had chosen was one with alot of hair movement and a mixture of dark and light tones, which made it very difficult to choose a colour for the title of my magazine. It was a mixture of pink, purple, dark blue hues and my model has red hair and was wearing a light coloured dress. The title seemed to get lost in the shadows of the hair when it was made black but because the colourama was light dusty pink, if turned into white it also got lost! I then visited my tuor who advised me to choose a teal or lime green which stood out immediatly as it is an opposite for red tones. This also proved a good idea as i used the same green from a flowe on the dress and colour matched the rest of the fonts with colours found inthe image. This gives the images a consistent feeling rather than having random colours.
The advice I had been given on these two location shoots really put my magazine into perspective. At this point I was so busy doing as many shoots as I could for a lot of content within the magazine, I think I started forgetting who my main target audience was and also what the feel of my magazine was. I was told that it was quite youthful and fun and neither of these shoots really conveyed the ethos of my magazine. I took the executive decision and cut all location shoots from my magazine in order to keep consistency flowing throughout. This provided the best option in the long run, as all the studio shots I have done run well and compliment together.
Printers
The quote that was given to me from Indigo Press turned out to be quite expensive and although I had set apart a budget of £250, I couldn't actually afford to spend that much on small amount of copies. I decided to investigate more printing options and found a reasonably priced printers on London Road called Design and Print. They offer student discount as well as good pricing for creating Zines and also provide a large range of papers and stock.
I told them the budget I had in mind and they were able to work around this amount with the stock I had in mind. I chose to have recycled paper because of the texture it has and because I want my zine to have a homemade and illustrated feel to it, as if they are special and only of a limited amount. They were extremely helpful and would ring up the same day for quotes and I was able to get a few test prints before I chose on paper.
The content of my zine was going to be roughly 80-100 pages and when I had gone to the printers to get a test print, they had mentioned that stapling (saddle stitching) was only available for booklets under 68 pages, otherwise the staples would be too small. This meant i had to look at other ways of getting my zine bound. I had to compromise with this issue, because although a zine is generally a thinner saddle stitched book which is a one off and all hand made, I am creating a guide which is more like a magazine than a zine, and the content is much more important than the way it is bound. So the only option was to get my zine perfect bound. This meant that the price would go up from 40p per book to about £3.00 as the pages are printed and glued individually, which has also meant that in order for me to be able to stick within my budget, I had to cut the quantity of copies dramatically.
My final stock is recycled, matte paper which for the cover is 310gsm and inside pages are 160gsm.
The first estimate for 38 copies D&P gave me was £250.00, but I wasn't able to afford that, so I have negotiated down to 25 copies and they have promised it will be under £200.00. Realistically, I only really need minimum of 5 copies, but normally the more copies you buy the cheaper it is in large quantities. Also, it will be handy to have quite a few as I can take them to interviews, put one in my portfolio and give some to people in industry.
I was given a deadline of 30th of April for when y zine had to be in for, but on the day we had encountered a few problems with the set up of the zine and so we had to postpone until the day after. Then on the Tuesday, I had requested for one fully copy to be printed and checked over by myself, before all 25 copies had been printed, in case of error. Luckily I had asked to do this as when I got this copy back, I had realised that some of te pages I had made were too light for the printer, so therefore you could see ink lines and also i had forgot to change the text on one of the tutorials. The printer then said we were able to change it and give them the PDF on Thursday morning (today) with the revised PDF.
Indesign
I had my document set up with by the Graphic designer I had interviewed for my magazine and she had helped me with the grid lay out and also with page numbering. However i had encountered a problem whilst inputting the content; she had put the page numbers onto the master page but they were appearing on the front and back covers. This is obviously not what I had wanted and as i spoke to my technical tutors about this problem, they advised me to individually put the number in. However, as I was nearing 90 pages and didn't want the possibility of the numbers not lining up, I then found out that you can adjust items on a page by unlocking the master layer. This problem was then averted!
Another problem I had encountered was with the set up of the document that the printers had requested. Because my zine had over 68 pages and needed to be perfect bound, this meant that the pages had to be set up individually, rather than double page spreads. Changing thing had them moved all the items on my pages, so a few times I had to rearrange everything and make sure that everything was lined up, and if I had full bleed images, thy had to be the correct measurement. Luckily, all of my images are in one folder and all my fonts were saved so throughout magazine production there were no errors or images missing.
Editing
As I was researching throughout fashion magazines previously, I had noticed a certain style of editing that most photo retouchers use and after a long time searching I found out that the style is called cross processing. This is the process of making sure all the tones and colours in your images are even and balanced. It also adds a blue tone to the dark areas of the image, which in turn gives it that professional and high end fashion look. Because I found this out quite late and went over all my images using this process, it delayed the completion of my magazine for a few days. Nevertheless I am really pleased with the images i have re-edited and feel that the standard of my work has gone from student to professional, I have learned more skills on Photoshop and also feel as confident in Indesign.
