Digital Version

This is the digital version of the magazine:

Critical Reflection

I can't believe that this is it.

Few days left and I am going to be done..waw.. when I came to England to uni I never thought of this moment and never thought that I will get here today ALIVE.

This project has been a real challenge for me. Before coming to uni I can't say I had really practiced with photography. I only had a compact digital camera which I was using on Auto Mode (oops). From that, I ended up creating a whole magazine. During uni I didn't have the chance to experiment a lot as I was working all the time so that's why this year has been a real challenge as I had to combine work with really hard work for assignments.

As I said at the beginning of the "trip", after I finish I want to work for a fashion  magazine so the best idea was to try and create one to be able to have a minimum knowledge of what's happening in that world. First of all, the idea of obsession came from researching for other project and I thought it might be a great concept for a magazine. I did some research to see if there is anything like that out there but couldn't find any magazine that is about women's obsessions which made me happy. So I decided to develop my idea and to start working on it. As it's a magazine I wanted to make it interactive and as close to fashion as possible so that's why I chose the obsession for the colour red. I have seen so many women going for this colour to be elegant or sexy. I believe it's a very natural colour that means more than it looks like.

In terms of the title, I didn't want to go for the obvious - Obsession- I wanted something maybe a bit, just a bit different - I did find a magazine called Obsession or something like that so that was definitely a no. I looked for other synonyms for Obsession and I even looked for the word in other language like Obsesion in Spanish - the magazine won't have Latino influences so no need to us that word, in French is pretty much the same as the English version etc. So after all these, I decided to stay with the English world so everyone understands it but instead of using the classical Obsession I went for Obsess as it's shorter and more interesting and engaging that the full word.

I started really early to look for people who want to contribute and be featured and to be honest I had some really weird responses from people that had nothing to do with fashion and arts in general. But I tried to be polite when saying no. Apart from those, I spent so many days looking and looking for people and to be honest, from all the work that I have got now, I can't say that the final materials are exactly what I was thinking when I had the idea of the magazine. I was aiming for really fashiony images but you know I should be happy and say thanks for what I have got and especially because I managed to have some images in the end to be able to create my magazine. 

At some point, I feared that I won't be able to do anything because of that. It was hard to ask people if they have certain images that would fit with my articles  - weren't a lot of people anyway who had images with red. So that's why I had just asked for images with red and then I adjusted them to my preferences. I had to chase people a lot and while I was doing that I realized that I will probably have to do that if I work for a fashion magazine. The job would be even harder as I can't mess up and work with unprofessional people or anything like that. It was a very good exercise to start looking for people to work with - you have to be nice to those who have really good work as they won't give you their images like that and polite  to those that don't have work that suits the style of your magazine.

I tried to use my work as well and I had 2 photo shoots especially done for the magazine.I wanted to have something that's mine and made for that as well. The first shoot was with Jade who is a make-up artist. She created around 4 looks for the shoot and then the second one was with Stefi which was the main shoot. Again, those 2 were another way of working with people as - probably sounds way too much for me now haha- a creative director and also organizing everything. Contacting people was a great experience as I made some contacts as well for the future which is amazing.

When it came to designing the magazine, I was really scared I wasn't going to do it or finish it on time. I struggled to finish with my dissertation so in those last weeks I couldn't do any work for any other project. But I promised myself I was going to do it no matter what and a promise is a promise. I spent nights researching and trying to create something that goes with the images and the concept and something that as a whole looks good. I knew and I know now that it's not the best magazine ever and I think there might be loads of things that I didn't do right when creating the magazine but now, at the end, after being at war with time and stress, I do feel proud of myself for being able to keep my promise and finish the magazine.

It's a shame the print space messed up my magazine. I really wanted to submit a proper copy but there's nothing I can do now other than accept the whole situation. The magazine, as a whole, looks good although at the beginning I had another image in my mind but ended up being a bit different. I learned bits related to printing issues which will help me in the future.

