Emily Watkins

Emily Watkins Portfoilo 16-17

Dear Kinfolk Magazine,

My name is Emily Watkins, I am very interested in your organization, especially the position as an editor for the magazine. I am applying because I have worked on The Shadow yearbook and found it intriguing, I also found myself interested in the The Literary Magazine.

I am looking for a job that has to do with journalism and throughout the year, as I worked on the yearbook, I used your magazine as inspiration and as well referenced many ideas from your book. Therefore, I am driven in the direction of working at the Kinfolk company and using the skills I learned from working with the staff at Cactus Shadows.

Some skills I have learned working on The Shadow yearbook, is spending much time with InDesign, it is a great program but also as many complications. These complications require patiences and the knowledge of the program. I learned what to do and what not to do, to make the system run faster, how to do use many of the tools in the system, and tricks and hints that can make things on InDesign to make things run smoothly. Furthermore, I have learned how to get good interviews and the rules and guidelines of taking good photos, and most importantly I learned how to follow a

deadline.

Deadlines are not only important to yearbooks, but every kind journalism including: newspapers and magazines. I learned the importance of following the deadlines on a strict schedule and following the recommendations of the Editor in Chief.

She has taught me many of the skills I learned from designing the yearbook, and would like to thank you for giving me the chance to learn from Kinfolk. Thank you.

Sincerely, Emily Watkins

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Headline • • • • •

My name is Emily Watkins I am fifteen years old Attend Cactus Shadows High School I am currently a Sophomore Recently finished my first year in The Shadow yearbook class.

Objective The objective is to apply to Kinfolk magazine as an editor and learn new and exciting tools from them, while also including the skills I have learned being a yearbook staff member.

Experience • Creation of the 2015/2016 yearbook • I have learned how to use InDesign and how to proper follow and portray a theme and message throughout a book.

Education • I attend Cactus Shadows high school in the ccusd93 district • Currently enrolled in my sophomore year of high school.

• I plan to attend college in Buffalo, New York and study journalism.

Activities/Awards I have participated in over two hundred hours of different activities: • Boys and Girls Club.

• I also am part of the Quill and Scroll honors program that requires a 3.5 grade average.

Refrences • Mother 602-909-3010 • Boy’s and Girl’s Club Adviser cathleen.cole@bgcs.org • Lori Hart, yearbook adviser 602-541-0054

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self-analytical evaluation The second semester I had a lot of fun and I further learned how to take great photos, write main stories, create mods, and overall how to design different tasks for my team spreads. My teachers, editors, and most importantly, my team leader have taught me how to survive the second semester. I have learned many new skills in the short of participating in class such as: production skills, deadlines, teamwork, sales and advertising, journalism ethics, and dedication.

The skill that makes everything possible is my production skills, although there was not as much this semester for the yearbook, I was able to work hard, get all my work done, and come up with a new, creative way to put it all together in a certain amount of time.

My production skills really show off and are put to the test during late night. During late night I sit down with my leader and we compile our main stories, mods, and pictures to complete a page in the yearbook.

I use my productions skills to help get spreads done in time to be produced or submitted in time. This semester my team and I were able to almost completely finish all spreads during late night, minus a couple of captions and photo credits here and there.

In order to get all my team’s work done and follow our deadline guidelines, we all use each other,

our teamwork allows for help when in need of something and when we cover for someone. For example, Alyssa, Sam, and I were all have difficulties coming up with mod ideas for deadlines, so I helped them both out and in return they gave me help when I needed it. I went to soccer practices with alyssa and took pictures and help with interviews for her mod. While Sam needed help coming up with a mod idea so we talked on the phone until we both had ideas for our mods, and usually Sam and I worked together to create stuff. My teams teamwork really come into play when we have a deadline night, late night for all deadlines, my team was the last group with our leader until 11 o’clock at night. We were working together to create captions, and photo credits. If we had not worked together the pages would have never been completed on time.

In order to begin creating yearbooks we need the money to do so, and that starts with the advertising and sales of our yearbook.

At the very beginning of the school year we advertised the yearbook at 65 dollars, allowing students to have a discount before the prices go up. We advertised by hanging up big poster on doors and walls, we also recently created flyers that we passed out and hung on the walls as well. Although the yearbook does get expensive we make most of out

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money from the senior ads, which we also needed to advertise. This we put on the morning announcements, on Twitter, and contact whomever we can to get the message out.

Advertising will help us lead to more students buying the yearbook therefore, increasing sales and allowing us to buy more cameras, computers, and yearbooks for next years.

For semester two we did more advertising for yearbook palooza, advertised by creating the yearbook shirts that all staff members needed to wear during the day and during palooza. I also advertised by posting on all my social medias to come to yearbook palooza and passed out flyers during the day.

