#UpdatedTableOfContents

Quick update everyone! I took the picture involving the stage makeup for my table of contents tonight! I threw that picture into the mix along with my original cover page image and now my table of contents is COMPLETE........almost. I still have to do the ad, but for now here it is:

As you can see, I added the red shadow to the top of the page (requested by my mother, the graphic design major) and changed the line under "Table of Contents" to red instead of black. I also put a faint red border around the pictures to support the red shadow above and give a more soothing image to the eye. I also dded what's called a "drop shadow" to the pictures, which make it seem like there is a spotlight shining on the page. And one last small detail, I put the page number in the bottom left corner. Now, time for the ad!

That's all for now! See ya!🎬

#CritiquingChaos!!!

Hello all! Checking back in with an update on my double page spread!

I, again, FaceTimed my friend Hannah to work on our projects together and give each other critiques on each other's work. I also really enjoyed these FaceTime sessions because even though she is not verbally motivating me, I know that if we weren't talking, and things with my project got difficult, I would just huff and puff and just give up. But, because she was just there, I was able to power-through and get things done! With both my double page spread AND my table of contents!!!

This is what I have so far for my spread:

I'm having trouble with the last question in the first column. I HATE how there is only one line of her answer before it continues to the next column, but I don't know how to fix it!!! I've cut out as much unnecessary information as I can (with the help of Hannah), and I feel like I'm not staying true to Idy's responses if I cut any more! By the way: the empty space on the first page is going to be a picture of Idy, which I am taking this Thursday at dance class.

Update: Today my teacher helped me out A LOT with the problems I've been having! She suggested that I add another page to my double page spread to fix the the column trouble I was having and place the final Q/A on another page. But, instead of a Q/A format, I put it as a list, so I can take up more room with less information. Another thing she said was to edit my cover page. She said the picture had "yucky" lighting and felt disconnected because everyone person featured had their back towards the reader. To fix this I have to reshoot this Thursday at dance class, soI'll have an update on that soon. Another thing she said was that my masthead needed to be bigger. So...I made it bigger! But she also told me it seemed to empty and to add a sell line (which is basically the magazine's motto) beneath it. Here's how that turned out:

I chose this motto because I feel it describes what the title implies; moving downstage means closer to the audience and I'm bringing the news theatre to the audience (the front row)! I also added the red shadow effect to each part of the mast head because I felt that it was too boring without it. Plus, that could a recurring motif in the future editions of my magazine! I also chose to take the old cover image (seen above) and use it as a picture for my table of contents!

My teacher also recommended that I should add an advertisement to go next to my table of contents. I thought that I was only supposed to create a single page one, but turns out it is highly recommended to do a two page spread. My plan is to do an ad for dance shoes or for a type of pain medication such as BioFreeze or something. So, yea, I have that to look forward to!

Summary of today: Realized I need to reshoot for my cover page and double page spread, changed the masthead of the cover page and added the red shadow to everything, obtained one picture for the table of contents, realized I need to add another page to my double page spread's article to fit the point that ties the article together, and need to create an advertisement to go next to the table of contents. Overall feeling: Pressured. This project is due in less than two weeks. TWO!!! Not to mention my CCR needs to be done soon! Wish me luck everyone and thanks for sticking with me and this HUGE blog post!!!😰

#SpacingOUT

Today, my mother, who majored in graphic design in college, helped me with my project a LOT!!! She gave me pointers on group text boxes together and critiqued what I have so far. She went especially in depth into my cover picture, which I was kind of upset because I thought my picture was PERFECTION, but she believes I need to take it again. Low-key angry and don't want to, but I should listen to the professional. It pains me to admit that I actually don't know as much as she does.

Anyway, the thing she wanted to help me out with was my Table of Contents. The first time she saw it, she complemented my layout, but said we could work on the spacing of some of the line. Well, today we did just that! Even though it took approximately an hour an a half we finally figured out the issues I was getting with the text boxes I had!

Before I dive deeper into that, here's a little before-and-after of my Table of Contents:

Before

After

As you can see, I lined up things like my article titles, article descriptions, the space between the first three articles and the last three, AND I even got rid of the white space above where it says "Table of Contents"!!! All this came from the help of my mother! Now onto the issues I had and how we fixed them.

Before, I had each little text in its own text box. So, when I tried to bring one box closer to the other, the stationary box would disappear! I had to settle for as close as it could go. But then, my mom found out my method and COMPLETELY changed it. She said it was because they were all in individual text boxes, so she showed me how to group the boxes together and move one text to another box and delete the old text box. She told me, "the less text boxes you have, the better" which should be the golden rule because man was she right! I went from having 14 text boxes to 6 text boxes!!! It became so much easier to move everything around after that!

Next, she showed me how to align things better! I can't believe I didn't know this but if you use the arrow keys on the computer instead of dragging the mouse on the keypad, it becomes so much more precise! And if you want to take it further, you can zoom in on the thing you are trying to move around and use the arrow keys for EVEN MORE precision!!!

