rachelmaemcquiston-blog

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Week 15 Tumblr Post

My goal for my portfolio website was to express my interest and passion for journalism and design. By including my portfolio, my resume, and a paragraph about myself, I think I was able to get across that message. 

The design decisions I made for my website were fairly simple. I wanted to have a mellow color scheme and overall look, which is why I went for white, grey and black, with a little bit of pink. By keeping the look of my website simple, I think that my content will stand out. 

screenshot of my logo:

Screenshot of my homepage:

Link: https://rachelmcquiston.home.blog/ 

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https://wordpress.com/theme/dara/rachelmcquiston.home.blog

https://rachelmcquiston.home.blog

A screenshot of the rough draft logo I made on InDesign 

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https://xd.adobe.com/view/80f301a9-34a0-4b23-6c12-439bfcee9a6a-f6c2/?fullscreen

***IMPORTANT: When I published this editorial experience, the published version from the link adds space to both sides of my project, which is not supposed to be there. I will add in screenshots with my project without the extra space. The screenshots are blurry so I will also email an attachment.***

For my editorial experience, I mimicked Cosmopolitan Magazine, my personal favorite publication. To me, Cosmopolitan is fun, empowering and girly -- among many other things. I wanted my editorial experience to exemplify this message. For my first artboard, which was supposed to mimic Cosmo’s homepage, I decided to include pictures of various different celebrities that are currently very relevant. But I chose to include pictures of them where they look like they’re having fun/ their true personalities are showing. To me, this really sets up a Cosmopolitan vibe.

Because I love Cosmopolitan, it was really fun to make design decisions for my editorial experience. Cosmopolitan’s logo is pink, and so I chose to go with a pink-based theme for the homepage. For my actual story, which was on skin and hair care, I chose to go with different shades of light green, because that is a color that reminds me of health and self-care. I chose to add images of palm leaves with the opacity turned down to further establish a theme. With the pictures I chose to put on my third artboard, I wanted images that established that this article was focused on skin and hair care, but I also wanted pictures that were girly and fun. I then carried the green color into my 4th and 5th artboards, where I included the color in the price of the products and the lines under the product names. As for fonts, I chose to stick mainly to DIN Condensed and Bodoni 72 Book, which are two very contrasting fonts. I also incorporated a bit of Helvetica Neue Ultra-thin (my personal favorite) in the second artboard. My main focuses for this project was keeping a consistent color and font theme, as well as working on alignment.

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https://xd.adobe.com/view/fff2f60e-b9e8-44d7-7d98-fa21acd08c2b-89c3/screen/8adb77b5-b0ee-454c-ba0b-8702a9567f20/Web-1920-3 

This is the link to the rough draft of my editorial experience. I decided to change my topic to skin and hair care products since that fit better with my Cosmopolitan theme. The grey boxes are placeholders for pictures. 

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News Organization: Cosmopolitan

Topic: Dissociative Identity Disorder (Cosmo did a recent article on this).

Sketches/outline: I have five different artboards. The first is a design for Cosmo as a publication, then the next goes into the specific article about DID. Some of the elements on each dartboard will stay and transfer onto the next artboard, while some will change. I’m not entirely sure how this will pan out, considering I’m not too skilled with Adobe XD, but this is the general vision I have. I will post the pictures of the sketches down below.

Colors: Pink is a HUGE color in Cosmo. For the first artboard, that’s going to be a staple color, as well as other bright colors. For the article, I will be going with something more toned down and serious, but I haven’t decided what yet.

Fonts: For Cosmo’s logo, I will use DIN Condensed Bold, and I will probably use that for other headings as well. I will use Helvetica Neue Ultralight for smaller headings.

Graphics: I will incorporate pictures of Amelia and her alters. 

**These sketches are really rough, because it’s hard to envision what I want to do on a program that I don’t know much about. The final product will look better haha.