I personally don't think my research and this blog reflect how much time and stress and sleepless nights I have had doing this project and the others as well (I ended up being sick exactly a week before my deadline - great :|). I never had and I don't think I will ever be capable of doing a perfect research as it's very hard for me to write, in general, and to put all these posts in the blog. When I do research I gather all the information in my head and then I work with that. I tried to be critical about my work in my posts but I literally don't know what else to write apart from that. I express myself through images as I have a very good photographic memory but when it comes to talking I have a problem in general not with doing research only. Most of the times, even if it sounds weird and it doesn't help, I do things because I like how they look, it's how my eyes and mind see everything. But, unfortunately,  I don't always have a specific reason to support that which I believe you can see from my posts. 

Anyway, no matter the mark and evaluation I get I am proud of what I managed to achieve and doing this helped me a lot and now I know even more that that's what I want to do in the future. :) 

I still don't want to accept that this is the end of 3 years of hard work! :(

No waay...

So back from the printing space again... I can't believe they messed up my magazine AGAIN!! This time even worse......

• The inside of the cover is missing and that's one of the most important parts of the magazine because it says what the obsession is and it feels so incomplete without it..
• They didn't stitch or whatever they do the pages well so they are almost coming off....

Thanks... I appreciate that.. very professional...

The problem is that they can't print the magazine again as today's Friday and they don't work tomorrow..well thanks again..what am I supposed to do? miss my deadline?

Called them and argued with them as it's not my fault and that's very unprofessional but of course, they can't do anything about that..Great!!! 

Pros and cons

So there are things that didn't come out very well or as I expected:

• on the contents page, there was an image that was dark, I changed it but it doesn't seem like it's made any difference as it looks the same :(
• on page 9, the image on the right should have been in a white frame but I don'r know how they managed to cut it as there is no border on the side :(
• page 20-21 --> I moved the image to the left but I am not quite sure if it needed to be moved more. you can see the face of the model but it's very close to the spine. Not sure if that's ok or not
• page 59 - the big image is a bit  darker :(

It's a shame that images loose a lot of their quality when you print them :( I have decided to make a digital version as well to see the difference in quality.

The magazine

In the meantime, till I get the new copies of my magazine, I want a bit about what's inside of it.

Initially, I had a very long plan with all sorts of articles and idea. While designing my magazine, I realized that I can't follow that plan as 1) I don't have work from people to suit my plan 2) some of my initial ideas didn't really fit together as they weren't for a fashion magazine and I didn't want to mic things so I have a bit of everything. Plus, I have already got a lot of pages right now - doing everything on the list, I would have ended up with loads of pages!!!

The articles that I have got:

• Understanding a woman wearing red - what the body language of a woman says about her character and how she should be treated
• London Fashion Week '14 - 4 designers that presented a red collection
• Oriental Rose - the article about the girl on the cover and her obsession with red
• Divine by Lucas Bueono - 2 pieces created by Lucas especially for this magazine
• Beauty editorial - an article about red make-up and exercising your creativity
• Little Red Dress - types of red dresses that you should have
• Oh this festive season - an article about the Indian red saari
• W- article about red wedding bouquets 

All these have been created after I had sorted out all the images that I have received from people and everything is 81 pages long. Loads of pages!!!

Overall, I am happy with the result although there are some few things that don't look exactly as I wanted.

Update on the magazine

So a closer look, I realized that all the copies have got on the cover like a yellow line. It's very fine and you only notice it if you look closely but... it's there. So I had to ask them to reprint them again.. oohh I wasn't expecting this :(

Magazine is heree

Very excited to hold a copy of my magazine in my haands!! It looks...real!!

Essay time

The magazine is done- now essay tiiime

The essay subject needs to be from my research. I have been looking at obsessive layout and font and I have created a magazine whose concept is obsession. So, my idea for the essay would be  - the obsession that many male photographers have got with female models and how they objectify them and treat them as sexual objects.

My plan for this would be to talk about objectification and male voyeurism and their relationship. I will also choose 2 male photographers who have been "practicing" this and I will try and talk about their work in relation to objectification and fetishism - voyeurism.

I have got some research from when I did my dissertation that will help me a lot but I still need to research other bits as it's not enough. Good luck to mee!!!

Ready to print

I edited everything - hope I didn't miss anything!!! It's ready to go to print.. excited but anxious as well!! It feels unreal that I am sending my magazine to the print space and in a week or so I will have it in my haaaaaaands!!! Can't waiiiitt!!!!

