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I have finished the digital version of my masthead. *self high-five*

...and this is it. It turned out much like my sketch, as I wanted it, but I've got to say that it took much more than I expected. I thought I could do some funky, crazy things with the image and turned it into a logo... well, I couldn't. So I downloaded Illustrator and got to work. It was a hard, meticulous, and painful job, and that's sugarcoating it. (Okay, it wasn't THAT hard, but I took a long time because I'm a perfectionist, as I've mentioned 352 times already). I had never used Illustrator before, so most of the time spent was me trying to figure out how to use it.

It is crazy how many buttons this thing has; if you look closely, there is an arrow on some buttons that leads to more buttons. But I got over it, and did it -in two hours, but I did it. My biggest struggle was the six, because making it look like my sketch require the use of many many tools and tools within tools. But after all the hardship, Illustrator kind of grew on me. It made me realize that graphic design is something I'm very interested in -as it is further proved by my work with the table of contents. It's a very tiring process, but it is also rewarding.

And with all this design talk, I'm getting more and more excited to finish my TOC and get to work on my two page spread. Actually, I should say some things about my two page spread. I have decided to use the last piece I posted, "Thralldom", because it's the one I like the most and it'll be the most challenging. Fitting three pages of short story on a two page spread while making it aesthetically pleasing will require much of me, but I am ready and PUMPED. I met with Mrs. Stoklosa this past week to ask for some advice, and she suggested that I do TWO two page spreads if the whole story doesn't fit on one. I think that's gonna be the way to go, especially because I'll have more space to play around and be creative.

Yes, I'm leaving my cover page for last. No, I don't think that's a good decision, but I don't know what else I can do. I have no idea what to do, except where the masthead is gonna be placed. I'm pressuring myself to have a sketch by Tuesday, so I can finish the magazine by THURSDAY -ideally I'd finish it by Wednesday, but I need a day to stare at everything I created to notice all the imperfections and perfect them; can't say this is the final masthead, for example.

I'll leave it at that because Illustrator is calling me. I've got to say that the call makes me cry a bit, but I know that in the end I'll wipe out the tears with pride.

TOC!

MY SKETCH FOR THE TABLE OF CONTENTS IS DONE!

It was a very fun process, because I got a paper and stared at it for three days. Then, yesterday morning, I got it out of my bag and stared at it for a while, when it came to me. I started drawing a circle and said to myself "This is it".

When I was going through Mrs. Stoklosa's Pinterest page, I found a Media Studies project from a student at ISCA (the third two page spread has this circular design for the article that really appealed to my eyes). Her magazine depressed me a little, because it is actually extremely good and I don't know if I'm up to that. But you know what, I'll do my best. I think I got my inspiration from her magazine, I guess, I don't really know. Anyhow, here's what I came up with:

Some notes around it, not really important.

That's the idea. As soon as I start designing it on the computer, I'm going to make the circle bigger and avoid many blank spaces (like the one next to "Snapshots" and "Thralldom"). I'm thinking about moving the circle more to the left to fit beneath "contents", and having something to the right -an image, a quote, something. Also, I will try the TOC out with white background and black letters, then with black background and white letters. But as I've said in a previous post, I want to keep it clean. I don't want visual pollution, and I don't want unnecessary information.

The TOC, however, is supposed to showcase the style of my magazine. I don't know exactly how to describe the style I've created, but I'd say is playful and classy at the same time. The different sizes of the words and the way they are arranged makes it playful, but the colors I've chosen makes it more classy and clean. The thing is, I want to have some sort of artsy element to it, but I don't know what (I'm banging my head against the wall while I write this, trying to shake out some inspiring idea). So what I did is: I cut out the circle and "contents", and I'm placing it on another paper, trying to play with the space and see what I can have around it.

I have the contents, I have the sketch, I just need the product. But two out of three? Alright, alright, alright.

P.S. Fun fact: TOC means OCD in Portuguese -which is the language spoken in Brazil, where I am from. Interpret this in any way desired.

Wait a Second

I am here today to show my masthead! Not the final, digital version (I'm still working on that one), but the sketch.

I think it looks cute

So here's how I came up with this: I got a blank sheet of paper, my mechanical pencil, and my eraser; I stopped for a second to think what I wanted, but I couldn't really put my finger on it; I  started drawing numbers; I came up with this and I liked it. Pretty simple, right? I said it in a previous post that I wanted something versatile and simple, so I can play around with it, change the color, place it wherever I want it, and that's what I have created. (I'm already decided on its placement in the cover, which is a surprise, so don't even ask).

