Creative Critical Reflection

Here is my Creative Critical Reflection, in the form of a screencast with a voiceover. You will notice that it is spoken very hastily. That is because when I first tried to record this, it was over eleven minutes long and I did not realize that it was recording none of the audio. So, I had to edit it down and record the voice over as I watched the screen cast, which is the reason behind some of the stalling and asynchronous cursor flailing that occurs. All the pertinent information is here however, and although it ends abruptly, it does so at exactly the 10 minute limit. Finally, you will notice that when I am nervous I revert to my native New Jersey accent. I apologize for this, but it is the product of years of upbringing among the New York and New Jersey diaspora of Florida. I hope it does not hinder understanding in any way. Also, it does correct itself around a minute before the end. This is because I had to rerecord the ending and tried my best to speak less nervously this time around. The CCR is linked below:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzPIeYvc9BznZTN5aU40MTlINVU

Final Product and Revisions

Today the portfolio project has been finalized. The major revisions that were required have also been attended to. The main concern was creating a cohesive style once all three elements of the project were incorporated together. This required standardizing certain fonts, bolding each element that was bolded on the page. For example, I forgot to bold two of the page numbers on the contents, but fixed this in post-production. The last nuts and bolts were also added. I included a bar code on the bottom left of the cover, so as to proliferate an authentic look for the magazine. Also, I added the final picture on the first page of the spread, one of my Dad as Congressman Henry Burrows. Finally, I proofread the article itself and made sure that it had the register of an educated article. All in all, I believe I accomplished my goal in creating an exciting issue whose blatant praise of one side would appeal to the partisan but educated audience I outlined in my pre-production. 

I have included the finished product in image form at the top of this post, and at the bottom I have included a link to a Google Drive PDF version of the product. Unfortunately, the gray background did not save with the PDF, however all other elements remain intact.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BzPIeYvc9BznNXVjUTN5SG1jczQ

Another Day's Work

Ok... 

Today was one of those rare days where you get so consumed by your work that you pend hours staring at a computer screen until you finish. When you get up and turn around, you realize that 4 hours have passed and it is no longer daylight outside. 

Anyway, let's take a look at the work. Today I produced my two-page spread, the hardest part of the portfolio project (in my opinion). Before I start discussing the choices I made and all of that substantive discussion, I must say that the most difficult part of this whole process was getting used to the Microsoft Word formatting rules. I used the column layout tool to create the two rows of text, but this made it almost impossible to insert my sub-title image (the flag). However, I eventually got the hang of it. I'd also like to discuss what came most naturally, and that was taking the photos. I took the photos of the women learning and using code on Tuesday night, pulling out my Dad's old lighting tools from his photography days. The woman playing Ida Jameson was my Mom. The other two images that are here are graphically-produced. The flag image did not take very long at all. Of course, the graph on the second page is not accurate, and in fact almost all of the information contained in the article's text is fictitious. Still, I strove to make it read in the correct register for a magazine article. This is when my AICE English Language skills kicked in (I got an a on the exam).  I used a fake name in the by-line, but I want to emphasize that I wrote the article text myself and that Jonah Sartre P.h.d. is a fictitious person. Only one element remains to be implemented, and that is my father, playing Congressman Burrows, to be inserted above the caption on the bottom right of the first page. 

I decided to make the text in two columns as opposed to three because this is a text-heavy article. I definitely clung close to the minimum on the number of images, but this was because I felt that an intellectual political magazine would put more emphasis on the content text rather than visuals. Other than this, not much remains to be told about my creative process. I decided to embed the photos I had at intervals in the text that seemed equally distributed and compatible with what was being described in the text. Of course. much of the creative work done in this part of the project was coming up with ideas that could be done on Word. I think I did a pretty good job in that respect.

Finally, I will make two more posts this week. In my next post, I will provide a survey of my final product and outline any revisions that need to be made. I thankfully kept everything on one doc, so editing will take very little time. Then for my last post, I will find a way to include my final product in its full form on the blog.

Table of Contents Finished

 My table of contents is completed. The final photo which I have added took longer than the others to take because it required a field trip. My dad, who works in the IT industry, took me to his office so I could photograph some high-tech things. For security reasons, I am not saying the name of the company. Also, I have applied a Glow Edges visual effect in order to blur out any serial numbers or sensitive information in the photo. 

