Quark XPress Brochure

 Since I loved using Quark to make my poster, I was very excited about this project.  I was able to choose any corporation, so  I decided to choose my favorite store, Anthropologie.  I have been an avid customer at the store since the opening of one near my house a few years ago.

Anthropologie has a very unique style and I wanted to translate that into a brochure.  I began by choosing a color scheme.  Typically, the store uses more subtle colors that are not too overpowering.  Since it is Spring, I decided to use 4 main colors throughout my project.  The outside of the brochure is a light yellow color that I thought Anthropologie would use for one of their actual designs.  The inside of the brochure is a celery green color that compliments the yellow nicely.  For the font color I chose to use a brown color, it is softer than black, but still dark and easy to read.  The final color I chose to incorporate was a redish, yellow color.  I thought that it tied the font together nicely with some of the colors in the pictures on the inside.

I began by doing the cover of the brochure.  I found the image in google images.  I edited the image in Photoshop to make it smaller.  I knew from the beginning that I wanted to use quotes from the website in the brochure underneath the title of each panel.  To tie the outside with the inside I put a quote underneath the cover image.

The second panel I worked on was the back panel where I chose to list store locations and the history of the store. 

The final panel on the outside was the last panel I worked on.  Originally the panel was white, but because of printing purposes I chose to make it yellow and match the outside panels.  I put the return address that is listed on the Anthropologie website.  I wanted to incorporate the official label of the store so I placed it in the return address.  I used the image of the stamp from google images.

The first panel I did on the inside was clothing.  I decided to highlight dresses and blouses.  All of the images I used on the inside panels were taken directly from the website.  I placed the pictures in the panels and put the price and a small description underneath each picture.  Next to each headline I put some playful words I thought matched the category.

The next panel I did was the accessories.  I highlighted necklaces, earrings, and scarves.  I love their jewelry and really wanted to show off their versatility.  


The last panel on the inside was at home.  I chose to use bedding, kitchen, and bath.  Anthropologie has wonderful house-ware items.  It was incredibly fun to explore the website with no limitations.  Usually I go directly to the sale section of the website, but during this project I used only full-priced items.

I put a lot of effort into this project and I think it shows in my final product.  I loved this project, but it was much more work than I imagined.  It was entirely worth my efforts because I am very proud.

There were some things I would have changed.  I might have used a few less items on the inside panels.  I wanted to show-off as many items I could, but I could not tell if the panels looked too cluttered.  After removing some pictures, I decided that I could not part with any of the pictures which appear in the final brochure.  I wish there was more space in the brochure.  I had a lot of text and it was difficult to fit all of it while keeping it large enough to read.  After my rough-draft was reviewed it was clear that I had to adjust my spacing.  If I didn't, a lot of the text and images would be cut-off.  I made the necessary adjustments and it turned out to be better than it was originally. 

I think the brochure turned out very well and there are not many things I would change if I could re-do it.

Soundslide Show

I was apprehensive at first when we were told we had to use Soundslides to publish our powerpoint with music attached(the legal amount of music).  I had never used Soundslides before this project, and anything new is scary.  This was the final component of the band project and I am very proud of how all my components turned out.

To begin this portion of the project I used the program Audacity to edit the music track I chose.  I used roughly 20 seconds of the song, Impossible Germany by Wilco.  I looped the track 3 times so it would complete the required minute for the project.  Once I edited the sound clip in Audacity I brought the clip into iTunes and converted the WAV file into an MP3.  Once the file was converted to an MP3 I  uploaded the sound clip onto Soundslides.  I had a lot of difficulty cutting my audacity clip down to a minute because I had accidentally made a clip that was 1:40 seconds, exceeding the minute by 40 seconds.  I had to re-do the above process several times before I got it right.  I got very frustrated because the computer was not doing what I thought I was telling it to do.  Eventually though, I got it right.

Once the sound clip was edited in Audacity I moved onto the Soudslides portion of the project.  I began by opening up a new project and uploading my slide show presentation which I had converted to a jpeg.  Once the slides were uploaded, I uploaded the sound clip.  Soundslides was very easy to use.  Once every component was uploaded I had to add titles and credits.

This portion of the project was the final component.  I had a lot of trouble with audacity.  My sound clip is not perfect, even though I worked a lot on it.  If I could change a part of my project it would have been aligning the sound clips together better in audacity, but I felt lucky enough to have gotten the sound clip to a minute.  I wish that I had spent more time in the editing process of the sound clip.

I would not change anything else about the project.  I am very proud of this entire project!  Since the beginning of this project I have been enthusiastic about it.

Quark XPress Poster

When we first got assigned this project I was slightly concerned.  I was nervous to use Quark, I thought, why can't I just use Photoshop?  Now, after using Quark, I am very into it!

I was excited to make a poster for my favorite band.  It's a very fun project.  I also like that the last 3 projects were all connected.  I really enjoyed making the powerpoint and what my final project turned out to be so I wanted to translate the feeling of my powerpoint into a poster.

To begin, I knew I wanted to make use of borders somewhere on the poster.  I also knew that I liked the color combination of a black background and a bright colored font.  I chose yellow, like the one I had used in my powerpoint.  For graphics, I simply did a google search to find the main photograph that would be the highlight of the poster.  Then, knowing I wanted to use a border I decided to outline the large picture with some of the bands album covers, again drawing back to my powerpoint.  Since I had already made each album cover in photoshop for the powerpoint I simply used the same graphics for both.

Making a border did not seem like a difficult task when I was planning, but it turned out to be the most challenging part of the poster.  Each piece used in Quark must be separated into containers.  Therefore, each picture that appears in the border is a separately made box.  Once the boxes were made, I imported the graphics and re-sized each one so they would fit into the container.  Looking at the poster in Quark it seemed that each box was aligned and sized properly.  When I printed the poster everything looked sloppy.  In order to solve this, I was shown how to zoom in on the screen.  I went and re-worked each box so the border was perfect.  The border was very tedious, but worth the result.

Once the main part of the poster was done I filled in the time, location, cost, free giveaway, and date.  I used yellow for the name of the band at the top and the all the details, except for the free giveaway.  I chose to put the free giveaway in a different color because I wanted to highlight the FREE part!  I put it in red, a prominent color that appears in the border.  I felt that it tied the font together with the graphics.

I am very proud of this project!  I feel like after each project I think it's my favorite, but this has definitely been a highlight from the class thus far!

The only thing I wish that I could have changed was the size of the information at the bottom.  I made the font size as large as I could without making it look crowded, but it does not stand out as much as I wish it did.  I am very happy I chose the yellow color, since my font is not too large.

This project has made me excited to do other projects in Quark XPress.