Awaz Do

Saturday, March 31, 2018

Not So Golden Idea

So I decided that I'll finish the border before I move on to working on my other two components for this magazine. I wasn't able to get my dad or anyone else to do a design for me, so as always I'll be doing this myself. I have never done alpona designs before but i think what i drew came out well to work with, but I might have to redraw it if it doesn't look good in gold. Below is my original drawing.

When scanning the picture it seem more childish, but I put both the golden and the black next to each other to see how they look and which one might work better. But as I look at it now I'm not liking it too much. It may be because i drew it in sharpie, or because my hand isn't as skilled as a real painter or artist. Regardless, the result is not satisfying and I will need another way to do this correctly.

Additionally, it's time I decided on a format for my table of contents. I think i will do two columns, one with features and the other with common content, and I may do a third column for pictures that relate to these articles. The most important thing to me is that the table of contents is clean and easy to read, because imposing the AWAZ DO style will be much harder if the format is very busy or hard to decipher.

Thursday, March 29, 2018

Cover Cover Cover

Alright so at this point I'm ready to start messing with some actual layouts for the cover and I came up with this one with one of the pictures. Below is a small draft with the correct color scheme but not font or border on the front. I really think it'll pop once I put those two in but I'm now considered whether I should put at least one or two cover lines as Platform or Fader would, just so I can have something for the audience to read on the cover when this cover catches their eye.

Additionally, I spent about four or five hours changing the color of every pixel on the AWAZ DO title font and was able to make a picture, it's not completely done because it is tedious work, but once I finish the incomplete letter, I will be able to use this title above in my cover.

At this pint I'm realizing that I'm spending wayyyy too much time on the cover, and not as much time on the table of contents or the two page spread. It won't be that hard to write my article because I won't need to interview anyone else. But the table of contents I'm still having a total blank out on what I can do or even should do. I originally intended on making the table of contents a map of India, and each article would have a small arrow to the state that the article pertains to, but I know that will be too complicated, not look nice, and not take account for any article that is not pertaining to a certain region of India.

Right now I'm exhausted from editing the title font, I'm not so sure If i should put as much effort into the rest of the magazine as I did with the cover. I definitely know I did unnecessary work and I know I can bring the same quality in product without this amount of strenuous diligence.

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

I Get My Blue

I sat down with two SD cards full of hundreds of photos and began narrowing them down. I was very surprised at how amazing these pictures came out but there was a big problem: it is quite obvious that I'm not a model when I am looking directly into the camera. Most of the shot that I did not delete were of profiles or me looking off to the side. I'm not sure if a cover photo looking directly at the audience has the same effect when the model looks uncomfortable. Anyways, I decided I would just narrow down the photos and choose from there whether it was a profile or a front facing shot. Here are how some of the shots came out, I was really happy with these pictures' quality.

Blake Repp, my photo specialist, told me that we can work together on photoshop to edit these pictures properly. I still had some concerns about how to make the background blue in these shots, and whether I would do it or not. So we began by editing a draft picture and just playing around in the program. Blake was able to connect his laptop to a Television screen so we can easily see the picture in a bigger frame and with a brighter backlight.

When we sat down and tried working the program, Blake showed me an interesting layering technique where he cuts out a part of the photo and is able to edit solely that piece over the entire photograph. I immediately thought that this can be used to change the hue and temperature of solely the background while the front remains completely intact. The result is subtle but I think this will work perfectly for my magazine. I finally found a way to incorporate light blue.

Sunday, March 25, 2018

The Aluminum Shoot

So, today I got together with Blake Repp and began shooting higher quality pictures with him for the front cover. But before we started to shoot, I realized that my makeshift studio did not have enough light. I then decided to add another light bulb to bounce off one of the reflectors. This brightened the area in front of the projector screen but did not bring it to the brightness that I wanted. I then thought that maybe my reflectors are absorbing light from the bounce off because they're not professional equipment. I tried putting aluminum foil on my reflectors to bounce off more light with the least amount of change in set up.

By adding this reflective metal, my makeshift set up had more light than before. At this time I was completely prepared for Blake to come to the studio.

I asked Blake to bring his Nikon camera. He brought the camera and his laptop so we can view the pictures on a brighter and bigger screen before we move on to different set ups or even shots outside.