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For my Social Graphic, which I based off of my Infographic, I decided to zero in on Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, considering she has been a driving force in the Kavanaugh case. She has so many powerful quotes, but I decided to go with one that was short, powerful, and straight to the point: “I have had to relive my trauma in front of the entire world.” By putting herself out there and fighting against Kavanaugh, she has had to deal with memories that happened years and years ago. I also added a very similar heading that I had on my infographic, which is “3 Brave Women and Their Stories.” Although my social graphic only features one woman, my infographic has quotes and information about all 3. By adding this heading, I am hoping that readers will be intrigued and want to know more.

As for design elements, I wasn’t exactly sure what route I wanted to take. I chose a black and white photo of Dr. Ford, so at first I wanted to incorporate the colors I used for my infographic to 1. show that my infographic and social graphic are cohesive and 2. make the colors pop. However, I also made a black and white version, which I almost like better. The black and white portrays how serious and powerful the situation is. I used the same fonts in my social graphic that I did in my infographic because I think that the contrast between the thin font and thick fonts is very important. I think my reader’s eyes will be drawn to the large picture of Dr. Ford and the thick, bold lettering that says “We Believe Women,” which is a popular phrase in this case.

**These are screenshots of the final products so they might be a bit blurry. I will email the PDF versions.**

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Allegations of sexual harassment from three different women have recently surfaced against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. These three women, Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, all have recounts of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh. However, Kavanaugh was still confirmed to the Supreme Court again, where he could serve for over two more decades. Even after a powerful and intense hearing between Kavanaugh and Ford, Kavanaugh is still able to serve on our Supreme Court, which speaks a lot on where we are as a country.

Designing this infographic was probably my favorite project all year. Creating a cohesive design that had flow was challenging, but very fun. I tried to stick to the same color family, which consisted of deep burgundys, a burnt red, a mauve and a very light mauve/pink. Black was also a staple color in the graphic. Although my infographic does not have one very large image, I think that my statistic at the top of my graphic is my focal point. I tried to incorporate pictures, colors and text to make the statistic stand out. I also wanted to add some form of chart to my graphic, but I didn’t want it to take up too much space, considering the statistic I was displaying on the chart (which I then decided on a pie chart) was not a main idea in my infographic, but rather a connecting topic. Lastly, font was a huge consideration for me in this process. I wanted to stick with clean looking fonts without serifs, but I wanted fonts that would stand out from each other. I decided on DIN Condensed Bold as my thick font and variations of Helvetica Neue as my thin font.

I added in a screenshot of my infographic because it would not let me add a PDF file to Tumblr. I will submit the PDF form in Canvas. Sorry this screenshot is kind of blurry!

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Here is a rough draft of my infographic. I included a screenshot of the entire thing, as well as a closer look at where I have put in the most work thus far. The fonts I have used have been DIN Condensed Bold, Helvetica Neue Ultralight, and Helvetica Regular. I’m not a huge fan of serifs so I tried to stay away from them and choose simple fonts that were very different from each other. I still have to add actual pics in place of the black boxes, as well as quotes. I need to work further with alignment, design of the bottom phrase, and I’m going to alter the colors as well. 

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Topic: Kavanaugh Hearing

Infographic Content:

Picture and Quote/Info from Christine Blasey Ford: “I thought he might inadvertently kill me,”... “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”

Picture and Quote/Info from Deborah Ramirez: Ms. Ramirez said in an interview published in The New Yorker on Sept. 23 that during her freshman year at Yale University (1983-84), Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drinking game in a dorm suite.

Picture and Quote/Info from Julie Swetnick: Swetnick accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct at parties while he was a student at Georgetown Preparatory School in the 1980s.  She said she witnessed Judge Kavanaugh participating in some of the misconduct, including lining up outside a bedroom where “numerous boys” were “waiting for their ‘turn’ with a girl inside the room.” Ms. Swetnick said she was raped at one of the parties, and she believed she had been drugged.

Statistics:

1 in every 6 women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.

For every 1000, rapes 994 perpetrators will walk free.