My journalism ethics are what lead to my dedications to this class. My ethics include: getting the interviews needed, getting the correct pictures, and coming up with creative ways to write mods and main stories. In order for all of these tasks to be completed I need dedication, which I have. I give many hours to this class outside of the classroom. I go to countless events taking pictures, have meet many new people from interviewing, and spent many hours after school for deadline nights. I use my ethics to dedicate me and cause me to work harder and complete my work in a timely manner. During semester two I not only stayed to finish the

few deadlines we had, but also all the projects we have to do. I started afterschool for many hours, daily to complete my theme project, my about me project, and now my portfolio final as well.

In conclusion, all of these work ethics, skills, dedication and commitment that have lead me to his point and I plan for them to take me far into the future as well. I not only am going to use these skills again in the following classes of yearbook but also later on, after high school. I can use any of these skills to help me find a job and have more creatively thinking mind. I will also have “job” experience that allows me to work with different groups of people for an overall better experience.

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reflection one

reflection two

My most significant piece this semester has to be my spread for the theme project from the end of the year. The idea of the theme project was to incorporate all the things I learned from the school year and create multi spreads conveying the theme into: the cover, the opening, a divider, two spreads, and I also did the table of contents.

I put all of these items together to create a theme idea for next year.

I decided to do traditional coverage because I believe it is the most organized and easiest to create, while leaving plenty of room for creative mod and story ideas. My theme idea our journey and the our in journey was capitalized so it stood out.

I had six main colors, a soft: blue, green, yellow, pink, purple, and orange. I had a graphic element of triangles, and they were included on each page. I think the hardest part of the project was coming up with the actual idea because I have never needed to think of something like this. So I looked up designs, used other books and magazines, and combined ideas together. At first my theme was different but once I begun putting my ideas on the page, I started disliking it more and more, so I changed it. The process from the beginning to the end was difficult because I continued to change around my ideas once everything was on the page. I had one idea going in and a different one on the

way out. I remember using creating what I thought was my opening and hated it, so I made it my table of contents and everything worked out.

I also changed the my pages plenty of times before I was even a little happy with them. I even asked my friends how it looked cause I was not sure I liked it. I learned while creating this that the theme is one of the hardest things to come up with, there are so many little and big things that play into it and one thing out of place makes everything look out of place. I developed an understanding of how hard it was for Maddie and Alysa to create this book.

I particularly like the final product because it is very eye appealing. I put so much work into creating an actual yearbook and seeing how it developed from start to finish makes me proud. I also like the concept of the photo as triangles because it is different and attracts the eye. I believe that the overall out journey theme could be better, but how I designed it really appeals to me.

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The mod that created that I like the least is the varsity boy’s basketball mod from deadline two.

It was my least favorite because it was poorly planned and not much effort when into it. I put effort into my interviews and my ideas, but I did not get pictures in on time, I was rushing to get those on deadline night. I also did not put enough time into the actual mod, it is just a list of things the boys do during tryouts for basketball. Although I did learn a lot from this situation, I had experience with InDesign and that I need to spend more time on every mod and increase the quality.

The experience I had with InDesign has really helped me, I now know how to use most of it and I can create different ideas and I can type my mods right into InDesign, making it easier for my team leader.

This mod was very planned out so it needed work. I started by getting interview from students and those were all fine, I got enough information about tryouts I was just having difficulties coming up with a new, creative mod angle. I then began working on the mod and I tried to come up with something and I came up with by the numbers.

Later I realized Alyssa was going to the exact same thing for soccer tryouts, so I change to a list. It was so uncreative and I came up with it such short noticed.

I could have improved this

mod so easily but I was lazy and now I take it as a learning experience. If had simply started earlier and asked for help with an angle the mod could be much better. I could improve it by using a picture of the court and putting the players and have quotes on what they are doing and how they feel about it. I would also improve the pictures taken, because they were so short notice that they are usable but nothing special. If I could go back I would change my whole idea and started my mod earlier in the deadline.

This is still my least favorite mod because I recently saw it in the printed yearbook and still was not proud of it. I agree that it was poorly planned out and I did little to fix the problems. From then on all my mods and stories are much better and are to my best ability. I believe that I did so poorly on this mod because I was not interested in it and it was part of the first semester and I was not that confident in what I was doing yet. That is why I believe that this semester I learned how to be more confident in the interviews and photos I took.

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reflection three

This is my favoriye photo becuase it includes all grapgic design elements.

It show a clear and meaningful story within one photo. I took this photo at the opening night of The Giver, where I went behind the scenes and got actors getting ready.

