BOOKLET IDEA - 22.11.2013.

Ok so this just happened when I felt stuck with my layouts and just didn't know where it was all going. I printed out some of my images and decided I'd make a little booklet with them all. I just thought that what if the horoscopes page didn't exist and instead, magazines came with a booklet version. I know its a step in the opposite direction but a lot of people don't really think that the horoscopes page is very interesting or even illustrated well, although my aim is to make it interesting and well illustrated(!). But by having a booklet that came with it, people might be more interested in reading it since it would sort of turn into something that you could keep. This was just a little idea but my main aim is to create my layouts but ideally if I have time I would like to make a little mock up of this! 

LAYOUT IDEAS - 22.11.2013.

Moving on from my last post I decided to apply my layout idea to all 12 of the signs to see how they all looked. In every horoscope section there is always a 'star sign of the month' which is the illustration that is used, so I obviously wanted to apply each of my images to their own page. Instead of moving each corresponding bit of text under the image in the corner, I kept the layout the same and used my highlighting method in order to link them together. 

I think this works well and I like how your eye is drawn to the image in the corner then straight to the coloured text. I still think this dark background works best for these but that might just be me being stubborn! I just think that my images are quite complex and graphic so to have a background that has anything else going on will be a distraction, along with the text not being legible. It's only a week and a bit till my hand in and I feel I just need to be making direct decisions with my work since I don't have any time to waste. 

LAYOUT IDEAS - 22.11.2013.

So here are a few other layouts that I tried out this morning. I thought I'd give the cut out text one another try with a darker background and I quite like it! It really makes the image stand out, as well as the text, but I might try and change up the colour of the headers if I can since I don't think I'd want them to necessarily be orange. The next three images are just variations of each other. I decided to type up each bit of text since I found a nice font on dafont.com called Augustus. It's slightly Roman/Greek looking but without being really stereotypical and obvious. One thing that annoyed me though was that I couldn't make the writing justified on Photoshop so it's not all neat like I'd like it to be. It looks fine but I'd still prefer it to be all in line with each other so I will see if I can somehow master that. 

The yellow background on the second image is a bit of a mess really but I just wanted to see what it would look like. I don't particularly like it with a block colour background, it just doesn't seem to sit right with my image and design. It might be because the yellow just doesn't work full stop but I have a feeling that any other colours wouldn't compliment my work. Whereas on the fourth image I feel like it's getting somewhere! I stuck to the dark background, it's actually the same one that I used to build my collages onto, but changed the text to white so then it was legible. The image I used for this one was Aries so instead of making a whole little corner dedicated to it, I thought it would be nice to just highlight the corresponding text to the image. I used the Eyedropper Tool on PS to pick out the pink from the planet and then changed the text to a vibrant pink. I think this works a lot better than just keeping the text plain and it also means that it wold be easy for the reader to quickly find their horoscope, if its the 'star sign of the month'.

LAYOUT IDEAS - 21.11.2013.

This week has been so busy with finishing up my essay but now that is all done and ring bound for hand in tomorrow, I can concentrate on the rest of my project! I started to play around with layouts for my images to see what worked best and these are just a few that I had tried out. 

I just picked out the Aquarius sign I made and worked around that. With the top two images I just cut out the text from a horoscope page that I had scanned in previously just so I could create a layout quicker than typing it all out. I think that layout I've chosen to do is the easiest way to fit all of the text onto the page clearly but I might try and make it a double page spread since that could be a new way to present the horoscopes. I quite like having the different backgrounds on them but I don't think I have found the right ones since I don't feel 100% sure on those. But then again they are just quick layouts to get my brain thinking. 

The third one is one that I just had the plain white background on, again, with the cut out text. I actually really like it with the white background since it's usually what they opt for in magazines. I think because my images are quite crisp and graphic then the stark background compliments them well. I want to try out different colours and maybe the original black background that I built my collages on to see what works best. In regards to the text I like the cut out look of the paper since it's something different than the standard typed out text and adds a nice texture but I will try typing up a few of my own with a different font to see how that works out too. 

LAYOUT AND COLOUR IDEAS.

Since I've nearly made all of my images I thought that I would play around with colour and layouts to see what worked best. 

I wanted to keep the images within circles since astrology and lot's of old drawings that I've found with my research all revolve around circular grids and obviously the planets. It's also another way to keep my work looking more uniform and together, even though the collages are all different from each other. Usually within magazines they have the 'Star sign of the month' so will only have an illustration relating to that and not all 12 signs. This makes sense since you don't want to bombard the page with lots of imagery so I think when it comes to creating the layout I will be doing much the same thing. 

I played around with the hue and saturation so that they all linked together aesthetically and I like how the third and fourth images down came out. I muted the colours right down for those but I'd like to see if I can make the star and constellation parts a bit brighter so they have more of a sparkle to them. I'm not too keen on the background being that dark so I'll play around with the saturation on that to see if it looks any better lighter or just see what else could work with the images best. I'd like to see what textured backgrounds look like or even blocks of colour too. 

GEMINI.

I'd made this for the star sign Gemini. I purposely created the image slightly fuzzy and layered with the same face to give the impression of another being which links in with being a Gemini. I didn't want to directly stick to people together so wanted to see if I could so it differently. I love how these turned out since they look slightly eerie and the 'two faces' image is very subtle. I think the bottom one is my favourite out all of them but I'll have to see what they look like once they're all next to each other. 

CAPRICORN.

These are a few development images that I made for Capricorn. I have quite a few on my USB but I didn't want to bombard this post with loads of images so thought I'd pick out the initial design then some refined ones. I thought that the first one worked well since it's very simple but then again that can be its downfall so I wanted to try out some of the landscape images I'd previously scanned in. I sort of like the second image but I don't think that the background image works well with this, it looks a bit disconnected. The third one is my second favourite, after the first one, the spaceship/atmosphere background works well since it blends into the woman and makes her appear slightly hypnotised. I've got more on the way so I'll keep this updated.