Fonts: Helvetica Neue, a really thick font (haven’t decided which yet)

Color Scheme:

Photos: 

Sketch of Infographic: 

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For my GIF, I chose the recent news of Cardi B. and Nicki Minaj getting into a fight at New York Fashion Week. The fight began with them insulting each other and ended with Cardi B. throwing her shoe at Nicki. I chose a background of a party/club scene so that people could get an idea of the situation, but turned down the opacity so that it was not the focal point of the GIF. I used white speech bubbles outlined in black so that they would stand out, as well as black text inside the bubbles for the same reason. Next, I choose a red high heel to throw across the “room” because I felt as though it would stand out. I paired the heel with a cartoon wind gust that had the opacity turned down. I did this because I felt that the wind gust made the shoe look like it was flying through air and not just flashing across the screen, but I turned down the opacity so that it wasn’t a focal point either. Lastly, I left the speech bubbles on the screen for a long period of time so that people watching would be able to read them. However, I put the scenes of the heel on for very little time so that it really looked as if the heel was being thrown across the screen. 

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Article: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/cardi-b-nicki-minaj-fight-new-york-fashion-week 

Pictures I would use: 

- I would take the Nicki cartoon and cut out the background

- I would take the Cardi B cartoon and cut out the background

- I would use the high feel transparent and probably flip the picture

- Not sure if this will work, but I want Nicki to have a surprised expression on for some of the clips, so maybe I could photoshop on the mouth (first row, third over)

- Would flip the wind gust transparent and use it in the clip where the shoe is in mid air. 

Ideally, I would also have some sort of background behind Nicki and Cardi B. Something that could mimic a party-like scene. However, I’m going to wait to find that picture until I know for sure what I want and what will work best with my photos. 

Lastly, a sketch of my gif.

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Cosmopolitan Magazine had caught my eye at a very young age, when the bright and alluring magazine was a more likely read than any children’s book. Cosmopolitan has followed me through my primitive years, always there for me during a boring study hall or after a bad day. Now, in college, I know I can turn to the mag for some drama with the royal family when all I want to do is escape my hectic day. It’s no secret that news is always changing, however, Cosmo’s theme has remained the same: spirited, playful and, most importantly, empowering. Whether you’re indulging in some guilty pleasure reads, like some Kardashian drama, or informing yourself on various female-related issues, Cosmo is a publication that every woman can enjoy and relate to.

When beginning my mood board for Cosmopolitan, there were so many different options and avenues that I could have taken due to the mag’s diversity and inclusivity. Possibly the most obvious pictures on my board are those of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry and the Kardashian/Jenner sisters. Celebrity news is a huge part of Cosmopolitan -- and, honestly, it’s a guilty pleasure read for many women. A picture that is probably not familiar to most is the horizontal photo underneath the Cosmopolitan logo, which is a photo of an office in Cosmo’s NYC headquarters. The Cosmo headquarters is where the magic happens, so of course I had to add it to my board. Similarly, I have a photo of the New York City skyline, representing where Cosmo began. In the top right hand quarter, I have a photo of a girl holding a camera who, although probably has no direct connection to Cosmopolitan, is still a perfect representation of what the magazine represents. She’s fashionably dressed, looks like she’s having fun -- she’s the girl that Cosmo embodies. A photo that I felt necessary to the board was that of the 2018 Women’s March, which includes marchers holding up empowering signs. Like the Women’s March, Cosmo is all for women empowerment, so adding this picture was a no-brainer. Lastly, I put a series of girl power-related quotes, because I feel as though Cosmopolitan’s article exuberate the same message as those quotes do. Overall, I choose photos where the subjects look happy and the vibes are positive. Shades of pink and other bright colors pervade the mood board, giving it an overall bright and cheerful look. I see Cosmopolitan as a colorful, fun, empowering publication -- and I think that that is the image that my mood board exudes.

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Organization: Cosmopolitan

Words: Empowering, Girl Boss, Lively, Informative, Lighthearted, Spirited, Colorful, Playful

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Rachel McQuiston

Hi! I’m Rachel McQuiston and I am a sophomore journalism major from the Lehigh Valley. I write for Her Campus Temple and hope to one day write for a magazine like Cosmopolitan. I also like to run, do yoga, and drink coffee. (: