BLACK ART Blog

Around the end of January, I created a practice spread about myself to help me prepare for my final spread for my magazine. Completing this spread helped me get a sense of putting all of my photos, captions, secondary coverage, and article altogether to create something that looks presentable and is completed.   Working on this practice spread helped me experiment with the different ways I could use fonts and colors in my headline, subheadline, and secondary coverage titles. Practice using the three types of spacing (micro, conventional, and macro) came out of making this spread as well. After completing this spread for practice, it helped me realize the things that I need to work on such as having more of a color theme, a better dominant photo, and making sure I can fit my article and captions in their spaces on the spread. Below is a picture of my completed practice spread.

When preparing for an interview, background information must be known about who is being interviewed. This information makes it easier for you to gather up questions that would be best to ask. Open-ended questions are the best option because this leads to answers that are well thought out and longer than a simple yes or no. An example could be if you were to ask “What are your plans for college?”. This question can not be answered with just a yes or no therefore it is open-ended. Below are a few more examples: Before starting an interview, make sure that you record (with permission), and you can jot down notes of what is being said and answer questions. Jotting down notes is more of a backup plan just in case what you are using to record dies or stops working mid- interview. Recording is needed so that you can go back to the interview if you do not remember what was said. It is also a good idea to listen for things that are said that can be quoted if you want to quote. Quoting is almos...

It is important to write captions because they provide context for a picture and give the reader a who, what, when, where, and why. Captions can go even deeper within the picture by saying how what's happening is happening and leaving the reader with a quote. When writing captions they can either be Basic  or Expanded.       Basic captions tell…      - Who (Up to five people with their first ad last names)      - What       - Where       - When       Basic Captions have…      - An Action Lead-In      - Basic Information Basic Captions need to be in PRESENT TENSE and ONE sentence long. Here is an example: Smiling for the picture is 3-year-old Jasmine Calixte, Kiera Calixte’s dog who is always bringing her joy is sitting patiently while Kiera takes her picture in their backyard to start the year 2022. Expanded captions dig deeper and expand coverage by...

Copy is written material in contents like magazines, books, and advertising. Without it, looking at those contents would make things difficult. Copy is very important because it provides readers with information that is needed to understand the whole picture. It is written to help fulfill the role of the publication as a whole. When there is no copy, the content is open to interpretation for the reader meaning they will interpret it however they want to. Below is an example of a page from a book with and then without copy. Try looking at the first picture and guessing what it means, then look at the picture with copy to see what is actually going on.                            

Soon after creating my magazine cover, in mid-November, I worked on my table of contents. Many examples of tables of content from famous magazines were provided for me to help me create my own. Here are a few of them… These examples helped me realize that several things needed to be included in my table of contents which was… - A Title - Publishing Information  - Photos - Captions - Margins - Design Elements - White Space - Spacing (Macro, Conventional, and Micro) - Folio

After finishing my magazine layout, I used all of what I learned to design my magazine cover. While finishing this, there were things that I needed to make sure I have on my cover. This includes... - A title - A headline - A dominant picture - Secondary headlines - Additional pictures - A price - A publishing date - An address label - A barcode - External and internal margins - The use of white space - Elements of design - The use of micro, conventional, and macro spacing

By the middle of October, it was time for me to start thinking about the design layout of my magazine. I began to learn about the many different elements of design. This includes pictures, copy and white space, column designs, external and internal margins, placement of the eyeline, dominant photo, copy area, vertical axis, and captions. After that, I started learning about adding more information to my layout by using secondary coverage, how to use micro, conventional, and macro spacing, and the importance of visual/verbal connections which involves the headline and dominant picture. In early November, I began to study fonts. I completed an assignment where I chose five different types of secondary coverage and then I explained how the different font I chose for each secondary coverage would add contrast, where the text will be placed, how drop and raised caps would be used, if transparency and text-wrapping will be used, and the aligning of the text. Creating a good headline was the ...