Putting Together the Magazine

Dear Blogger,

So I just realized that I haven't put anything up specifically about the process of putting everything together... my bad. So I started working on getting everything on to Indesign right before the interviews blog post (like a day or two before). This was when my feature article was full of science junk that would probably make watching a water drip from a pipe more entertaining. Because I didn't have the photos at the time, I had to put shapes in place of where the pictures would go and put the text around that. I don't have a picture of the original way it looked, because I saved over it with the new and better versions, but here is a recreation of what it looked like:

Yeah... they aren't perfect replicas of what I did originally, but this is just to give you a visual of what it used to look like. I also didn't put the article in this mock version of what I did because... I also may or may not have saved over it... anyway.

After I got the interviews, I immediately decided to fix my article. And fixed it I did! Now it turned from the most boring piece of writing in the world, to a somewhat argumentative essay. I mean... it still works its duty as a feature article. It's at least some what entertaining. I did notice that I took out a lot of the science evidence which left some room that I needed to fill. That is why I had three interview parts. I did not really expect to have the extra interview, but it definitely helped me a lot in terms of padding out and picture opportunities. So that was nice.

A little bit less than a week later of editing, I came up with this.

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Minus not having the content page completed and seeing the outlines of the text boxes, I think this looks somewhat professional. The reason you still see the textboxes is because it wouldn't let me upload the normal thing to blogger, so I settled for a few screen shots. At this point I had two problems: the content page and the look of the animal puns. Lets get the big one out of the way. 

The content page is the hardest for me. I should probably explain that the content page for my original magazine, before getting the interviews, wasn't there. I was still having a very hard time organizing it all so I just worked on the other parts and get them out of the way. That same mentality carried over when I was getting the final product together, as you see in the second set of pictures. I do know what I want it to look like, it's just getting all the parts together on the page.

The animal puns help make this magazine stand out a bit compared to other magazines. I wanted to visually exaggerate them, but I didn't realize that the way I did it looked like someone took a blue highlighter and smeared it on certain words. I'm sure I'll figure out a way to make it stand out a bit without it looking bad.

So the next blog will be up tomorrow and then I will have a blog post that shows the final product on Friday. I'm saying this because those will be the last two blogs that I post. The next blog will be pretty long. I will be talking about the project as a whole and how I feel about it overall. Then it is the end. So... I guess I'll see you then.

Interviews Part 3

 Dear Blogger,

So I really didn't expect to make a part three to the interviews and you probably weren't expecting it either. Oh well, on with the interview!

This interview was with a younger teenage, Olivia, and her sister, Ava. This was about their family pets (well pet now since their fish died). We did this interview through text, then I went to their house to take some pictures of their cat afterwards. I didn't want a repeat of recording the interview then not being able to get it on blogger so you have to write down a summarized version of the answers they gave you and all the authenticity is gone.... Anyway, you will notice that I asked a few more questions this time, mainly for clarification. Olivia was mainly answering the questions, but Ava also answered  some, also mainly for clarification. So here is the interview:

What pets do you have and how long have you had them?

           We have a family black cat named Magenta who's six yrs old, and we've had here since she was             8 weeks. There were also Ava's two fishes

            Hi it's Ava. I had four fish. Two blue betas one named Bubbles. One name named Harold glen                bubbles Crowell Ponte-Katzman jr. Bubbles lived for 3 months. Harold lived a year and a                     half

Did you or your family adopt one of them (referring to the fish) due to the pandemic?

            No. There all dead

How much of an impact have your pets made on you before the pandemic?

            My cat is my best friend and I have lived here and used her for emotional support a lot in the                 past

        

Anything about the fish?

            I loved both fish very much. Bubbles was my first pet ever. And his death was traumatising

            Harold was also beloved and gave my comfort and confidence in my self to take care of                         something

            Me

Have they, I guess just the cat at this point, made a more positive impact since the pandemic and if so, in what ways have they positively affected your life during these hard times?

            Magenta is really good for my anxiety and hells me feel like everything isn't burning down. Her                 being there to eat breakfast is a good constant and important to my routine.

