It All Started With One Guitar

I'm very happy right now, because I have just done my table of contents! I don't want to say I've "finished" or "completed" it, well, because I'll probably be touching it up continuously and, because if I said I was done with it a lengthy period of time before the due date, my teacher would kill me. She constantly stresses the importance of utilizing every second we're given. So, no it's not finished, Mrs.Stoklosa!

Tools:

-InDesign CC

-Photoshop CC

-Photoshop Lightroom CC

-VSCO

To create my table of contents I used a combination of 3 Adobe softwares, as well as one app on my phone. I started off with a picture of Jake's, the guitarist of the band I interviewed, guitar. 

This photo was lightly edited with an app called VSCO. 

Editing:

From there, I took the uploaded photo and edited it using Photoshop CC and Photoshop Lightroom CC. Through Photoshop Lightroom CC I was able to adjust the contrast of the photo, enhance the black and white in the image, and play with the exposure. I then moved the image to Photoshop so I could erase everything except the guitar. I went about this by using something known as the "Magnetic Lasso Tool," but after many attempts I had to stop. I started getting irritated, because Ive used this tool many times before, but it wasn't cooperation with me today. I ended up taking a break and then going back and using it for most of the guitar and used the eraser tool for the detailed areas around the head and tuning keys.

The photo after utilizing Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom CC.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I was going to use InDesign to create my cover, contents, and two page spread. InDesign isn't the most simple software to navigate, but I did it! Of course there were a lot of issues and I was constantly having to undo my last step, but I did it! 

So here's the reveal...

As you can see, I've included the image I took and edited myself. I decided to use it as the main focus to give my magazine the cleaner look I've been wanting to go for. I only included what would be the bigger articles of my magazine in my table of contents, because I don't feel its important to list absolutely everything. In the end, the consumer flips through the pages and they're either intrigued or not intrigued. What they read is totally up to them and their interests, not the size or importance of an article, or whether it's listed in the TOC or not. 

I'm kind of disappointed with the quality of the image, but I'm not sure that's something I can fix. As you probably noticed, I had to zoom in on the image to just get the head and neck fitted. If I wanted the higher quality, I should have gotten a shot closer to these parts of the guitar but I didn't, so I'll just have to deal.

I made sure to keep text off of the magazine's inside spine, for it wouldn't look right when printed. I also made sure to use the same font colors as my magazine's color scheme. I'm going with black, red, and white because I've found that these 3 colors are very common amongst music magazines. Some of these magazines would be Rolling Stone, NME, and Q. 

Overall, I'm happy with how the TOC came out. I added small details, so it wouldn't look to plain and simple and I think they worked out well. I'm going to continue to see if I can do something about the quality of the photo, though.