oliviaflynn

[oliviaflynn]

Weekly Reflection

Week 1 - 28/02/2022

In the first week, I finalised my 3 FMP ideas in a powepoint which I presented to my peers and tutor successfully, receiving feedback to develop my concepts further. I struggled to decide which topic to chose so I further researched the ideas throughout the week before landing on ‘gender’

Week 2 - 07/03/2022

Though I had chosen ‘gender’ as a topic, it is a broad title which covers too many things, so I spent time exploring which pathway I should follow regarding gender. I used mindmaps, read articles and looked back on the presentation. I wrote up my rationale based on the powerpoint and wrote down how I would further develop my project and artists to look into.

Week 3 - 14/03/2022

I continued my research throughout this week, focusing mostly on newspaper articles. I began to look on websites such as pinterest to create mood boards and start to picture the style I would follow. It took a while to figure out how to move forward from the broad concept as I had lots of routes I wanted to go down.

Week 4 - 21/03/2022

I worked on my experimental imagery, branching out into digital art which I had rarely used in the past. Additionally, I experimented with photoshop on images I had taken and an image from an old magazine. I started to look more closely into manspreading as I felt there was a lot of potential in the topic.

Week 5 - 28/03/2022

I began planning ways I could use manspreading as a topic and display it artistically, thinking about the physical act and the meanings behind it and the ways I could portray both at once, thinking about layering the two together or focusing on one at a time.

Week 6 - 25/04/2022

Following the Easter break, I conducted my major photoshoot, using two main models and a fish eye lens to convey a sense of entrapment and freedom. Looking back, I should have given myself more time, not having realised how time consuming it would be. Throughout the week, I worked through the raw images and selected the photos I would use in the magazine.

Week 7 - 02/05/2022

I created a rough plan for my magazine, thinking about which chapters I would have and where I would put them. I drew out a small layout to refer back to and started to work on Indesign, creating 30 blank artboards and filling them with titles or raw images to begin the process.

Week 8 - 09/05/2022

I started working on some of the minor magazine concepts such as the ‘changing the rules of the game’ chapter: having a small photoshoot and creating physical art to go with it. I also worked on other chapters by photographing public transport and on one day, the cover photo for ‘sit like a lady’

Week 9 - 16/05/2022

I started writing some of the articles to go in the magazine, referring back to initial research and some of the key articles I read to ensure I was getting my point across correctly. I continued editing the photos creatively and played around with several variations for each, making sure it fitted the theme by referring to my colour scheme and main fonts.

Week 10 - 23/05/2022

I finalised my work on Indesign and began to export the magazine to be printed. This was probably the most difficult stage so far, as the export was in a low resolution and I had to reupload each image. Additionally, the double page spreads had to be cut into two and I faced more issues there. When it came to printing the next day, there were technical issues and the majority came out one sided, so I had to buy more paper and start again. Eventually I printed it all and was incredibly proud with my work.

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Final Evaluation

I have enjoyed the Final Major Project overall, particularly being able to follow my own creative path and to see an idea be fully executed as I had imagined. Having the ability to make my concepts a reality using has been enjoyable as I have been able to transfer the skills I have learnt on the Adobe Suite, particularly InDesign. Additionally, I have developed an understanding of PicsArt and editing photos in a more complex way than I did with the other two projects. Using a more colourful and bold style guide, editing was a major part of this project, and consumed a lot of my time as I wanted every page to be edited in a slightly different way, yet matching a theme for each chapter of the magazine. Because I wanted a somewhat more complex look that stands out, I found it more challenging than the more modern simplistic strokes I had stuck to before which used the same simple colours and textures throughout. I have also enjoyed the photoshoot process, as I was able to work behind the camera for the first time and get to learn how to use a professional camera (and the fish eye lens varieties). However, in my main photoshoot, I did struggle with the focus of certain photos because the fish eye lens had a general, wider focus and generally reduced the quality of the images compared to a normal lens. The research side of the project was also interesting, as I got a wider scope of the field and was able to develop an understanding of different perspectives on the topic of manspreading and gendered body language. I an overall proud that I was able to do something like this, which would have seemed impossible just a year ago; with some more time, there are things I may have changed but I am happy with the final result.

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Magazine Flipbook

https://heyzine.com/flip-book/5f91e9a700.html

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STYLE GUIDE

Portfolio Continued

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Portfolio

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Changing the rules of the game: chapter concept

For this concept, I would photoshop imagery of women into the cards; each in the style of their retrospective queen.

It would be a play on how within card games, Kings have more power than Queens. This somewhat reflects real world hierarchical structures where men are always placed above women, based solely on their gender. I would try to twist the power structure by placing women in the position of power, rearranging the cards.

One option could be to replace the kings and queens entirely with a singular monarch card which incorporated the two.

I did a small photoshoot using portraits of women facing the camera against a plain background with some kind of makeup or accessories which indicated which ‘queen’ they were. I tried to shape their hair somewhat like the shape of the icon on their playing card so that I could edit them into the shape more easily afterwards or to emphasise who they are further. However when it came to editing, I struggled to find a way to put them into the card whilst making them aesthetic and fitting the theme. I played around with a few possible ways of editing it yet nothing seemed perfect, so I didn’t include this idea in my final magazine.

RAW IMAGES ABOVE

Below are the attempts at creatively representing the queens of each card:

I wanted to create a physical page to be scanned in for the chapter title. I used eyeshadow and lipstick to write on top of a newspaper page, and was keen on the way it looked, but found the page to be a bit cluttered and unclear, so attempted it digitally, which I preferred. I also looked for a PNG of the cards online, yet none of them were quite right, so instead I scanned in my own cards and uploaded them.

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Experimental Image 3

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Raw Photoshoot Images: N

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Raw Photoshoot Images: C

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Looking into the bright, flashy imagery from a variety of sources. These images tend to use primary colours or vivid colours in general with either complimentary or harmonious colours throughout the images. They also generally have clear cut lines with a clear contrast in the colours/lines.

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Experimental Images Inspiration

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Experimental Imagery 2

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Experimental Imagery

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Editing the double page ‘spread’

I wanted to stretch the legs out and alter the colour in this photo to emphasise the feeling of freedom and spreading out. I used the colour layer and erased the section from the model to keep her colour normal. I then stretched out only certain sections of the image to prevent the rest from warping, stretching only the legs.

I played around with adding strips of colour yet decided against it.

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Editing the ‘Trapped in a Bubble’ photo

RAW IMAGE

I played around with some slightly more bold looks, such as the pixelised background or bolder colours but stuck with the green hue as it matches some of the previous pages.