            *helps

Minus the grammar and spelling errors, because I took the text directly from our text, this is a pretty good interview. Now, of course I will fix and polish it when I put it into the magazine, but I really like this one. It shows how their pets are their emotional support as well as the impact of their pets on them. I like how they stated that Magenta helps them with their anxiety and keeps them on routine, which is great! I want to some how figure out how to fit Harold Glen Bubbles Crowell Ponte-Katzman Jr. into my magazine. I don't know if I will, but I'll try. I just think that name is awesome! 

Now here are the pictures I took. I wasn't able to get anything with either Oliva or Ava in the photo because they didn't want to be in any of the pictures (which I respect). So here are some of the shots. Again, no commentary, but at least there isn't as many pictures to mindlessly scroll through like last time (sorry about that by the way). So without further ado, here is magenta!

 

Interviews Part 2

Dear Blogger,

So... I tried for hours to get the audio for the third interview, but it just wasn't working. So I give up. Here is a general basis to the answers I got with the pictures that I took. I'm not really going to be doing some commentary this time.

So the two interviewees are and elderly couple who have had their pets for many years. They love their pets a lot. This is probably the strongest out of all the interviews.

What pets do you have and how long have you had them?

We have Rosie who is our 12 year old pug. We have Sophie, who is also a pug. She is 13 years old. There's Maddie, our little puppy, who is almost year old. She is a French-bulldog. We also have Abby who is our very shy cat.

I did not ask the second question because I knew they had their pets for a very long time.

How much of an impact have your pets made on you before the pandemic?

Well our pets have always had a positive impact on us. They are the ones who keep us happy and encourage us to go out more. They are just such a delight to be with.

Have they made a more positive impact since the pandemic and if so, in what ways have they positively affected your life during these hard times?

Well, our dogs are happier that we are more home often. They are more energetic. We may not be feeling much different due to the pandemic, but our dogs are very happy, and that's what's important.

And here are the best of the photos that I took. A lot of them are similar shots just different versions of them or the dogs decided to look at a different direction 

Interviews

Dear Blogger,

This blog is to talk about the two interviews I conducted and the responses I got from interviewees. Now I didn't meet many of them face to face, (thank you modern technology). I was able to get pictures of the elderly couple and their pets because I went to their house for the interview, but the others I will still need to get pictures. I will be gathering those pictures and showing them to you in a different blog. Let's start with the questions.

I came up with four main questions:

1. What pets do you have and how long have you had them?
2. Did you or your family adopt them due to the pandemic? (I only asked this one if they said they had their pet for a year or less)
3. How much of an impact have your pets made on you before the pandemic?
4. Have they made a more positive impact since the pandemic and if so, in what ways have they positively affected your life during these hard times?

Now, certain questions were somewhat altered depending on what they answered for the prior questions as you will see in the following examples. When interviewing, I tried to get a variety of people with different backgrounds, age, and living situations to ensure that the answers don't end up similar to each other. The only similarity is that for everyone who I've interviewed, they have stated that their pets have affected them positively during this pandemic. So here are the interviewees and their answers.

The first interviewee is an eighteen-year-old woman named Brianna Mowbray. She lives with her mother and father and has postpone going to college until next year, mainly in fear of catching the corona virus because she has very bad asthma (which is understandable). So here are the answers that I received from her:

What pets do you have and how long have you had them?

            A black lab named Sophie I've had her for 8 years an African Grey Parrot named Zachariah but             we call him Zach for short he's been with our family since before I was born.

(Clearly they did not adopt their pets due to the pandemic so I moved on to the third question.)

How much of an impact have your pets made on you before the pandemic?

               Before the pandemic Sophie made me more active and Zach he was just there for company

Have they made a more positive impact since the pandemic and if so, in what ways have they positively affected your life during these hard times?

                Well Sophie motivated me to get out of the house after I lost my job and Zack he always                        made me smile since he has the ability to talk but he always says the weirdest phrases.

This was not a bad start to my interviews. You may have noticed that some of the answers are answered as if they were through text. That is because they were from her texting back the answers after I asked the questions. I didn't want to alter anything for this blog. I'll do that when I put it into my magazine. I like this interview because it comes from a person who has lost her job and her pets helped her get her back out of the house. It really helps bring the appeal that pets help us; which is the entire premise of our magazine.