This photo has a visual center of interest, it is the face and the hands putting makeup on the other girl. The leading lines are the arm leaading to the face and the eye connection between the two actors. The rule of thirds is in as well, where the faces are not centered, they are on either side of the photo. The fram-

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ing is in teh background the miror shapes the photo, focusing the image to the girl’s faces.

The entire image is filled but allows for a clear image of the story being taken.

I am proud of this photo because it demonstrates all the elements in a good photo, it is eye catching, and tells a story.

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This semester I learned many things from this class and one thing that really helped with deadline night and getting my work done on time are my abilities with publication. The yearbooks publication are the deadline nights we have and the couple days after to send them in on time. I have personally helped with publications by attending the late nights and working along my team leader to finish our pages.

At deadline night I stick by team leader doing whatever tasks she asks me to complete. For example, on one late night, we had a shared spread with the pink team and one mod did not turn out that well, so Kim and I stayed later to work and fix the mod so it looked well enough to go on the page. We stayed and finished all the captions and subheads that night as well because we did not have all the pictures for the main story and needed to wait until the following day. Therefore, we stayed and created headlines, second decks, and captions for everything we currently had. Then once we go the photos we worked on the captions, and I think that was one of the most stressful spread to make because it was shared and some items were last minute. But as the night went on we worked together in order to get as much as possible done.

This is all part of publication because in order to send in

the pages, all the work needs to be done on time. I have had hands on experience with publication because I have I worked on the mods, stories, and photographic that’s are going to published for all of Cactus Shadows students and staff to see.

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reflection five

reflection six

My problems and hardships during this semester have changed throughout the year. During the first semester my biggest problem was getting interviews because I was nervous about talking to people I did not know, but now that is a thing of the past. The second semester my biggest problem was time, as the year went on, there was a lot more and less time to do it all. The yearbook needed to get in at a certain time and some stuff going into the yearbook had not happened yet. I think that was my biggest problem because during the one deadline I needed soccer photos and soccer had not started yet and deadline was coming up.

If my problems came up again, which they will, I will handle them best I can. These problems will come up again because they are some of the basic problems that occur in yearbook. I have solved my problems with interviews, but I can always improve my questions and work on my conversations skills. I still need to work on the how I create mods and new ideas for mods and stories. Stories and mod can always improve to better suit the theme and page.

I handled my situations very well for my first yearbook class; I handled them by using my leader for help, I begun by asking for help coming up with questions and how to continue the conversation to get

more information out of people I interview. I have handled my problem with mod ideas the same way, with the help from Corey, Maddie, and Kim. They have all helped me come up ideas and way to make mods and stories better and more creative.

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My greatest weakness for publications is pictures, I do not always prepare and I do not always have the enough pictures for my mod or I do not get a quote. I am always missing part of the picture; I also need to work on taking pictures as well. I get photos but not all of them are quality photos, I need to focus on the information about the taking a photo. I need to understand that I have to include the framing, good elements, and taking photos from different angles.

I believe that if we take more time teaching the yearbook staff how to take photos then we can get better photos and also the same with how to write a main story.

My weakness is something that can easily be fixed; I just need to put in the effort to get more practice with angles, framing, and the other elements of taking photos. I not only take pictures for yearbook, but I also take pictures in my everyday life, places I go, and events I go to. If I get the practice in, it will allow for a easier way to get more photos with better quality.

For example, just from the practice from the beginning of the year until now, my photographic skills has increased greatly. My pictures from the beginning of the year did not have any purpose to them and now I have taken pictures that are used as dominate photos. If I continue practicing my skills and learning

more about photographic, I can take better photos that will benefit others and me next year. The ideas of having a writer and a photography is a great idea and I hope that I can have more experience taking photos as well as writing stories, because I need to work on both if I want to continue in journalism.

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about me

reflection eight

I believe that I have grown a lot from the beginning of the year in this class. I had no experience with InDesign, taking photos, writing stories, and creating mods.

As the year progressed I got more involved. I remember last year starting my portfolio and using InDesign and Photoshop for the first time and not knowing how to use it. Looking at my design from last year’s portfolio is something I quickly threw together and now I have learned what is acceptable and what is not. Although I used a triangle theme, that had no direction and is a novice design because it was the exact same on

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each spread. This time I used a different theme and related it to each spread of having it the exact on each spread. I believe that I grew in the design area and how to place things on the page has grown the most. I used to cramp things together and I learned that white space is good and that you need it in order to separate mods and stories from each other. I also learned that better writing will beat a good photo. I learned a lot of these tools from the Colombia trip and am so thankful that I got to go on it. I think that my theme project demonstrates the improvement in my design and theme ideas.

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deadline #4

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deadline #4

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deadline #5

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