But, there was one thing that was troubling her that we could not figure out. It was how to space a paragraph on Pages. She knew how to do it on Microsoft's Word, but Pages has updated itself over the past 20 years, so she was at a lost, and so was I. So we YouTubed how to do it...no help. We tried the Apple Help site...again, no help. Then it hit her: it was the line spacing, not paragraph spacing! I had the line spacing on 1.0 (the standard spacing), but to make it seem more professional, we changed it to 1.2 spacing. Trust me, even though it's a small change, it made a HUGE difference!!!

I'm so grateful that my mom helped me out with this! Like I said, everything is working out right now! Fingers-crossed that nothing starts to go downhill from here! But, I have a positive mindset and truly believe nothing will happen! That's all for now! Talk to you guys soon! Thanks again, Mom!!!😘

#DoubleTrouble

So I'm starting my double-page spread today, which is an interview style article about my dancer teacher Idy. One of the biggest things I feel about this article is the title and its font. The title of the article, "Choreographer Chat" isn't finalized, but it is always good to keep working instead of being held up on one thing. So, I just have to push through and hopefully a better name will pop into my head, because what I have now sounds very amateurish.

I also got a notification that Apple Pages had to be updated. When it finished updating I opened up the program and it gave me a small run-through of the features that were added. Out of habit I just went to click out of that run-through and as it was closing I noticed a phrase that had "double page spread" in it. First, I was mad at myself for not reading through the updates. Second, I spent the next 15 minutes trying to figure out how to get the double page look! Eventually, I ended up clicking something by accident and it got what I needed! I love it when life works out like that! SO now I can view on my computer what the double page spread would look like as it would on paper!

Moving on, I want to choose a font that has a very rustic vibe to it, yet still reminds you the slightest bit about dance. Of course, I went to my new favorite site 1001fonts.com and picked out some of my favorites.

These are only a very VERY small portion of the different fonts they had, but I really like some of them. I'm going to continue looking though! Stay tuned!🧐

#TableOfContentsAlmostFinished

Today, my friend, Hannah, and I worked on our magazines together. It took a little while to do my table of contents (an hour and a half to be exact), but with help from Hannah, it was totally worth it!!! I have everything done, except the pictures to my featured articles. Here is what it looks like so far:

What I did was I put each text in it's own text box. For example, "9 Just A Simple Sponge" is in one text box and the description of the article below it is in another. I lined up the text in each description text box to match the article title above it, which, by the way, is NOT a fast process. The triangle arrows indicate that that specific article corresponds to the picture next to it.

My Plans For the Pictures

For the stage makeup article, I plan to gather a bunch of, well, stage makeup on a counter and snap a picture of the "organized clutter" I like to call it. The makeup would include foundation, blush, mascara, eyeliner, etc. and be arranged it a display that seems clumped together, yet still has a neat feel to it. For my choreographer picture, I meeting up with her later today for dance class where I'll take a headshot of her. She has already giving me the consent to use her pictures in my magazine. She has been so kind to helping me with this project, that I'm giving her a shoutout! Love you Idy!!!

Anyways, that's all for today! I feel like I've been getting so much done lately. However, I feel like something big and problematic is drawing closer to me, but I really hope that's all in my head! Everything is working out perfectly now and I really don't want anything to suddenly happen!😓

#CoverPageDone...Hopefully

So I finally got my cover page finished today! It's a little cropped because I couldn't get a screen shot of the whole thing. It only took all but an hour. Why you may ask? That's because I'm still getting used to pages and technology is not my area of expertise! Allow me to expand on that:

The overall making of the cover was fairly simple. Since the trend in theatre magazines is to have the cover page picture focus on your main article (mine being an interview with a choreographer) with no distractions (i.e. extra text, other pictures, etc.) all I had to do was paste my picture and move my title onto it. Simple right? Well, I had some malfunctions with my title.

So my title, as stated in a previous blog posting, consists of two text boxes. One with standard black font color and the other in a red font color and slightly bigger to give it the shadow effect. As a reminder, here is my original intention:

To layer the black on top of the red, I set the red text box to be wrapped "behind text" and the black text box "in front of text". BUT when layered on top of each other, the black text is either fully covering the red text, giving it a very faint shadow:

or an even thicker shadow than intended (as seen above on cover page)

I felt the shadow played a key role in the title because I gives it a bold, dramatic effect on the magazine as a whole when people look at it. I spent approximately 45 minutes watching maybe 3+ videos on Apple Pages tutorials and guides...AGAIN!!! Eventually, I had to compromise and go with the bigger shadow. Hopefully in the future, I'll be able to fix it. My mom was actually a graphic design major in college, but she is currently on a business trip, so maybe she'll be able to help me when she returns. Until then!⏳

#PicsAndAnInterview

Hello everyone!!!

For my double page spread, I've decided to do an interview-esque article with my dance teacher and choreographer, Idy. SO, yesterday, at dance class, I finally got to interview and acquire some pictures of her and my friends! I'm not 100% sure what I wanted them to do, so I asked them to do whatever looks the most "dance-y" and they did NOT disappoint! Here are the pictures I've taken:

I hope you guys have a great night! Thanks for sticking with me through all of this!💖