Official Style Guide

    

Creating a Style Guide

Before we officially begin our projects, Hailey and I need to create a Style Guide. HUHHH What's a style guide? That's exactly what I thought when I was first introduced the idea by my teacher. But apparently a style guide is necessary since Hailey and I are working together.

By definition, a style guide is a "holistic set of standards that defines your company’s branding. It references grammar, tone, logo usage, colors, visuals, word usage, point of view, and more." The purpose of a style guide is to ensure that both of us have the same conventions for our magazine since we are technically working on magazines under the same branch. Creating a style guide also ensures a recognizable voice for your audience.

So, what is included in a style? Well a lot of things, and figuring out what to include in our style guide is probably the most difficult part of this for me. According to GatherContent, a style guide should be 4 to 5 pages long. A style guide includes many things, such as:

• A mission statement - explaining name and tagline
• A table of contents
• A writing section 
• Baseline guide: using the oxford comma, spelling of certain words, using symbols, etc)
• Formatting: how to use bullets, lists, hyphens, quotes
• Tone and voice: sentence structures, tones, etc
• Additional: words to engage, words to avoid

• A visual section
• Formats: infographics, videos, etc.
• Colors: color palette (primary and secondary colors) including HEX, CMYK, and RGB codes and Pantone number
• Logo/Masthead: improper uses, where to use
• Fonts: for mastheads, paragraphs, quotes
• Typography: font size, weight, spacing, 

So with this knowledge, Hailey and I began creating our style guide. We heavily used the Vogue style guide as inspiration. 

We started with our visual aspects like our logo and color palette. Our main colors are black and white, and then we also have a muted red and blue as our primary colors as well. For secondary colors, I chose different variants of grays, red, and blue. Then, we worked on our typography. This part was a bit difficult because we had to include the different variants of our chosen fonts such as the bold and light versions. Then, we began to work on the hardest part, for us at least. This was the Font Styles. Here we had to choose what font and color combination would be used for different headers and such. This took maybe 1 hour or so to do, but at least we don't have to think about that when we are actually making our product.

The next thing we did was our writing aspects. We decided to use the oxford comma because not using the oxford comma makes things confusing. I also added some other things, but I didn't add too many restrictions. I also added an explanation as to why some of these choices were made.

Other style guides tend to have even more information such as mission statements; however, our style guide doesn't require those because we are creating a magazine and not a business in it's entirety. Our style guide is also shorter because a majority of a magazine's style guide consists of different fonts used throughout the magazine. Since we are only doing 3 elements of a magazine, we do not have a need for an excess amount of fonts.

Our next step is to obviously post the style guide. After that, I believe it's time to get started on the product itself. The product is due in 3 weeks, and Hailey will be on a school trip for Theatre in that last week, so we must get everything done in these upcoming 2 weeks. There is no more time for planning. It's time to get to it.

Thanks so much for tuning in, catch you later!

Resources:

https://www.figma.com/resource-library/what-is-a-style-guide/#_5-key-elements-of-a-brand-style-guide

https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/articles/how-to-brand-style-guide/

https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/business/teams/resources/how-to/brand-guide.html

https://bradfrost.github.io/cn-style-guide/styles/vogue.html

https://writer.com/guides/style-guide/

Content Page Planning

For my own content page, I'm going to include all the regular conventions of a content page. I'm going to have our masthead on the top right corner, with the date and edition (April 2025) right underneath. I want the masthead to be white, since the the masthead on the cover page is most likely going to be white, but I'm not sure if that's possible. Most of the content pages I've seen have a white background. To have a white masthead, the background would have to be a different color, which I'm not sure if I'm allowed to do. 

For my image, I was thinking something like this.

For the different article groupings, I'm going to have a "Feature articles" section, an "On the Cover" section, a "What's trending" section, and some others probably. 

The color scheme is probably going to be green, yellow, and white or something along those lines. I thought of yellow because the image I'm using as reference has a yellowish hue and the flowers are yellow. I'm thinking warm colors, since the magazine is  spring themed. 

