For our first topic-oriented project, I decided to make something reminiscent of a magazine cover. I felt that a magazine cover was the most efficient and effective way to communicate the basic symptoms of PCOS to an audience that may otherwise not be aware. A magazine cover will give readers a basic rundown on the stories contained inside, and that idea was easy to follow for a syndrome with such a wide variety of symptoms. For this project, I chose a few of the symptoms that I’m personally affected by most and decided to highlight those since I have my own experiences with each of them.
In all honesty, I didn’t do much research to come up with a design layout for my project. Instead, I just used concepts learned in my other classes about writing for the media and decided that a headline-esque approach would be the best way to capture attention quickly. I’ve also (like most people) seen magazine covers down grocery store aisles my whole life so I’m relatively accustomed to the basic layout.
In an effort to reduce clutter, I made sure to cutout each of my utilized images so they could be dealt with separately. When capturing the pictures, I also used flash so they could be better lit and focused as well. In an effort to maintain contrast between my text and the background, I gave each body of text a solid color background to work with. I also used one consistent font throughout the design so as not to confuse viewers.
Each of the photos used, I captured myself on my iPhone to avoid any copyright disputes. The only exception is the picture of myself in the middle of the image, which was taken on my iPhone by my good friend Jenny. After taking the photos themselves, I went into PhotoShop and got to work. First, I clipped each of the images into cutouts that I could arrange against the background. While working on the design, I struggled a lot at the beginning with remembering the tools I learned in the tutorials. When I was confused or lost, I simply checked back to the tutorials page for a refresher.
Photo of myself is credited to Jenny Griffin, who captured the picture in Ocean Shores, WA on June 24th, 2019.
All other photos are my own intellectual property and were taken by me on my phone.
Lauren Green 
Lauren, I really loved your design! You clearly know your way around Photoshop and did an amazing job with cutting out your pictures, adding captions and making sure your design had a clear message of what your topic is. I think that it also very admirable that you chose a topic that was very personal to you and that you are able to open up about something like this! It is awesome that you can share your story and at the same time education women about this medical condition. My first suggestion would be to make the background picture maybe less distracting. Although it is an awesome image, it is quite dark and some of the images at first glance begin to blend into it, and therefore those images don’t pop out as much to the audience. I would also suggest, since you are making a magazine cover, maybe adding page numbers and a month for this specific magazine edition would make it seem more like a magazine and then people know EXACTLY what idea you are going for! Other than that, it seems that you have an awesome topic going and you seem to be completely comfortable with Photoshop so I see this going awesome for you! Well done!
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After reading the critiques from my classmates, I see a few areas that I have room to improve upon in my design draft before submitting my final. Despite my group members feeling comfortable with the general layout and concept of my design, several of them suggested that I help shift the focus of my magazine cover and gave some great recommendations of small changes that will make a great impact. One suggestion that I could see myself following through with is changing the background image of my design to make it less distracting. If I had a more simplistic and uniform background, the rest of the elements on my cover would be able to stand out more and would be more easy to focus on. Another suggestion that I really appreciate is the idea of framing each of my cutout images, again, for more emphasis. I really resonate with this idea because I felt that my original draft was lacking something and I just couldn’t figure out what exactly it was. I saw a lot of really impressive design drafts during the critique portion of this project, and saw myself drawing inspiration from a few. I may also adjust the size of my facial cutout in the center, as one of my group members suggested that I should place more emphasis on *my* story. I had some contradicting feedback on the color choices of my text and text boxes, as some thought it was too busy and some say it as playful and engaging, so I’m not sure what exactly to do with that. One suggestion I received was to define PCOS somewhere on the magazine cover because it isn’t necessarily common knowledge. I really enjoy this idea, but I don’t know how or where I’d be able to successfully integrate that definition on such a limited space. The constructive criticism has been greatly helpful and appreciated, and I can’t wait to submit a more polished and concise final draft.
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Lauren, wow! I think your topic is very inspiring and important. Thank you for sharing your story. I think you did a great job organizing your photos and captions. I think you did a good job in photoshop with layers and outlining your images. One suggestion I have for you is to put a small explanation for what PCOs is. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was so it might help your audience understand better what your topic is. Another suggestion I have for you is to make the photo of you a little bit bigger because it is your story and you should be the focus. However, if that’s not what you want then you don’t have to do that. Overall, I think your biggest strength is your layout and your message. I like how you included “on the Palouse” because then it’s more personal to Pullman students. I also like how your text and the textbox are in all different colors. I’m excited to see your final draft; good luck!
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Lauren, first of all, I have to say your topic is inspiring. Thank you for picking something personal and sharing it with the class. I am looking forward to learning more! You have clearly met all the requirements by having a minimum of three pictures and visually having a coherent story. It is clear you also used the methods we used in class to create your cover. One area where your draft is already solid is the layout. These pictures and captions give a quick but insightful look into what you would be discussing. I also appreciate the lightheartedness in these captions. A suggestion I have is to frame the photos instead of cutting them out. This could give a more aesthetic appeal. Another suggestion is making all the captions a uniform color. Of course, these are only suggestions I love what you have going on and am looking forward to seeing the finished product!
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I think the topic you chose is really cool and something different! I think it’s awesome of you to be open about this, since health problem’s with the female reproductive system are often considered a taboo subject or have many misconceptions about them. I really like the humorous approach you took to this, and overall it has a pretty clear story. The 2 suggestions I would like to make is changing up the text boxes; I like the colorfulness, it’s just a bit difficult to read at times such as the lime green text in the pink box. I also believe the background could be improved upon, as I feel it’s a bit distracting from the photos. I would suggest maybe either outlining the photos and text boxes to make them stand out or changing up the background to something less busy. Overall though, I think you did really well with the project and it looks like a solid idea.
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