Zine cover

Since the cover for the Horizon zine should match the inside pages, I have sketched a few ideas with both serif and sans-serif type. I quite like one of the magazine covers shown in the lecture presentation, so I then tried drawing the title in cursive script type. It turned out as my favourite of all thumbnails because it's more fun and interesting.

I took a photo of Yara and quickly sketched her sitting on the curvy bridge between h and n like a swing. Unfortunately that quick photo didn't capture everything so I had to make up her shoes...

But I really liked the relaxing atmosphere and that certainly fits within the purpose of the Zine. I decided this is going to be the cover design and asked Yara to be my model again, and this time took a clearer photo (yay!)

I traced the mock-up cover printout on the light-box with pencil and traced again with a liner. The type gets fatter every time I draw it, which isn't bad since the cover is relatively empty.

And here is my illustrated cover, scanned by Yara who was happy with the cartoon version of her :D

I will be adding text to it once I know what fonts I'm using for the other pages.

"Hello & Welcome"

Here are the initial thumbnails I have done with the given text, using 7 columns and 3mm gutter grids to help me placing the texts.

The circles layouts were inspired by Jess' example. I have also used grey for some areas to give a little more variety to the page.

I liked all of them but they will be a pain to fit in the texts, as we cannot change them and it's difficult to fit a circular text-box perfectly.


Then I considered using images.

I have done the first design in InDesign and got to know the basic controls of the software, but the full size print-out wasn't exciting at all. Partly because the columns for each section were too narrow, also the fact that I didn't place a picture of the original sketch into the programme to use as guidelines made the result look quite different from the thumbnail.

The images were simple so they don't dominate the page. The ones in the print-out below were drawn with pencil because I didn't have them yet. I am thinking of using line drawings to keep the simplicity, also matching the Zine cover.

I think the last 'image' layout looks best as the placement is more dynamic than the others, and will be tested in InDesign next.

Pumkin

 

As part of my Halloween tradition, I made a collage for my seasonal pumpkin hair and outfit. I'm not a fan of horror films/blood/ghosts/human parts but I do like to play around with various found images.

Although there are many tools to erase background of an image, my favourite is the old eraser, done with the mouse :D

I then started to work around it by drawing some blood drips that won't even scare a 3 year old kid, and after failing to create a vampire castle scene, I decided to put myself onto a table of feasts. Other graphics were found on the internet and the dancing skeleton is surprisingly cute in the picture! =D


The typeface used for Halloween 2011 is Black Castle, which certainly reminds me of a big old fashioned English castle, possibly haunted too (I hope not). I then used the simple and clean Clarendon for Rakuku to balance out the decorations. Overall I'm happy with it and received good feedbacks, bonus!