Digital Magazine - Evolve
The final brief for the semester in Typography consisted of creating a digital version of the magazine completed previously. The important features of this project was to create a digital magazine with interactive elements to it. This could be video links, buttons, animation and so much more. I was excited to begin this project as I like the challenge of learning new tricks with software. I wanted to push my designs further from the paper magazine as create something I was truely happy with. I wanted a clean and clear design, but still with elements of colour in the right places.
Research
To begin with I looked at various online magazines and also magazines which I liked the colour theme and typography elements to help establish what 'look' I was going for.
After this I looked at many youtube tutorials helping to guide me through the interactive process of Indesign. Each of these videos were a great help and sucess!
After this I looked at many youtube tutorials helping to guide me through the interactive process of Indesign. Each of these videos were a great help and sucess!
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Layout Ideas
Once I had done some research into actually creating the interactive elements it was time to begin planning my layouts. Below are some rough notes as to how I was intending to begin my design process.
Thumbnails
The next stage was to create thumbnail sketches of my intended layouts. I had a vague idea of exactly what information I wanted to display and the intended order. To begin with I was trying to fit too much on each page, this was redirected to the correct amount of copy on each page and made the rest of the designs come together a lot easier.
As you can see through the sketches my ideas become more clear as to which direction my thought process was heading. This made it much easier when it came to applying these ideas into digital developments.
As you can see through the sketches my ideas become more clear as to which direction my thought process was heading. This made it much easier when it came to applying these ideas into digital developments.
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Digital Mock-up Developments
The next stage was to take my designs onto the computer. I wanted to have theme which ran throughout each of the pages. For this I chose to keep the titles in lower case PlayFair Display. I chose this typeface as I like the rounded serif elements to it, this choice felt good as the characters are soft and looked lovely in cool pastel colours.
To begin with I had two borders encasing the copy and imagery, as the time I thought this looked good and thankfully was redirected to remove the bottom element. Comparing the two now it does just make the pages look much smaller and squeezed in, whereas just having the navigation bar at the top gives the pages room to breath.
To begin with I had two borders encasing the copy and imagery, as the time I thought this looked good and thankfully was redirected to remove the bottom element. Comparing the two now it does just make the pages look much smaller and squeezed in, whereas just having the navigation bar at the top gives the pages room to breath.
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I started getting all the pages ready first before adding interactive elements. Once this was done I started to add buttons, hover over captions, moving elements and animation. It was a bit tricky to begin with, however with time it all started to come together.
As my theme was for a womens sports magazine, I wanted there to be an introduction, something which was empowering to the viewer, to know exactly what the magazine was about. So I took to premier pro with some stock videos and impactful audio to create an opening sequence.
As my theme was for a womens sports magazine, I wanted there to be an introduction, something which was empowering to the viewer, to know exactly what the magazine was about. So I took to premier pro with some stock videos and impactful audio to create an opening sequence.
Media
As well as the opening sequence I also added videos to the sportswomen pages, to create a realistic view of my magazine. I was happy with how my interactive magazine turned out as all the elements worked thankfully!
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Final Design
Finally I have each page laid out to view the whole design. I was very happy with how I kept the theme the same throughout the magazine. I felt the design was clean and fresh, with hints of colour. The interactive side to the magazine all turned out a sucess until it came to exporting it. I had to export the file as an EPUB file with the adobe reader, I thought all was well until it opened and displayed overlapping text! I could not find a solution to this as everytime I exported the magazine as a PDF and viewed it within Indesign everything worked fine. So instead I was planning on overcoming this issue by recording my screen and editing the video in Premier Pro, from here I planned on uploading the finished file to Youtube, HOWEVER, this did not work either as it didn't record the actual file, so instead I just had to copy and paste the online publishing link. This does work but, I feel it glitches slightly.
