The document describes Stephen Royle's experiments in replicating a magazine for a production project. Some of the key lessons and techniques explored include: adding a white outline around the masthead using blending options; changing the background image to improve text clarity; increasing the thickness of a separating line to make it visible when zoomed out; adjusting the masthead color to better match the original; and using the sphere tool to create custom bullet points when standard ones could not be found. The reflections indicate these techniques will be applied in the final product to improve technical qualities and design elements.

1. Production Experiments
Stephen Royle

2. Process
My experimental copy. Original magazine

3. Process
I wanted to replicate the magazine and push my skills further by putting a white outline
around the masthead. I had to go into the blending options and turn on the stroke
setting. After this I could change the size of the outline around the masthead. I could
select how thick it would be and how opaque it would be as well. I now know how to
do this in the future and it will help me develop my skills further.

4. Process
At first I used a background with a bright blue sky and a reservoir behind. This worked well
when I was working at the middle and bottom of the magazine. As I started to edit the top of
the magazine I realised that parts of text and images were not very clear. I decided to change
the background to a darker more clear background. It was difficult as I had to search through
the internet to find one that still linked to fishing. Eventually I found one that was the outside of
a reservoir which looked good and showed all of the text clearly. I will consider things like this in
the future more and plan to avoid this in my production.

5. Process
I placed a line to space off two different articles, as they did in the original magazine,
however the line was not thick enough when I zoomed out. This meant that I had to
make it thicker for it to be viewed. To do this I went to weight and I changed it to 80px.
This made the line clear and separated off the two articles well.

6. Process
At first I had the masthead as a bright red colour. I did not pay much attention to the
original magazine and just used any red colour. I thought that I should be more professional
and match it up so I made it a darker red. It also worked a lot better with the colour
schemes and looked more professional.

7. Process
The font I used was the closest font I could find to the original magazine. It
was very similar and worked well but the H in the title was very thin. This
meant that the title wasn’t as clear as I hoped for. I tried to find another font
but thought I would leave it and value my time more.

8. Process
I used the sphere tool to make bullet points. This worked well as I could shape them
how I wanted and how big I wanted it to be. I used this as I couldn’t find a physical
bullet point so I had to improvise. I thought it worked very well.

9. Reflection
• What elements of your experiments will you
include in your final product?
– I will include things such as superimposition over
the masthead to add to technical qualities.
– I will use things such as bullet points and lines to
separate parts of text and headlines.
– I also want to use shapes and plugs to catch the
readers attention.