Final Stages of Production.

Since my last blog entry, I have completed the final stages of production for my product.

Firstly, I changed the layout of my product on InDesign to have three columns on each page rather than two on the left and three on the right. This enabled me to balance out the content of the magazine without it looking cluttered, and so it looked like a much more organised DPS.

I also learned how to change the corners of shapes I created. I did this in order to soften some of the boxes that I used as backgrounds for text, particularly the white boxes holding the main sections of the article and the red ‘verdict’ boxes. I also learned how to create drop shadow, and used this on the titles of my verdict boxes, the subtitles for my articles (all in separate, slightly rotated boxes in a ‘label’ style) and the circular breakout box I created to feature a fact. I also learned how to create a drop cap, which I used on my introduction and at the beginning of each article.

After doing this, I then increased the size of the introduction font and put it in its own separate section, which would separate it from the body of the article and work to hold the reader’s attention for long enough to read the body. To aid this effect, I changed the colour of the drop cap to the same red as the verdict boxes, creating diagonals of colour across the page. 

This was my product before the final edits, which turned out to be much larger than originally planned in order to create a magazine that was successful in achieving its purpose and being appealing to my target audience.

Here is the image featured on my last blog post, as I began the process of further editing my DPS. You can see the beginnings of the introduction in the top left hand corner, where I began to learn how to adjust corners, and also to create a 'highlighting' effect on the text through the use of underlining and increasing the weight of the line.

This is my product after the final changes were made. The layout is a lot more organised, and the different sections are easily visible to a casual reader of a magazine. The increased size of the introduction text and separation of it from the body of the article would again be more visible to a casual reader, and more likely to hold their attention. The main body of the article has also been separated more clearly, through the use of blocks of white with rounded corners. The text in these is still separated into columns, evident through the use of a dotted line. The 'verdict' box is also made more obvious through its bright colouring, contrasting with the white background, and its varying black and white text. I then used drop shadow on all of the titles, the red 'verdict' boxes and the break out box to achieve a sense of layering, which helps to give the magazine a calmer, less cluttered appearance.