I waited on the rainbow wheel a LOT (my files are giant, so I think that I’m frustrating the computer). On a more productive note, I set up the layout for one spread and got about halfway through a second in InDesign. This entailed selecting a background color and inserting placeholder text and boxes where my text and images will go. After those two, I only have one more spread and an ad left, so I’m finally in the home stretch. They do still need text, images, and better fonts, but it’s nice seeing less blank space in my document.

Why I Did It

I’ve been working on one spread at a time, but I think it might be more productive to have the skeleton set up for the rest of the document before I worry about selecting fonts, creating images, and writing the body text. That, and this computer is far too slow for Illustrator (I have better luck with the ones at InnovationSpace), it won’t load my fonts, and I do my body text at home, since it’s about the only thing I can do on a computer that does not have Illustrator or InDesign, so my hands were kid of tied.

My peer reviewers thought that my document was fairly strong. They were a lot more complimentary of my Illustrator drawings than I expected, and they said that everything looked nice. One of them did say that I should add white borders to the smaller images on my cover to make it look more like a tabloid, and I plan to do that as soon as possible. I’d been worried about contrast, and that fix solves that problem while enhancing the tabloid effect. I was a bit unclear about my intended audience, since my original story is for children, but I added adult elements. My group helped me to narrow my audience to adults familiar with the fairy tale. I am also adding an advertisement to the end of the document. I’d been toying with the idea, but my group members made it clear that that would really strengthen the document, so now it’s a priority. As of right now, my top priority is finishing the document, as I still have three two-page spreads and an ad left to do. I think that I will have time to make the revisions, since the ad is already in my plan and the white borders will only take a couple minutes to add. I’m planning on more InnovationSpace marathons this week and the week after break to make sure that everything gets done.

My project is not online, but here are some screenshots of my work! I’ve spent over 12 hours working on this so far, and I’m limited by InnovationSpace’s hours, so please don’t judge how much I have left to do. I’m going right back at it after my lunch today! Also, this computer won’t download my fonts properly for whatever reason, so that’s why a lot of them look awkward and have red highlighting. I promise they work when I do them at InnovationSpace, and I’ll make the pdf from there.

I spent five hours in InnovationSpace this weekend and two class periods working exclusively on the cover of my project, and I just started the last image. I created a background, selected a font for the title, and drew four princesses and the princess, along with backgrounds for three of the princesses plus the last one, who I intend to finish at InnovationSpace. I finally figured out how to use illustrator. Personally, I think my images don’t look much better than what I could do in Paint in half the time, but I’m going for a childish look. I realized that I’m in way over my head, and I’m going to log a crazy number of hours on this project. My bus was a couple minutes early, so it drove off just as I got within site of the bus stop, so I got an early presentation slot. I also realized that the cover is the only ridiculously image-heavy portion of the project, so I’m hoping it’s all downhill from here.

Why I Did It

I spent all of my free time on Sunday in InnovationSpace because I designated Sundays a catch-up day in my plan, and I’m already hugely behind even with the equivalent of six extra class periods of work outside of the classroom. I only left at 8 because they closed. I worked exclusively on the cover because that led me to spend the vast majority of my time in Illustrator, and being immersed in the program for so long helped me to better understand it. I’m designing images that look childish because the original story is intended for children, and I think that the kiddie look contrasts nicely with the bad princesses.

I spent class today working on my cover image for my magazine in Illustrator. The Lynda videos proved to be fairly useless, but I got stuff done after googling how to do it. I’m almost done with the background, but I still need characters. I’m planning on lots of time in InnovationSpace this weekend and next week.

Why I Did It

I made my cover image since it will be the most complex. I googled out of desperation. I will be in InnovationSpace because I bit off a bit more than I’ll be able to chew in class, but I’m excited to learn a new program.

These are my storyboards (I had to do two because of the free account limitations).

What I’ve done since Friday

I finished the storyboards later on Friday (I got about halfway done in class). Today, I realized that I need to watch some Lynda videos before tackling Illustrator, set up my InDesign document, and worked on cropping my cover background image in Photoshop. I encountered a lot more trouble with finding a cartoon castle scene than I expected, and I’m still having difficulty with keeping this one from being too grainy.

Why I did it

I finished the storyboard so I knew how many pages I’d need for my magazine, what kind of background each page should have, and what kind of characters I should design. I got on Illustrator and was completely overwhelmed, which caused me to shift my focus for today, since I need to know what I’m doing. I set up the InDesign framework because that will be the mother document, as everything else will ultimately just become a part of it. I wanted a cartoon castle scene for the cover of the magazine because a solid color would be too boring and a photo of a real castle wouldn’t make sense with the characters I’m planning to create in Illustrator. I used Photoshop to mess with the image I found in hopes of making it usable, but I might not be able to work with it based on its size.

I created the first part of my storyboard. I got most of the way through my first princess (I plan to have three or four, including the winner).  I used Storyboard That.

Why I did it

I used Storyboard That because it was simple and effective. I didn’t realize that it only allows six panels, though, so I’m going to have to make multiple storyboards to finish the story.

Timeline for Project 3

W, 11/5: Project Timeline

F, 11/7: Create different versions of reject princesses using illustrator, dabble in InDesign to help determine capabilities and size constraints, present pitch

Su, 11/9: Finish any remaining tasks from previous week at InnovationSpace

M, 11/10: Mockup, Storyboard, and/or Outline

W, 11/12: Make firm selections for images to be used, revise as necessary, place them in document

F, 11/14: Write main text based on image examples selected and place them in the document

Su, 11/16: Finish any remaining tasks from previous week at InnovationSpace

M, 11/17: Presentation Sign-up, begin work on side bars (supplementary polls, emphasized quotes, etc)

W, 11/19: Rough Cut for Peer Feedback, Project 3 Revision Plan

F, 11/21: Selfie Showing Yourself at Work, revise

M, 12/1: Make final revisions, go to InnovationSpace if necessary

W, F, M, W, 12/3-12/10: In-class presentations

W, 12/10: Project Due by 11:55 PM

What I Did

I created a timeline for my project that will help me to stay on schedule during the project construction period. I made sure that every critical step in the process was specifically mentioned on at least one day, and I included a catch-up day every week on Sunday (or Monday, in the case of the final week, because I wasn’t sure if InnovationSpace would reopen on the Sunday or Monday after Thanksgiving).

Why I Did It

I included each step because I want to make sure that I don’t forget about anything. I included catch-up days on Sundays because I have meetings on campus on Sundays, so it will be easy for me to get to InnovationSpace if I need to catch up. I need InnovationSpace for most of the work I’ll be doing for this project, as I do not have InDesign or Illustrator on my computer. I thought that it was important to have a catch-up day so that I can stay focused on what I’m supposed to do each day in class. There are some days that I’m already worried about not having enough time (especially character creation, since I’ve never used Illustrator), and I want to ensure that, if I do fall behind, I am able to catch up with my schedule before it becomes overwhelming to do so.