Kat


 * Spread #1: Service Learning**



Being assigned to create not only an interesting black and white spread, but also a picture spread without a story was somewhat difficult to do. I challenged the rubric in several areas to make it my own, to make it blend well with the tender theme of reaching out to the community, as well as what would fit in well with the rest of the yearbook. I kept the pictures black and white but I played with the brightness and contrast to make it fit in better with the background. Moreover, I experimented with the background to help with the effect of the placement of the pictures, by using a gradient feature and faded the edges of the dominant pictures that made a overall soft-effect to the spread. With this I intended to add on to a tender, soft effect, especially because most of the pictures convey a sense of humanity in the high school students working with children. Overall I felt that I did a good job in keeping the page different from the other years' Service Learning pages, but this was one of the hardest spreads I had to do because of the guidelines that restricted me from playing too much around without color.


 * Spread #2: Fads 'N Fashion**



Fashion, it seems, branches off sometimes into crazy colorful trends that I wanted to exert into the overall appearance to the spread; hence the headline, "Stir it Up". I was very glad that this one was a mix of black-and-white and colored pictures, because that helped emphasize the mixing of fashions and trends. The basic theme was based on the several unique styles and trends that I have observed from students this year. I took a risk by mixing and matching three different photos and merging them to act as the dominant photo. The overall effect, I think, emphasized the spread's theme of mixing and matching different styles from different people while at the same time unify them as a single student 'body'. I furthermore created the 'branches' of fashion by connecting everything with line designs that look like they are branching off into their different categories. The bubbles surrounding the story and the dominant picture (which also acts as a sidebar) differ in size to create depth and a 'funkiness' that I wanted to portray. The bubbles and sidbar boxes are complemented with the names of different categories that people can put themselves in, and was made to give an effect of all of these trends being laid out and acknowledged as being part of this year's student life fads and fashion.


 * Spread #3: The Best of CAC**



When I chose to make a spread on the school's trends, I really wanted to publish a page that really showed what students found was 'in' and 'out.' I went out on a limb and used Facebook.com to create a group of CAC students willing to vote to ensure a somewhat accurate assumption on the contents of this page. I also went around school and got votes on the tops on paper to get the final results. Finding the pictures were not hard, as I did not have to take them myself. Rather, I was allowed to look them up online and use those to show what won in the polls. The layout was pretty much freestyle, each category had its own designated theme, but at the same time I mixed them all together for a kind of collage-effect. I used the cut-out feature on Photoshop a lot to make certain things pop out and grab attention out of the mix, which I hoped to make the page interesting, but not too busy.


 * Spread #4: CAC's Got Talent**



Covering the Talent Show was my last spread of the year. I really wanted to make sure this was my most creative of all my spreads, not only because it was my last chance to, but also because I took part in the event as well. Not only was I part of the show, I also had a first-hand view of it, which made it much easier to write my story and captions as well as pick a theme for the page that would relate well with the show itself. For the layout, I followed examples taken from what I would usually find in magazines. I used a picture of the first, second and third-place contestants as my three largest pictures of the spread to emphasize their significance. I also tried my best to incorporate all other participants into the space as well. In order to do so, I organized the pictures of the bands horizontally across the top, and the soloists and exhibitionists cut out to stand out on the bottom. I took a creative risk of placing any other soloists that wouldn't fit in either the top or the bottom, and cut them out to complement the shape of the title around the middle of the spread (eg: I have Danny Ramez and Layla O'Kane sitting on the "T" of Talent). Again, following the magazine examples, I used my sidebar as an advice column, listing the top three signs that someone has talent and encouraging those who has talent to go and do something about it. If I could have changed anything about this spread, I would have tried harder to fit in pictures of the hosts and the Cairo Kickers that preformed that night as well, but with so many acts and such limited space made it very difficult to fit everything in.