The second interviewee is a seventeen-year-old teen named Angel Thomas. She currently moved from Florida to New Hampshire for her senior year of school. I interviewed her because she is the only person I interviewed that doesn't live in Florida. This was the main reason I interviewed her. So here are the answers I received:

What pets do you have and how long have you had them?

            two cats, almost a year now

Did you or your family adopt them due to the pandemic?

            nope

How much of an impact have your pets made on you before the pandemic?

            none, i didnt have em yet

Have they made a more positive impact during the pandemic and if so, in what ways have they positively affected your life during these hard times?

            yes, they've been a cuddly support and are very much adorable one of them laid on my lap for                the first time the other day

As much as I want to use this one, I don't know if I'm going to be able to. The answers are very short and don't really explain much. Plus, I won't be able to go to her place and take pictures, because she is in New Hampshire. Oh well, at least it's another interview to fall back on.

I did have a third interview that I recorded the audio on my phone, but currently my computer is giving me a lot of trouble uploading it to blogger, so I'll put it in a next blog post if my computer decides it wants to work. (I've been going at it for hours and am very frustrated). But I did get the interview and a few pictures so I will be working on putting that in the magazine and work on getting the audio file up on blogger later. I'm going to save the pictures that I took for that blog post because I feel that it works better if you can see the pictures as while listening to the audio. So see you until then.

Caption and Side Title Names

Dear blogger,

So, I am happy to say that I am officially finished with my content in my feature article!!! Yay! I'm not putting it here though because I want to wait to show it off in the finished product. All that's left is getting the other pictures and interviews. I have decided that the interviews will be a part of a small little section that goes with the pictures in the feature article. This also means that my feature article is just a bunch of stories and scientific evidence bundled up together, but I'm ok with that since I'm just trying to manage my time at this point.

But you've read the title of this blog post, so let's get to some naming.

Now, I already had the name of the feature article, which was "Pets to the Rescue" with the added caption "Have a ruff day? Here's an inside look to how our favorite friends have helps us make it through this cat-ostrophic year." Yes, I love the animal puns. Bailey and I already agreed on adding animal puns to our titles, captions, and feature article. I think at this point I'm probably the only one who is using animal puns in my article, but we agreed the use of animal puns brings character to our magazines. Sure it may be childish, but it makes our magazines stand out a bit.

Now for the other side title names. These will be on the side of the cover pages as well as in the table of content page. Some names I've based on the extra pictures I took (like the pictures of the dogs at the Grand Canyon and my fish Orion), others are just animal puns I came up with that could be the title of some compelling articles. So here is the list:

• The Mountain Dogs
• Can't Get Any Betta Than This: A Guide to Raising Your very own Betta Fish
• The Tweet on the Street
• Toadally Worth It
• Feeling Irrelephant? Have some motivation from Otto, ZooBorns's baby elephant!
• Hello Polly! The Singing Parakeet 
• Don't Forget Your Pugs and Kisses!

I think the funniest thing that happened was during my brainstorming process of coming up with names, I kept flashbacking to when I was six or seven and got excited when the newest edition to Ranger Rick came out. I don't think I accidentally took a name or title that they used. If I did, it was completely coincidental because I have not touched or read a Ranger Rick Magazine in at least six years. I think these are nice and add a bit of flare to the magazine. I'm probably not going to use all of them, but it's nice to have extras on hand. Just as a failsafe incase Bailey and I came up with the same or similar names.

This Week's Progress

 Dear Blogger,

So... I completely forgot to do a blog post this week because I was so busy working on the feature article as well as other school work, so here it is. I mainly focused on writing my feature article this week. The plan is to get the feature article done, get pictures, then put everything together. Pretty simple right? I did look up a bunch of scholarly articles that featured scientific tests based on how animals affect a human's mental state. 