Some articles that I might include are

• The effects of fast fashion on our environment
• Trending styles this spring
• How to style impossible patterns
• Upping your fit: Jewelry is a game changer
• Shoes that are not only comfortable but also stylish (perfect additions to your closet)
• Makeup looks that make you glow this spring

Obviously none of this is final, I still have much more to think of. Most of these ideas will be refined over the next few days, and might even change entirely but the time I get to production, but that's okay because it's all a part of the process. 

The next step is to begin planning my feature article. Once I have a basic plan for that, I might create flat plans for my content page and feature article. And then, it's time to start production.

Thanks so much for tuning in, catch you later!

Flat Plan for Cover Page

Before I can officially start creating my brief, I need to do a little more practicing and planning. So far, I've been focusing mainly on just my cover page, which I admit I should probably move on, but I want to do a flat plan first to grant me some more confidence. 

I created my flat plan on Canva. I know, I know, I should NOT use Canva, but this is just for the flat plan and not the actual product itself. Usually, flat plans are just a basic idea of where your masthead, pull quote, cover lines, barcode, dateline, price, and all your puffs, plugs and boxouts. However, I won't be able to visualize the placement for any of that until I have a basic idea of my cover image. So, I'm trying to get creative and recreate an idea of what I want the image to look like on Canva. I'm not sure how well that's going to turn out, but I'm going to give it a shot anyways.

So this is how the image turned out.... and yeah. I don't know, it's not too bad, but it's obviously not exactly accurate to what the actual image will look like. Now for the text.

Midway through adding the text, I realized that the mirror being white didn't make sense, so I added the same background. I'm definitely going to add more text when I get my original image, but for now I couldn't really think of anything. I think the biggest issue I'm going to have for the next week is definitely what articles and other elements I'm going to have in my magazine. 

The next step is planning for my content page, which is going to be extremely difficult because I don't know what images to have, what articles I'm going to have, etc. But, I'm going to spend some time reflecting on that and maybe I'll get an idea in the next few days.

Thanks so much for tuning in, catch you later! 

Outfit Planning

I know I've already talked about what kind of outfits I want in my magazine earlier, but I feel like I need to think about it a little bit more. My original plan was to do a runway style outfit, but that has morphed into something more like Avant Garde. Hailey and I started looking for inspiration on Pinterest and even created a board where we could save magazine covers or outfits that we thought were cool. In the span of time where we added pins, our opinions on what type of fashion to do changed about 50 times. I'm just so conflicted! I would love to do something Avant Garde, but the biggest problem is my lack of Avant Garde clothing. I'm not really much of a seamstress, so there's no way I'll be able to create something of my own.

Hailey and I planned to go to the thrift store today, with high hopes that we would find something unconventional, something that would belong on a runway. To our dismay, we found nothing. Like, nothing. At all. We spent nearly 4 hours and went to 2 different thrift stores, yet nothing was good enough. Soon we realized that the whole Avant Garde thing was NOT going to work. Not only is it not cohesive with Hailey's plan to shoot at the beach, but it was also incredibly hard to find a piece of clothing that would work well. So in the middle of shopping at the thrift store, we decided to completely switch my theme. Instead of Avant Garde, I would do a nature theme. So the shoot would most likely be at a park or at a forest.

So now with this new idea in mind, we began to search for a dress or a cohesive outfit that would fit the theme. And we STILL didn't find anything. Eventually, we realized it would be 10 times easier to just find something online. So we gave up and went home.

To be honest, not much was accomplished from this trip, but at least we now know what our theme is most likely going to be. Hopefully we don't change it again. Of course, a new theme means new inspiration pictures!

After looking at these pictures and a little bit of online shopping, I have a pretty solid idea. My thought is to go to a flower field. I'll have the model wearing a flowy white dress and a flower tucked behind her ear. I'm not sure if I want jewelry or not, but I'll think about that a little later. I would like my friend Addisyn to model, because she fits the concept well I think. When I imagine a photoshoot in nature, I always imagine light, pretty, and glowy makeup, which Addisyn excels at.  

Anyways, that's the basic idea for now. Although I'm not sure if I want jewelry, I know for sure that I want flowers in her hair.

I'm actually really excited on how this is all turning out. I was so unsure and confused not even a few hours ago, so I'm really glad that I have more of a solid plan now. Based on my front cover, I can now start thinking of my images for the feature article, as well as the contents of the magazine itself. Anyways, that's all for now!

