Your job is to create your own photography magazine. You will provide the photographs, the design, and the layouts to create a new and dazzling magazine. Although you may have done things like this in the past, this will combine several skills together in a bigger way. This is the major assignment for term 3.

The topic of your magazine can be:
A) Hair (go work with Mr. Scarpino’s class and show off some different hair designs!)
B) Fashion
C) St. James Collegiate
D) Computers/Technology
E) Woodworking or Electronics (if you have an interest, work with Mr. Rogers or Ingram to find projects & tools to photograph and cover in your magazine.)
F) Something APPROVED by me. If you haven’t chosen one of the above, you need to TALK TO ME FIRST! You will have to start again if you do not follow that simple instruction.

You have been put in charge of a magazine showing off your best photographs related to a topic. You are responsible for taking good, high-quality photos of the subject of your magazine. Make sure that it’s something that you can easily photograph in school (or at home, if you really wish, but you need to have those ready to go so you’re not wasting time in class!) These will be the major photos in your magazine and you will need a LOT of them!

You need to SHOOT RAW images and then FIX THEM UP in Photoshop! Use your Photoshop skills to bring out the best in your photos.

For the layout & design of the pages (and perhaps logos, etc.) you could find good quality CREATIVE COMMONS images from one of the APPROVED sources to use as minor elements in the magazine. You will NEED TO PROVIDE ATTRIBUTION INFORMATION for ALL photos that you use!

Whatever you choose to do, you must have:

• Make your document 8.5″ x 11″ so that we could print it out if you want later on. Use facing pages and have a .25″ bleed.
• An appealing cover page that lists some of the content inside of your magazine.
• At least 10 pages, all containing good quality content
• At LEAST 3 different topics/sections. These should follow the same topic, but have a different focus. (eg. you could do sections on men’s hairstyles, women’s hairstyles, and kids’ hairstyles or if you’re covering fashion, do sections on pants/skirts, tops, and accessories, or something like that.)
• Pages must be numbered! No page number on the front or back cover! You can decide whether there’s a separately numbered table of contents page or index. InDesign must do the numbering for you! (ie you can’t just add a text box on each page and write in your own number – CHEATING!)
• It’s rare for a magazine article to contain only one photo. You could have one larger photo alongside text or multiple photos on most pages.
• Remember that magazines have different articles with different authors. While it isn’t important for you to write a lot in your magazine (especially because it’s a photography magazine), you should have some appealing text setting the different articles apart. You should have an author listed close to the article title, and there should be some kind of text alongside the image(s).
• PLACE all of your photos and modify the fitting options the way that you’d like.
• Place AT LEAST one document file (an article or something that is written in Microsoft Word or something like that.)
• Magazines contain advertising. Often, a lot of advertising…

KEEP YOUR WORK ORGANIZED! Keep ALL of the files you use in ONE folder. If you drop off the InDesign file without the pictures and other files you use, it will not work well and you will lose marks for sure!

The first step is to decide on a topic and create some content. This is going to be very important, because you’ll be marked on how realistic/interesting your magazine is. It should look like something that someone might actually buy.

You have a fair bit of creative freedom here, but you have to make sure that your content is appropriate and that it makes a good magazine. You also, of course, have to use all of the tools you’ve learned in InDesign to create this properly. You may wish to integrate work that you do in Photoshop as well. (ie create the logo for your magazine, create advertisements, etc.)

I have student samples that I can show you, so ask me if you’re interested in seeing what’s been done in previous years.

Congratulations on your new position! I look forward to reading your magazine!