One example of this is the journal article, "Using Attachment Theory and Social Support Theory to Examine and Measure Pets as Sources of Social Support and Attachment Figures" by Michael Meehan, Bronwyn Massavelli, and Nancy Pachana.. Their research focused on the effect of animal company, mainly pets, on human's social support and attachment figures. Their research was around four aspects: proximity maintenance and interaction, emotional attachment behaviors, emotional support given and received, and emotional and monetary value. They found out that humans who spend more time with animals have mostly exhibited behaviors that are associated with well mental wellbeing. Now this is a very brief description of their results, but that's really all I need. After all, I'm not doing a journal article summary, I'm writing a feature article about how pets mentally help their owners. This information is just to emphasize my point by saying that science supports it. It makes the article credible and shows that this information isn't just being pulled out of thin air.

Another notable thing that happened was that I got some more pictures. Some of them are my beta-fish, Orion, and the other one is a picture that Bailey took. Remember when I stated in an earlier blog post that Bailey was going to help me by getting some pictures? She was able to get one earlier this week. So let's end this blog post with some pictures of animals (with added commentary).

So this is my beta fish, Orion. I love him. Anyway, this picture was just to introduce him, I don't think I'll use this one in the final cut.

This one is nicer than the first one because he is actually looking at the camera. However, the glare from the glass is just killing all the pictures. This one is one of the best ones though.

This one shows him at a different angel. This is also one of the few shots I got where the glare isn't killing the photo. I like this one.

We got one of him facing forward, but that green light at the top doesn't work. I think I may need to cut it out if I use this one.

These two show him under the blue light. I kind of like the side shot. Gives you a full visual of the fish.

I think this photo is great! I will definitively use this. I just wish she took a few more. That's ok, I'm still glad she got a photo for me. Thank you Bailey.

I'm sure that these pictures will do great. They will most likely be in the table of contents if I use them since they don't directly relate to my feature article. The fish picture that I do end up using will probably need to be edited because of the light and the glass. Other than that, I think these are great! Until next time!

Possible Pictures of the Content Page

Dear blogger,

Well, I came back a little earlier than expected. That actually gives me time to work on my school work before school starts back up again next year. Before I get to that work though, there is something I need to share.

During my trip, my parents took us to The Grand Canyon in Arizona. The Canyons were amazing, but the real point I want to make is that there were also many MANY people who decided to bring their dogs to hike with them. This gave me an opportunity to get some work done for this project.

While I was hiking some of the trails, if I came across an owner with their dog, I would ask if I could take a picture of their furry friend. Yes, I got permission from all of the owners first before taking any pictures. All of them let me take photos of their pet, most even got their dog to sit for me which was really nice. 

Now, these pictures won't be for the featured article. This would be a smaller picture on the cover or on the table of contents. Why did I take so many then? For three reasons. One was because they were just so cute! The second was so that I could have a variety of pictures to choose from if I wanted to switch out a picture in favor of another one. The third reason was that I wondered if Bailey wanted to use some of them. Her magazine issue is very dog oriented where mine is general pet and animal oriented. Plus, now you get to see a bunch of cute dog pictures!

So here are some of the highlights of the pictures that I took over the trip (with some added commentary).

I know I'm most likely not going to use this one, but I just thought that it was so silly how he came out. Maybe if I have a little section for like a picture contest in the content page, then I might use it. But for now, this is probably my personal favorite out of the batch and will probably be nothing more than that. 

I did manage to snag a nice shot of this dog eventually. I'm not sure if I'm going to use this picture specifically, but it is here incase I want to use it.

Now I'm putting the commentary for these two pictures together because they are so similar. I feel like I would rather use the bottom one over the top one because of the owner in the back. On the top one, the owner is close to the dog which would mean I would need to crop some of the background out. The bottom one however has the owner far away where I can just use a simple crop tool to take him out while still retaining most of the background. I still really like both shots though. I do think that This dog will make it in because of how cool he looks and the bandana (I mean come on! It's so cute and suits the dog and location!).

This one is super cute! I kind of like having a Dalmatian in the magazine because they are such cool dogs. I will need to find a way to take out the leash though because it sticks out like a sore thumb in this picture.

This one was just super excited and I love her so much! For the picture itself, I do like the position the dog is in. I feel like I could crop out the background and make it look like the dog is peeping into one of the pages. I think that would be pretty cool.

