Today we had a somewhat tutorial, a quick one. It is basically for us to know how to create an interactive magazine content. That is to use the digital publishing in Adobe Indesign. We are also shown videos regarding it.
Other than that, we had a mini group discussion to discuss what are progress or way to do our final. We splitting the job among our members and also discuss about the cover page.
Before that, we thought of having just westernized characters but decided to go with 3D elements anyway.
So in our free time, us three girls try to fix and match the cover page. It sounded so easy at first but it comes to doing it onsite itself, it may be not as easy as it seems.
Today we have another discussion session. We specify deeper into the content so that our objectives and target are more clear and also o verify on what we wanted to do. So here:
So this is our cover page idea, where we design the pedal board as the main image of the content page. From what we discussed, we planned to put each pedal containing different section of the magazine. So how it looks like is that, the middle part of the pedal is the main topic in a section. From the buttons above, audience can swipe through it to go to the other topics. As for the color scheme, we discussed and decided to put the colors of hipster, which are faded colors.
Feedback from Mr. Razif: Should make the same topics to be unseen as viewers would prefer to view all the content instead of one by one. Probably can keep the pedal board design but maybe added only the highlighted topics only. As for the general topics, maybe that could be added below in a plain design instead, just like the typical contents page.
The next section (introducing section), like we mentioned in the previous post, we are doing on a parallax scrolling theme, which mean one page scrolling. For the first anchor, we are doing a fold in magazine. In a fold in magazine, it has two different visuals telling different thing but it can be seen in a page. It can be refer to: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/03/28/arts/20080330_FOLD_IN_FEATURE.html?_r=1& .
We will start on the shorter version -where we will put the original idea (the vector image of the featured artist) then when opened it will be the biography of him/her.
As we scroll down, we will have an anchor showing the artist's gear and instruments. There would be a tab for different categories and each will shown only two of the item. This, the audience can swipe horizontally to view more of the gear. After that, a video is shown if it is swipe down.
Mr. Razif's feedback: Maybe have an alternative if the fold in is unable to be produced using the software that we learned. Also, have the video that is shown be more interrelated to the gear/instrument showns. This is because some people is interested in certain things, that's why they even bother reading it.
Solution:
Amir thought that maybe an introduction of the gear/instrument will have it's own video where the reader can scroll if interested. If not, they can just scroll towards another and view the other's video instead.
Today we had a discussion session where we write down the possible question that will be asked in the reader's point of view so that we can easily concentrate into our solution in making the product more successful.
The questions that we have come up with and has been run through by Mr. Razif are:
- How to make the chords easier to learn especially if there are beginners among the reader?
- What are the chords can we put in besides guitars?
- What interactive elements can we add to make the content more interesting?
- If we had a voting poll for the featured song, would you prefer the opinion of the public or from a industry professional?
Also, we learned at class today is the creative method for brainstorming: SCAMPER
S - substitute
C- combine
A- adapt
M- modify
P- put it other purpose
E- eliminate
R- reverse
Still missing of one member of the group but we manage to agree on certain ideas. We have presented our ideas on the two required task; to improve an existing section on the magazine and to introduce a new section to the magazine.
REVAMPING A SECTION: At first I have to list out what are the content / section the magazine have because both of my members, Amir and Jessica can't read in Bahasa Melayu. After I listed, we decided to pick the one with less words (besides it would be easier for the non-malay reader) and thought about it. Since the last post from the brain storming exercise, I have picked the section before, I would think I have a heads-up on the topic. The section I (and my members) have picked is the lyric / chords section. We decided the show the chords (by strings and fingering) in the lyrics. Also maybe try using different color as for now both chords and lyrics are in the same color.
Something similar to the image above. On every issue will have different songs, following the feature songs of the month with of course includes the song itself. Other than just the guitar guides, we thought of maybe putting with other instrument's chord as well, however that is not fully discussed.
INTRODUCING A NEW SECTION: We were stuck for sometimes as we didn't know much to put into the magazine. Hence, we search through another magazine (RollingStones) and also the previous issues of ROTTW.
Amir suggested to do the rockstars gear, where we can show the readers what the instrument (guitar, drum stick and etc), paddle used and much more. Since there are various of rockstars and the variety of instruments, these help in the continuation in different issue.
After that, I thought of rock fashion (though it's kind of exist before in other magazine), like what are the trendy clothing for rockstars nowadays and whatnot. Since it's not unusual for fashion to be in the magazine, that was considered as good idea but wasn't much agreed on.
Then, Jessica thought of doing a band comparison section after flipping through RollingStones. Since it can be useful for the fans / reader, we put that under our list too.
Lastly, an upcoming trailer of new bands / songs that are going to be released. Though that is quite ordinary and not everyone will read through it much.
At the end, we go by Amir's idea, that is to feature the gear of the rocker used. Since it would be more ideal for a rock magazine and the target audience would be majority man anyways. So here, we can put the virtual items that the rockstar used so that the reader can imagine or see how does it looked like. Besides, it would attract the readers more than the other section introduced.
Not really like this, but similar, where it shows the gears backstage, shows how the sound was produced and etc.