Since I am not a professional model, I tried my best to not look awkward in the photos. It took me a while to realize, but by just acting as myself, I was able to become comfortable and intimate with the camera. We took one set of shots on Blake's SD card and another set on mine. When we finished, we weren't able to take any pictures outside because the sky was looking gloomy. But nonetheless, we reviewed the lighting and quality of the pictures on Blake's laptop, with a little less of looking for composition and pose and more focused on whether the light hit my face at the right angle and whether the shadows were visible or not, we decided the the photos were usable and we were going to review them and narrow them down for the magazine later.

Friday, March 23, 2018

Borders Up

So I was planning on doing the baby blue and gold color scheme for everything and I've already designated the background to be blue, but I have not yet decided what I wanted to be yellow on the cover. I was originally thinking a yellow border around the entire cover, but I think that alludes more to National Geographic's signature hollow rectangle as seen literally all over their website. So, when I hit this dilemma I immediately thought alpona or mehindi designs around the border would be perfect for the situation.

Think of an eye catching motif like the Nat Geo covers but with a design instead of a gold border:

Alright so I asked my sister what alpona called in English, and she said the closest thing is henna. Henna designs are actually really popular in the United States and they are basically drawn temporary tattoos. What most people don't know is that these designs are also used in fashion design, painted in various forms of art, and even carved into Indian furniture. These line drawing designs are signature to West/South Asia and will be perfect for my gold borderlines.

My dad is an artist and I asked him to draw a draft of what a border could be for the cover and another friend, who did this project last year was keen on including a very helpful tutorial in her blog. This tutorial explains how to convert ink blotches into the program to use as designs. I can manipulate the same concept to convert drawings into the program to use as a high quality border. With this tutorial, I think I will have to use Photoshop to create the colors and flowing style that I want in these border designs. At least for the cover that is.

References

Explore 130 Years of National Geographic Covers in Just Two Minutes. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/01/explore-130-years-of-national-geographic-covers-in-just-two-minutes/

How to make a magazine cover [Photoshop & InDesign]. (2015, April 28). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRrsr6CSmnY

National Geographic: Stories of Animals, Nature, and Culture. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

DESIgruntled Head Shots

This post is all about setting up my shot for the cover. I started taking pictures for the cover with a phone just to see how the lighting works and if I was truly getting a clean white background. Below are some no so amused pictures of me standing in front of the lights and the white backdrop.

I like how the background came out straight white without any hard shadow showing but i feel as though it may be a little too dark. I'm going to see if post-editing one of these pictures will make them seem brighter. Another thing is that learned about mirrors today. I think the shots look much cooler when I put them through some sort of mirror filter. Additionally, I thought this could further allude to Indian/West Asian aesthetic of symmetry. Historically, the Mogul Empire - which once ruled over India at it's most east - believed symmetry should be in all work, this is the reason that many great Indian art forms have passed down the need for symmetrical shapes and figures - like the Taj Mahal which identical from all four directions.

Here's an example of a picture edited by me. These photos are still taken with a phone. This coming week, I will shoot and edit higher quality pictures with my friend Blake Repp for the cover, table of contents, and two page spread.

Monday, March 19, 2018

My Project Goes To Tatti

This post is for how I wasted my entire day and actually took a step back.

I found out that my favorite font is nowhere to be found and every downloadable link I found - if any - was a .esp file.

I researched what this meant and apparently it is a three dimensional file that has multilayered pictures like a GIS. I'm guessing this is because of the three dimensional look of the font and the fact that it is more than one color. I started looking for other fonts and I found a hand painter who sells his various fonts with an Indian truck design touch to them, but from this article, I realized even if I bought these fonts, I would still be left with only .esp files due to the NINE multi layers encompassed in his hand painted fonts.

I couldn't find any similar font so I then decided to try to use an image of the Tatti font and crop the letters together. I began by downloading a GIF of all the letters being displayed, I did this because this was the only instance I found of all the letters with solid backgrounds. With this GIF, I did a split to extrat every frame of the image so I can have access to all the letters.

I saved the letters that I needed but they were all in different colors.

I tried to open these pictures up in paint and change them to the green and red theme that I was hoping for my magazine, but I quickly realized that many of the pixels are different colors even though the image looks solid. Additionally, the Z was not a solid color, and therefore I had no idea how to change the colors to my choosing. I ended with a horrid result that looked like this.

At this point I don't know what to do because the only popping part of this project is that I found this font, everything else conforms to what many of the other students are doing with their projects regarding style, target audience, and even genre. Additionally, my doubts have solidified when helping others who struggle with their film projects. I may be better at conveying a message through film than through print media, but I will have to continue trying this route for it is what I chose as best fit for myself.