evaluation

1. Write an explanation of your brief - what did you have to do? How did you come up with the ideas for your personal project? 

Our aim for this project was to create a magazine including:

• front cover/ back advert
• illustration spread
• photography spread
• feature spread

So thats 8 custom magazine pages. We were given the themes for most of the pages, but for some we could personalize it a bit more and picked something closer to our interests (such as the feature spread topic). Inspiration comes from different sources, sometimes from published magazines on a certain topic, or during the process of work.

2. Write about the creative 'journey' of the project - how did the project and ideas evolve from start to finish through experimentation and research?

We started by analyzing a couple of artists' work. We analyzed various artists in photographers, each having a link with the theme; eg. Georgina Luck's illustrations and Henrik Bonnevier's photography to create a more effective back advert. The analysis also served as text for the future magazine pages we created. 

While I was creating a page or an element for the magazine (eg. the logo) I always made sure to have a couple of variations to choose from; so I ended up with the best possible outcome. 

3. Who inspired your final outcomes? - You MUST talk about who has inspired your work - include images and links where possible. 

I had different inspirations for each of the spreads.
For the back cover I went for a more 40s-50s, vintage style ad. I looked at a lot of reference material to construct the picture, such as vintage fashions, magazines, wine bottles, actresses. It payed off because the ad looks legitimate, and I also learned a lot of stuff about advertising in the time period.

The illustration spread is meant to look a bit more artsy, with less text and images occupying most of the page. I drew inspiration from the artists I analyzed. All three of them use watercolor and I decided to incorporate that in the use of font and color.

With the photography spread I tried to go the "fancy watch advert" route, limiting my use of fonts to a simple, formal and sophisticated style. Light text on a dark background is probably not the best choice for a spread with lots of text, but the colors I chose are grays and blues rather than complete black and white. 

Lastly for the feature spread I chose fashion/make-up as a topic because it was the most convenient one - I had most things to photograph. Also, I used to buy girly magazines to look through during long trips in the car. When I sat down to make the spread I remembered some of the conventional elements they shared - lots of colorful titles, wide range of fonts, and bits of information around the page (the target audience shows in the last one).

4. What do you think you have done well? What has worked? Are you happy with your final outcomes?

Overall I'm happy with the outcome. My goal was that each spread had it's own visual theme, and I think it worked out. I'm happy we had freedom to chose the topic for certain pages, and I enjoyed researching what I had picked. I'm also very glad I was allowed to draw instead of taking photos at times. 

5. What do you think you could have improved in your final outcome? - you need to talk about something, nobody is perfect!

Oh, there's a lot to talk about. While the pages I made look okay, they don't look like a real magazine. There's some things missing - little things like page numbers, dates and bar codes. The drawings for the back and front covers can be improved as well - now that I look back at work I've done about a month ago I see A LOT of mistakes and it irritates me.

6. Conclusion - overall how did you find the project? What techniques would you like to develop further in the future?

I really liked this project. I got to work digitally, which is ideal for me. I also liked researching for the back and front covers -  working in advertising/marketing and making promotional artwork for books/games/magazines is something I want to do professionally.