Page numbers

In terms of page numbers - I know I have seen so many examples of really nice page numbers but then I thought that my magazine has already got loads of images and I have also got loads of red in it. So the best thing to be done was to keep it simple. I only chose a different font but left the pages as usual, on the left and right corner .

these are just 3 experiments with page numbers. and then I decided to leave it simple like this:

for pages like that, I chose white so the number is visible.

and for white pages, obviously black. 

Edits

I spent another few days to edit everything how I wanted. When I did my magazine, I never thought there could be so many things to take into consideration. :(

This is how it looks now - the text is smaller, I edited the words as some weren't supposed to be there.

Because the text on the right was right from the beginning sort of greyish (90% opacity) I made all the text like that because 100% black would have been too bold. I didn't want it to be really striking. I changed the small image (#25) as well and even if in this pictures is still look dark, it's not. 

I changed this image as it was too dark.

I changed the opacity of the text to 90% and the image on the right as it was too dark.(2nd from left to right).

I changed the opacity and also instead of having the name of the contributors in bold italic, I only went for italic because I didn't want it to attract attention very much.

I moved the frame a bit more to the right in the images with the mask + contributors to italic+ image is more lit now.

Because the image is on the center of the spread, I moved it to the right a bit to still be able to see her face after binding. Also, the contributors - I moved them down to cover a bit the white space and also because after binding the text would get lost.

90% opacity + contributors to italic

contributor to 90%

Because the images didn't look good at all, I moved the red triangle behind them to be able to see the images clearly without that redness. + text 90% opacity

I got rid of the shadows on the left as I didn't position the images correctly the first time. The shapes on the right are now one on top of the other and they look as one.

I only changed a bit the text on the right. I made sure the white text wasn't very close to the black background.

I made the text on the left smaller as the first time was waaaay too big. Also, I made sure the contributors are right in the middle of the frame. + text 90% opacity 

I changed the images as they were too dark, made the text smaller +90% opacity. It looks so much better now.

I changed the images - too dark and I also added some text that I have forgotten about - some words that Stefi wrote about herself.

I made the text smaller on the left and on the right I tried to make sure there are no "-" in the text (actually, I have done that to all the text in the magazine). And I also tried to make it uniform - 90% opacity.

contributors to italic

I tried the same thing with the text on the left as in the image above.

for this one, I corrected the position of the small image on the right, I made the red shape on the left smaller and I made sure the text is uniform and it doesn't have any "-".

There was too much white space on the left so I moved both images a bit lower together with the text. I didn't want to move just the text as I wanted it to be together with the images. 

I made the text smaller and it looks more readable now.

I made this text smaller as well. 

Visit to the print space #2

The cover was ok. The images are not quite good but the cover looks very nice. 

This one was ok as well. It looks really good printed.

I need to edit the text as I said before and I also need to make it smaller as it way too big. The text shouldn't be bigger than 12p as otherwise it will look huuuge.

Right, for this one there is one image which is too dark so I need to change that. I need to do the table of contents properly. The text on the right with the contributors has got a 90% opacity so it's more like grey. I want to make all the text like that because black might be too much.

The image is too dark so I need to change that.

I need to replace 'their' by "her" and the opacity of the text should be 90%. Also, the second image from left to right is too dark.

The name of contributors are in bold italic. I will change them to italic. 

contributors + opacity

again one of the images that is too dark. I also need to move "The mysterious woman" a bit to the right.

90% and contributors

'The crafty woman' should be in the middle of the frame. On the right, there is too much space so I will move the contributors paragraph down.

image in the right - too dark

contributors

this one is ok.

OK as well

for this one, I need to move the triangle behind the images as they don't look good at all combined with the triangle.

there is a black shadow that I can spot - needs to disappear. Also, in the middle, the red shapes are multiplied but they need to be one on top of each other. 

this one is good.

same with this one

the images are too dark. the text is too big. 90% opacity

images too dark. might be too empty on the right

this one is ok

text too big. the contributors should be in the middle of the frame

text waay too big

this one is ok

change text. on the right, I need to change the "-" as they don't look aesthetically good.

this one is ok

same - ok

there is a lot of space between some words - need to get rid of that

the red shape on the left is quite big. on the right, the small frame is not positioned right as I can see  white space.

I need to make the red shape bigger as the text touches the margins.

this is ok.

contributors 

good

this is good

good as well

good as well.