In addition to the new photo, I have also changed the embed style of the photos. The previous one included a reflection of sorts at the bottom. Instead, I have replaced this with a soft edge effect, because it is more common in the magazine style. Also, it less visually jarring when the edges of the photo fade into the background. I will be using this edge fade effect in the rest of my photos as well.

Table of Contents

Today I made my draft Table of Contents. It is still a work in progress, as I still have not gotten one of the pictures that I need, but it is 90% finished already. I will add the last photo later today and it will e completed. Let's take a look: 

The eye is of course drawn to the central graphic. The simplistic design really highlights the partisan undertones of the magazine. The (D), representing the Democrats, is pointing upwards toward the future. Meanwhile the (R), representing the Republicans, is pointing down towards the past. The basic format of the page splits it into fourths. On the upper right and lower left quadrants are the names of the stories in bold, shadowed font. I decided to have the page numbers be in roman numerals both to increase the boldness of the design and to make it more regal. The storylines are intentionally ambiguous and or charged because this is a standard convention for a partisan magazine. The audience expects a fair amount of bias in the articles, because they know that it is bias that they share. Additionally, one can observe that the page number on the bottom also is a roman numeral. This column in the bottom margin also contains the magazine title, a helping of zeros and ones, and the issue theme title. This is a common convention to all magazines, and it will appear in my two-page spread as well. Finally, the photo that can be seen in the bottom right is supposed to represent the technology of the past. This is why it is placed next to the downward arrow. I took this picture at my Dad's workbench. He makes vintage guitar amplifiers, so there was a healthy amount of archaic circuitry just clumped around in there. I thought this was a perfect contrast to the image that I plan to place in the top left, which is a picture of an IT data room. (I have not taken this yet).

One last note, it ha come to my attention that "Stupider" is not a word. However, it appears that I have used it on one of my cover lines. I have changed this in my table of contents and it will be corrected on the cover in my final product as well.

A Massive Waste of Time

So I wasted a lot of my own time today. As I stated earlier, I was going add a picture of coal to my magazine cover. Because I don't live next to a coal mine, I had to take landscaping rocks from my backyard. I painted the rocks black and then placed them on a white envelope under the sun. My goal was to create a large enough background of sheer white in order to use the paint splash tool and eliminate the background. I did so, however, there was still a large amount of white space in the picture. I zoomed in and painstakingly filled in the white space for an hour. After adding t to my word doc, I found that the shade of gray I used to fill in the space was slightly darker than my cover background. After playing around on Word I discovered that there is a background removing tool built in that works phenomenally. So the first two hours of producing this photo were unnecessary. I've included a process photo and the finished product in the post.

Progress Update

It is time to update you all on my progress over the past two days. I have done some more work and made some subtle changes to my cover. Here it is:

As you can see, I have added most of the elements that were missing from my last blog post. The newest editions include the two cover stories, written in partisan and inflammatory language as required, and the large graphic of green zeros and ones. I have decided to change my font as well. The font I was using before was not as regal as I had hoped it to look on smaller text, so instead, I have decided to use a font called Big Calson. This is used in all the text on the cover and will be used for the title lines and story titles in my table of contents and two-page spread. Along with the elements I have added from yesterday, I still need to add and edit the photo of the coal rocks to be placed where it has been indicated. I also need to add a barcode in the bottom left corner.

I decided to apply several effects to the text. I added a deeper shadow to the masthead and other text, because this makes it look more scholarly and bold. Also, I have decided to add a slant effect to the code block and tint it green instead of simply having a block in the center. This way, the image will be more dynamic and I can make it appear that the code is emanating from the coal rocks themselves This will better convey my message that one is leading into the other than if I had just placed the picture of coal in the middle of a block of zeros and ones. 

By the end of the weekend, I hope to have completed taking the pictures of coal rocks (that seems like a pretty reachable goal) and plan the formatting for my other two elements. Because I have a limited time frame to complete them, this planning will be done directly on word rather than on paper. Also, I cannot draw, so any attempt to plan on paper will not look anything like what I'm trying to design.