Identity & Layout
Creating an identity for my magazine was quite a struggle at first; I had a picture in my head of exactly how I wanted my zine to look like, but executing it is the next big step. At the start of the InDesign document, I put in all the shoots I had edited and a few boxes of Lorem Ipsum, but found that once I had started to think about the content, where the boxes would go and what works well on the page, I could see the magzine come together. This made it a lot easier to gain an understanding of how I wanted the layout to convey they mood and feel of my magazine. The logo was designed by myself and was inspired by a modern, clean hipster look but mainly is quite subliminal for the number 3. As my magazine is named San, which is three in Japanese, the triangle seemed to be the perfect match for the title. I have also created the Japanese numerals with in the three triangles of my logo, and used these to head each chapter page. My tutor was worried that the meaning of the name wouldn't be recognized because it is in another language, but because everything in the magazine revolves around the number three I think that it will be obvious. However to reiterate it and make sure the reader is not confused, I have added an explanation in my editors note which has the meaning of the word, the ethos of my magazine surrounding the number three and also the logo. I feel that the consistency with this number gives the magazine more of a purpose, substance and something that would set it apart if it were to be contributed into society. As there is a lot of thought and meaning behind the concept, it could stand more of a chance in sustaining popularity. Hopefully the content matches up!
Fonts
My main inspiration in layout for my magazine has come from Asos and Company's high street edition. These magazines are fun, clean, simple and playful, which I guess is how i would describe my style. I like to have a simple design layout with straight and neatly lined up edges. Therefore it was quite easy for me to choose fonts. I had decided on the fonts I wanted in my porposal and have stuck to them ever since. Although this is true, upon looking through other magazines, there are at least 4/5 different fonts that is consistent thorughout; whether it be for captions, titles, subtitles, taglines or credits. With my editorials I have downloaded a few fonts from the internet that generally correspond with the theme of the shoot.
The fonts I have chosen are:
Microsoft San Serif: Magazine title, contents and contributors
I was drawn to this instantly because i wanted a font that would look as if it were making a statement. I had planned for there to be a full stop exactly for this purpose and because the font is quite large and harsh it gives that direct bold statement i was after. Firstly i was going to use this for all the titles in my magazine, but one of y friends from an advertising course advised me that it was too harsh for the content and style of the rest of the pages and he showed me a softer font that then complimented the page greatly. Kozuka Pro - R
Kozuka Pro - R- Shoot/editorial titles within magazine
This Japanese font I would never have normally chosen i f i wasn't shown it because it's at the end along with all the other oriental fonts. I just assumed that these fonts were only for oriental characters. Regardless, this font is much softer and curvier than Microsoft San serif and relay compliments the rest of the pages.
Learning Curve- subtitles, pricing explanations and subheadings
Having chosen this when I was doing my proposal, I knew instantly this was the font i wanted for the subtitles. When you think of a zine, you immediately think of hand written and hand drawn sketches and this was precisely the reason i chose this font. It has a nice cursive slant which isn't too elaborate and stands on its own.
Helvetica Regular- main body of text.
I chose helvetica because it was recommended to me by the graphic designer i was working with. She had told me that it was the most popular and easily read fonts used and it was aesthetically pleasing too.
Cailbri (large capitals) - pricings, credits, captions
I was inspired by the fonts used in Asos for this font. Asos magazine uses all capitals for captions and use of bolds which looked pleasing to the eye and was easily readable too.
Presentation of Magazine
I have decided to make a box from thick card stock to hand in my magazine in. I have been looking on the internet for A5 box templates, to get the exact measurements, however am finding it quite hard to find. The printers I have been going to have said they can print my logo and colour onto 330gsm card and this is the thickest weight they are able to print on. The thickness of this is the same quality as to the cover of my magazine, so I am a little worried that it won't be thick or sturdy enough to properly holdy my magazine. I will give it a try nonetheless, and if the card doesn't work I plan on buying a ready made one and putting my logo onto it.
Front Cover
Choosing a front cover has been a bit of a task. I had to choose a shoot that looked professional enough to feature as a front cover, but also styled in such a way that it is relevant to spring summer 2012 street/catwalk trends and also appeal to my target audience. I chose the "Grunge" shoot as after I had cross-processed the images, they turned out to be my favourite, most professional looking images.
The part I found hardest was placing text with the image. The image I had chosen was one with alot of hair movement and a mixture of dark and light tones, which made it very difficult to choose a colour for the title of my magazine. It was a mixture of pink, purple, dark blue hues and my model has red hair and was wearing a light coloured dress. The title seemed to get lost in the shadows of the hair when it was made black but because the colourama was light dusty pink, if turned into white it also got lost! I then visited my tuor who advised me to choose a teal or lime green which stood out immediatly as it is an opposite for red tones. This also proved a good idea as i used the same green from a flowe on the dress and colour matched the rest of the fonts with colours found inthe image. This gives the images a consistent feeling rather than having random colours.
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