Kinetic Force

                                  After almost a full academic year of working on this project, I'm finally done with  Kinetic Force  magazine and am reporting one last time for my creative critical reflection. Thank you for accompanying me on this journey. Enjoy!                          

Drawing up the table of contents (TOC) was quick and easy, as my piece was heavily inspired by WDW Magazine's TOC. Actually morphing it into reality was where the trouble was. I did change one of the pictures, like I said in my last post, but the layout stayed the same. I even kept most of the titles and page numbers from the mock-up. The hardest part was making it so that the captions on the pictures were in a place that would not obscure the main image. After trial and error, I found the perfect place for the text that held the caption in the trusty, modern Biko font. I placed a white border around the pictures to allow them to pop a bit more and to separate it from the black background, The "More Scares...." text was originally meant to be aligned to the left but ended up looking better in the middle. It became more of a division between pictures and text like I intended in the first place. I also used iTC Willow font again as it creates the perfect creepy aura....

In terms of layout, not much changed from the drawing board to the final product of my table of contents. I kept the four pictures with a caption at the top in the same format and I kept the bottom half of the page the same ("More Scares...", the page number, and the title of the article on that page). The pictures I put in mirrored what I wrote on my planning sheet, except for one picture. I felt the frame box would be too small for one of the pictures I originally wanted so I chose another. I took inspiration from WDW Magazine's table of contents layout but I made it much darker in appearance to fit my theme of Halloween opposed to WDW, which is meant to be clean and friendly. I kept the black background I originally noted that I had wanted, but it felt too plain when it was just a dark background. Like I had done with my feature spread, I put a blood splatter in the back to give it a pop of color and to coincide with the spooky Halloween theme. To keep with the ...

Choosing the fonts and creating the topics proved to be the most challenging aspect of the feature spread. The fonts for the title were "Haunting Attraction", "Cedarville Cursive", and "Exquisite Corpse" respectively. They are each differing fonts, the first and last one being the closest together in terms of what emotions they provoke. "Haunting" and "Corpse" both succeed in making the audience feel intimidated; this is a Halloween edition and those fonts scream it. "Cedarville Cursive" was used to keep it in a sophisticated and smart area. It helped the spread feel a bit old, like when people still used cursive frequently. Like the title itself was haunted. The eyes were the only sort of graphic used aside from the blood dripping in the background of the second page. The eyes are intended to make the audience feel as though the page is watching their every move, waiting for them to read and decide if they want to visit on...

I originally intended to create a feature spread based on what I had seen from WDW magazine (a full page dedicated to a picture and the other page containing an article based on the picture). I felt that layout would not do my magazine justice, however. I wanted to conjure up an idea that would incorporate my creative and layout skills opposed to my writing skills. I came up with my final feature spread with the intention of creating the one based off WDW and the one of my own structure/design. I eventually chose the one that I liked more due to it's layout. My feature spread ended up straying completely from what I had analysed from WDW magazine and began to look more like a mix of other travel magazines and a top ten list. Not much changed from my mock-up sketch to InDesign. One of the differences was that the font for the title was not identical. The word "See" was the most different in the final as I couldn't find a specific font that matched what I was origi...

Every element that is on my cover was put in with intention. The main image was the hardest piece to choose. I had several candidates that were fitting for my cover photo. The final say on what photo to use came down to mental planning on what would affect both the audience and overall layout the best. What I chose allowed for space for the other elements to my cover. The low angle allowed for the pumpkin monster to loom over the camera. It would thus make the audience feel as though they were being intimidated and watched by the monster. It is meant to draw the reader in while keeping the spooky Halloween vibe. The font for the masthead derived from my vision to have a fun font that looped and dragged much like a roller coaster would since my overall magazine is supposed to be about theme parks. I still wanted my audience to recognize that this magazine can be read by all ages. Matching the color of the font to the color of the pumpkin in the main image helped keep everything more ...