Today I continued writing my content for the articles, specifically the “Coco’s Corner” article about Chanel No. 5. I had to move around some of my other articles in order to incorporate everything. I also added block quotes and gray boxes to my design.

Why I Did It…

I moved my articles around because my word counts for my articles change as I continue to write more, so I want everything to fit in the most visually pleasing manner while being able to provide the most content that I can. I decided to add some block quotes and some gray boxes in order to make the design more interesting and risky, instead of just standard images with words under them. I am trying to work on the style/tone of the article in order to make it seem like these articles are coming from Adriana instead of modern day me. Therefore, I am changing quotes around a little bit to make them seem as if they happened before the launch of the perfume instead of after, etc.

I added a third page to my magazine spread and started writing content for my articles.

Why I Did It…

I added the third page in order to incorporate more written content, as the first two spreads were very image heavy. I decided to cover two of the hottest fashion topics of the 1920s – rising hemlines and the bob haircut style. I think I am going to make these two articles opinion pieces from the perspective of Adriana. This will allow her character to come through more in this project. I decided to do my “Outfit of the Week” on a famous actress Loretta Young, who was a fashion icon in the 1920s. For my “Coco’s Corner” I am going to write about the launch of Chanel No. 5, as that is still an extremely iconic perfume. I still need to decide on a topic for my “Fashion News” story.

http://online.fliphtml5.com/pfxu/nvih/#p=2

Peer Review went well; it was really interesting to see my peers projects because they are all so creative. Grace and Caroline both liked that i’m using a combination of content from the 1920s but styling the magazine as a modern fashion magazine. The movie is a blend of present and past; so this style complements the movie really well. They also really liked my cover and all of the photographs that I used as well as the layout. Grace suggested that I add at least one more page or spread because it is very image heavy currently and that would be a way to add more written content. My next step in this process is compiling all of the research I have done and actually writing content for the articles.

Today, I set up the layout for my newspaper section in InDesign using my wireframe mockup as a guide. I set up all of the titles, image boxes, and text areas. I am also starting to choose what fonts I want to use.

Why I Did It… 

Now that my layout is set up, all I need to do is grab the images that I have collected and place them onto the page. My next step is to take all of the research that I have compiled and compose articles to go along with the images. I want my fonts to reflect the fonts that would have been used in a fashion magazine during that area, so I have been looking at magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair to gain inspiration for my fonts.

Today, I did a lot of research on 1920s fashion and I tracked down images from Pinterest and various websites that I can incorporate into my project. I also browsed through various modern day fashion magazines as well to see examples of both layout and content.

Why I Did It… 

I want this fashion page to be a little bit of a remix between the 1920s and present day. Therefore, I want to incorporate aspects of both into my magazine page. I want to use the best photographs and content that I can find through my research as well.

Documentation Plan 

I am going to use MLA citations for my project. I am either going to document the images directly under them in the page or create a section for citations at the bottom of the page depending on how my layout fits all of my content.

What I Did…

I created a mockup of my project using Balsamiq, a wireframing tool.

Why I Did It…

I think that Balsamiq is a great and easy way to lay out projects and create mockups. I have used it before to create mobile and web wireframes, and I think that it works just as well to create magazine layouts. I have decided to form my project as a fashion page inside of a magazine. I used modern fashion magazines as an example of what kind of content could possibly go into my page. For example, Who Wore It Best, Fashion News, and a Style/Trend watch. I want to incorporate a lot of images, because fashion is all about seeing the clothes. My next step is to start creating the content (write the articles) and collect the images that I want to use.

Today I began looking into what tool I want to use for my project. I am currently between using Squarespace to make it more of a fashion blog and using FlipHTML5 to make it more of a fashion section in a magazine. I also started looking up what sources I want to use to gather both my research and my photos.

Why I Did It…

I think that using FlipHTML5 could be more of an interesting route to take and would definitely be more of a risk as I have no experience with creating magazine layouts. Therefore, I think I am going to pursue that option. I want to research 1920s French fashion, what Coco Chanel was creating at that time and also what a mistress of Picasso would wear. I think that looking into all of those aspects will better allow me to flesh out what Adriana would want to write about and depict in her own fashion magazine.

Remix a story project timeline: 

• Create layout for the fashion blog 4/14
• Begin researching 1920’s fashion 4/15
• Mock-up or Storyboard on 4/15.
• Begin writing fashion blogs 4/16
• Presentation Sign-up on 4/20.
• Collect photos for the blog 4/21
• Peer Feedback on 4/22.
• In-class Presentations on 4/29 to 5/6.
• Project Due by 11:55 PM on 5/6.

Bibliographic Sources: 

• http://www.sapergalleries.com/PicassoWomen.html (details on Picasso’s mistresses/love interests)
• http://glamourdaze.com/history-of-womens-fashion/1920-to-1929 (1920s fashion)
• http://inside.chanel.com/en/paris-by-chanel and https://www.pinterest.com/explore/coco-chanel-1920s/ (Coco Chanel information)

• Putting a modern spin on an old story; for example, incorporating social media or smartphones into fairytales.
• Using events in history to talk about a modern topic; for example the Boston Tea Party and the Same Love Gay Rights Movement pieces.
• Mixing time periods together
• Strong visuals that are combined with audio or text

What makes a good digital story

I think that the ‘Same Love’ by Macklemore retelling of the Gay Rights Movement was a great example of digitizing an existing story. I think that the creator did a great job of seamlessly combining the clips from the song with the clips of audio/video from history. This was a truly multimedia piece – it incorporated all modes of communication by using video, audio and photographs. All of the video and audio were both crisp, clear, easy to decipher and professional looking. Some of the other pieces had fuzzy audio or videos that were not integrated together well. However, this video was professional, clean and extremely powerful. The clips of audio and video that the creator choose were very impactful and contributed really well to the overarching theme and story. This piece did a great job of showing both the gains and losses of the Gay Rights Movement by juxtaposing this issue in history with its current state.

Stories I am considering

• Midnight in Paris fashion blog (Adriana) – A fashion blog is a new genre/type of writing for me. I really love learning about the 1920s, so exploring the fashion of the 1920s will be really interesting for me. I want to focus on Adriana because she is a fictional character that is based loosely on real people from history. In the movie, she is Pablo Picasso’s mistress who has come to Paris to study with Coco Chanel. I think that it will be really enjoyable to imagine a fashion blog through her eyes. I want to use a new blogging platform, possibly Postach.io or Squarespace or possibly use an online magazine tool, such as FlipHTML5 like the Hunger Games example used.

Trello seems like a great tool for organization. I am a huge list maker, that is how I organize my schoolwork and my life in general. I think that this online tool would be a great way for me to add more form to my lists. I really like the color coding aspect and the way that you can make categories. This tool could be very useful for me to organize my homework for each different class, my work for my internship, and my job hunting work as well. I usually just write lists down on paper or through the note tool on Apple, but Trello could be a more professional and organized way to make my lists. The option to add images and stickers is also very useful, as well as the collaborative aspect, which could be useful in group projects for planning and organizing.