Now to the controversial comma.

I have shown this to some of my friends and Mrs. Stoklosa already, and they all have said that I should have a meaning for the comma. To be completely and absolutely honest, at first, I just drew it. I was done with the 7 and thought something was missing, so my mind automatically added a comma. I don't know how my mind comes to the conclusions it does sometimes, or has the ideas it has sometimes, but I always embrace it because I know my mind works quite well; if it wasn't for her -yes, my mind is a girl- I wouldn't do one third of the things I do, or come up with one fourth the things I write, draw, and create. I looked at it and why not? Looked cool. But listening to my friends and teacher saying it should have a meaning, I realized that it should have a meaning. Here it is:

Didn't know there were comma butterflies. That's actually cool.

We all know where commas are for; they create a pause, separate things. That's it. But if you think about it, after a comma you always know something is coming. Periods finish off sentences, indicate an end, but commas imply that there is more -yes, so do colons and semi-colons, but you know what, commas are cuter. So -and I'm gonna be all philosophical now-, the comma in my masthead represents the idea that there are many things awaiting the reader inside the magazine; it indicates the continuity, the desire for more than a cover page, the promise of something after that comma. Also, it is a literary magazine after all, and commas are part of the world of each and every writer -they should actually be part of the world of each and every person, but let's not judge.

The comma will also be a recurring symbol in my magazine. I have already designed my table of contents, and it includes the comma on many different places -in fact, I'll be posting that next; I thought this post would aid in explaining what's up with all the commas. The commas will also be on the title of every page -after the title I mean, for example "Thralldom,"- because, well, after the title comes the piece.  It all comes back to the idea of  "there's more after".

Yes, it started off as a simple creative choice, but I had to come up with a meaning so HERE IT IS. Many people thought I wouldn't do it, that there was no reason for a comma there, that it should be a period. Well, I guess there is, isn't it? And just because people doubted me, it's all over my magazine now. Go big or go home. 

Here Comes a Long (One)

Before anything else, I'd like to say that the piece I'm sharing today is, in my opinion, my best work this year. It is a short story that I wrote it the first time for my AICE Lang class, but because I was caged within the walls of word limit, it didn't turn out exactly as I wanted to. After some time I went back to it, tweaked it a little bit -A LOT, actually- and produced something I liked. Then I went back to it again, tweaked it, and had something I loved. Then I went back to it again, tweaked it, and had my best work of the year. I don't care if anyone disagrees or thinks it's trash, because I am very proud of it. It is a simplistic piece, but it has its powerful tone and call -I'm not about to get all cocky about my work so I'll just leave it at that.

Anyway, I am presenting this piece because as soon as I started working on my magazine, I had the vision of this short story as my two-page spread. But, because I am doing this "listening to people's opinions" thing, I am posting it to get some feedback. My only problem right now -in my mind, of course, because I'm not working on the practical part just yet- is the layout. The two-page spread is supposed to showcase the "feel" of my magazine, the pattern I'm gonna have for the design, and how well I can layout a two-page spread. But because this is a longer piece, I see a big ball coming my way, and on bold, red letters it reads "NO SPACE!". Many lit mags have their longer pieces laid down on the pages without anything else -actually most lit mags have pretty simple layouts-, and I understand that the audience would not mind to have something like that -because if they did, literary magazines would be running out of business-, but I, personally, think it is boring and tiring and a waste of hypothetical creative minds working to create a great hypothetical magazine. I don't want to end up with something like this (many many many words, which look like a book):

Metrosphere's two-page spread

Sketch's page

So the solutions I could come up with so far are:

• I could have many many many words in a page and still add something characteristic of my magazine, like a background or a picture.
• I could not have the whole short story in a two-page spread, but maybe the beginning, so I can have more space and play with the layout.
• I still have two more options that I'm considering for the two-page spread, that are not as strong as this one, and don't hold the same special place in my heart, but that will do the job. 

If all of these go wrong, I'm thinking about doing a different section -especially the comedy one, because I could show a lot of different techniques within it.

But without further ado, here's the piece I've been longing to post on the blog. Ex-cit-ing!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pcfwltNoLEuHT0VuavAVGfRA8NAygl1H-bXaSD5nP3U/edit?usp=sharing

Fourth demonstration of... okay, you know the drill.