Thanks so much for tuning in, catch you later!

Project Proposal Blog Entry

Welcome. My name is Bhumi Harpalani. For my AICE Media Studies Brief, I will be doing a Magazine. I'm working with my friend Hailey Sanchez for this project. 

My magazine genre will be Fashion, and this is for many reasons. First of all, Fashion Magazines are some of the most easily recognizable magazines and are extremely popular, which means there are set conventions for them that can easily be followed. The second reason is that me and my partner were greatly interested in finding or creating fashion pieces that are not only visually pleasing, but also bring awareness to major issues in our world. We had thought originally to do a teen magazine, but we found that the design for those is very immature and the  topic that we wish to raise awareness on wouldn't sit right with the childish magazine design.

Our potential target audience isn't any certain age or demographic; it is anyone who enjoys fashion. While fashion usually appeals to females, our magazine is open to males aa well. In fact, there has been a recent rise in number of men interested in fashion. I are not one to discriminate. Any who enjoy fashion and it's different sub-genres are free to enjoy our magazine.

Although our magazine is a fashion magazine, that is not the only thing we wish to display through this product.  We wish to bring awareness to all the social issues that come along with fashion such as animal welfare, unsafe workplaces, cash crops, child labor, collective bargaining, craft clusters, cultural appropriation, globalization, greenwashing, but perhaps most important of all, Fast Fashion and it's effects. We also wish to display diversity and inclusivity through our photography. We plan to have models from many different backgrounds and demographics.

For a project of this scale, there are many professional apps and softwares that we must use. The main ones will be Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Lightroom. I have experimented a bit with all the softwares listed above, but I do plan to get more trained in each.

So far, we have thought of certain aspects of our magazine. These are all basic, rough ideas but our final product will most likely build upon these:

Cover Page

• Title: "MODE" Mode means fashion in French. 
• Cover image: model wearing "Fashion Week" style clothing. Eccentric, unique, and challenging social norms.

Content Page

Double Page Spread

• Main image: the model will be wearing clothing that doesn't support the ideals of fast fashion. (we might create a new piece out of thrifted clothing)
• Article: On the social issues that come with fashion, mostly fast fashion.

Before I can begin with my project, I must do some practices that allow me to get familiar with the software I plan to use. I will also be conducting practices that require me to learn photography. After doing these exercises, I will begin working on the main project.

Thanks so much for tuning in, catch you later!

Resources:

https://www.condenast.com/glossary/social-cultural-and-economic-impacts-of-fashion

Naming Ceremony

This is momentous. This is the moment where our child gets named. We've been carrying this idea in our brains for very long now, and it's nearly time to give birth to it. But before that, our magazine needs a name.

I had originally thought for it to be "DIVA" in large, italic, pink capital letters. I know, I know, that sounds really corny. I don't really like that word all too much, but I could  imagine it as a fashion magazine title. But, Hailey did not like this idea. Which is fine, we can always think of other things.

Hailey brought up the word "CHIC" and I liked it, and it also reminded me of the word "GLAM." That's when our friend Addisyn proposed that we do a single-syllable word. I like this idea. Then Hailey came up with the idea of using a word related to fashion, and then translating into a different language. Immediately I thought of French. French is the classiest and bougiest language that I can think of. So, I ran to google translate and started inputing random words related to fashion. 

When I inputted the word "stylish" and it gave me "ÉLÉGANTE" which I thought was a perfect word. Hailey liked it as well. But we also agreed that we wanted a word that was almost generic, so that it could fit any category. If we used a word like "ÉLÉGANTE," it might make it seem like all the clothing would be classy and elegant, rather than having the freedom of variety. We wanted something like Vogue, something generic but also widely recognizable. 

When I ran the word "Fashion" itself through the translator, I got "MODE." This, Hailey and I both agreed, was perfect. It's generic in a sense that it could mean anything, but it has a meaning behind it and is classy. I believe we're going to be settling on this name. 

Now that we have a set name for our magazine, I will be doing some more research on the contents itself of the magazine. I did briefly cover this earlier when I was talking about the genre conventions of a magazine, but I never went in depth on what is in a feature article or in a content page. So, that will be the next step of the operation.

Thanks so much for tuning in, catch you later!