I find this shot to be also really nice. Definitely need to crop out the owner in the back, but I could make this one work.

So I know this isn't a shot I'm going to use in the magazine, but I just wanted to add this one into the blog because I find that it's memories to look back on... I guess. While I was trying to get a picture of this dog, he thought I was coming up to pet him and smacked the phone as he licked my hand. He didn't get hurt, my phone was fine, and eventually his owners got him to calm down. We laughed for a bit, and then I got some pictures in of his friend because no mater how much this dog calmed down, he was still too jumpy for the camera. I still love you though.

As much as I love this dog to death, I don't think I'm going to use any of his pictures. His poses aren't bad, it's the leashes and accessories the owners had. They kept getting in the shot and were just distracting. Sure, I could crop out the background, but the leash accessory is right on top of the dog. I would need to cut out some of the dog if I wanted to use this picture. If I left them in, they would be very distracting and look unprofessional.

This one over here is one I just can't use. Sure the dog looks adorable, but the two leashes are overlapping him and I don't think I can edit that out without making the picture look bad. Sorry friend of doggo who smacked my phone, I love you, but your pictures are just not usable for this project.

I know this isn't a dog, but this raven... crow..., I'll need to do some more research to tell what type of species this bird is, was giving me some excellent pictures. It followed us a lot which gave me some awesome photo opportunities. I blame my brother for throwing a Bissli chip at it. Let it be known that I did not feed the animals, that was all my brother's doing. I just took advantage of the situation.

That being said, I did get some beautiful scenic shots of this bird on the canyon. Just look at that. This one is most likely going to be in the table of contents.

I did also manage to get some action shots, but I don't think I'm going to be able to use them because the tips of the bird's wings and the background came out blurry.

If I'm going to crop the background for any of the bird shots, I'm going to use this shot. The background isn't mixing with the bird to much making it easier on me to crop him out. Also the position is fabulous.

Ok, so this was the only owner who asked me what the pictures were for and the only one to have both him and his dog in the shot. I love this picture except for one thing... the dude standing in the back. I mean come on man! The dog is actually looking in my direction for once and the dude in the back just killed any chance of a background shot. I could still crop the upper background out, but dang would that have been a cool shot if it wasn't for him in the background.

I did get some pictures without the guy in the background, but the dog just wouldn't look in my direction for some reason. This was the best shot out of the bunch without the guy in the back.

I really like this shot. However, I think it will be hard to crop out the people in the back. I also think it will be very hard to take out the background if I wanted to because of the dog's fluffy fur, especially on the top of it's head. This one is on my maybe list.

Same commentary as the picture above, but the dog is looking in a different direction which is nice. I also think the people may be easier to crop out in this one because the shoes of the closes one is somewhat farther from the dog.

This adorable thing with fluff was the tiniest dog on the entire canyon. So cute! This one would definitely need to have the background cropped because her owners are standing right behind her. This one is also on my maybe list.

The most well behaved dog I've seen on the entire trip. But I know I can't use this one unless I want to crop out the background and the owner. The owner is just too close to the dog in a very distracting neon jacket. I do like how the dog's wrap almost matches the owner's pants. I just wanted to point that out.

Now these aren't all the pictures I took, these are just some highlights. A lot of pictures do have reoccurring problems. The main one is stuff in the background. While some it doesn't really matter sometimes, a lot of the times it can be very distracting and look nonprofessional. 

I haven't decided which pictures I'm going to use, but I'm glad that I have an arsenal of them so that if one doesn't work out, I have two more runner ups. Another factor is that I still have one more pet I want to get a picture of for the content page. That pet is my own beta fish, Orion. I don't have Orion right now as I am writing this blog. We gave him to a family friend before we left on our trip so that he was taken care of. Once I get him back, I'm sure to take plenty of pictures to show you guys.

My plan right now is to work on the article, get the interviews completed, and take some pictures for the cover and featured article. I won't get all of that done before school starts, so I'm just going to be working on the article for now. So see you guys then and have a Happy New Year (SEE YA 2020!).