Contents page - inspiration

Front cover - final feedback

After following suggestions from the feedback of version one of my front cover and continuing with its creation, I am now happy with the result. However, I needed to make sure I received final feedback from members of my target audience before evaluating it in great detail and producing a finished product. I asked the same four people to comment with their opinion on my changes and progress, as well as anything they thought I should do to further improve. 

I got very positive feedback on the following:

• the colour scheme - 'understated and professional'
• the QR code - 'nice touch'
• the main image - 'powerful and draws in your target audience'
• my font choice - 'really like the font used and how clear everything is'

They also picked up on the changes I had made to the cover lines and how much better they look after adding extra stories and making them more varied in terms of size, colour and style. It was mentioned that there is still a large amount of white text at the top of the magazine and I should consider changing this. The only other suggestion for further improvement was adding a selling line, but I did experiment with this during my progression from version one to version two and found that it was not practical because of my main image - the masthead fits perfectly and cannot move any closer to the top of the cover without being cut off, meaning there is no room for a cover line above the masthead and below it would involve covering the image or risk cutting most of the tag line out. I have justified this choice with the fact that many music magazine covers I looked at, including Kerrang!, Rock Sound and NME do not have selling lines visible on all issues of their magazine. 

I am now going to move onto the development of my contents page, but will be continuing to make small changes to my front cover following this feedback and my own evaluation so I can create a final version at the end of this whole process.

Front cover - version two

Front cover - screen grabs

Made main cover line bigger

Added QR code and website along with price, issue number etc.

Added coloured box to cover line with quote

Front cover - feedback and changes

After asking four people to comment on version one of my front cover with their opinions on how I can improve it and what they like best, I now have a clearer idea of its current successes  as well as its weaknesses and how I can improve on them.

It seems the people who commented on my magazine agreed that its main successes are:

• the colour scheme - 'it suits your genre and target audience well'
• the main image - 'very engaging'
• my font choice - 'makes the magazine look very professional'

The following suggestions were made in order to improve my front cover further:

• add website info
• add more cover lines and make existing ones smaller
• make main cover line much bigger
• add a selling/tag line
• create more variety in cover line through more colour and boxes

I definitely agree with these suggestions and can see how my current front cover has a lot more room for further cover lines, which would involve making the current ones smaller. I do think that these cover lines should be more varied in size and colour in order to add more interest and appeal, but I will make sure to keep the same font scheme so my cover doesn't start looking too busy and tacky. I think adding website info next to the barcode along with the issue number is also a good idea as I have seen many other magazines do this. I am definitely going to make the main cover line larger in order to make it the main point of focus, and I will experiment with adding a selling line, but I do not think it is practical due to the position of the main image.

I am now going to continue with my front cover, making the above changes and experimenting further with the layout and general design. I will then upload a version two and ask my commenters on their opinions of my progress and if there is anything further they think I could improve on.

Front cover - version one

Front cover - inspiration

Colour combinations

After choosing a unique font to represent my magazine as a brand and feature in the masthead, I now need to choose a background colour for my cover which will feature strongly throughout the magazine and form the basis of my overall colour scheme. It needs to suit my genre, main image and follow the feedback from my questionnaire. I have already decided that the pink/red is unsuitable because it is too feminine for a multi-gender magazine, having connotations of romance and love. I am also not very keen on the green as a background colour because it doesn't look very appealing to the eye and is not something I frequently saw featured among the music magazines I have previously analysed. I feel the blue and purple backgrounds work much more successfully for my magazine as they are both more muted colours. They also both suit my genre a lot better and are multi-gender friendly. Out of the two, I feel the purple adds more warmth to the cover and blends better with the main image. Also, because it is quite a greyish purple, it would allow me to incorporate a brighter colour in the cover lines, reflecting the feedback from my questionnaire and hopefully attracting positive attention from my target audience. It is because of these reasons that I have chosen to use the purple for my background colour.

Font choices

Below are three possible font choices for the masthead of my magazine. I am looking for a unique font that will reflect the genre of my music magazine and its overall style. Although I like the relaxed, handwritten style of option three I have dismissed this one because I think it would be suited to a more Indie/Alternative genre. I like both option one and two and think they are much better suited to my genre of Dance, however, I feel option two is more unique in its design and will be more easily recognisable by readers. So due to this and along with the fact that option one is not available in bold and so from a distance is not striking enough, I have chosen option two as the font to represent my magazine.

Option one

Option two

Option three

Other images

Edited images

 

 

Photoshoot one

Plan for photoshoot one

My first photoshoot will be the main shoot where I hope to get the image for my front cover, and predominant photos on my contents page and double page spread. I will be using the model mentioned in my introduction and aims, a teenage female acting as an up and coming female singer who music and interest is in the dance/clubbing genre. I plan for the model to be wearing party-wear (a black dress for example) to reflect the idea of being out clubbing. I do not want anything with too much colour as it will may distract the viewer and will affect the colour scheme. I will be creating quite a glamorous make-up look on the model, with glitter on the eye so it can reflect the lighting and create a point of interest for the viewer whilst adding attention to the eyes. I would like to use a variety of different lighting, but mainly high key so the model is evenly lit for the image on the front cover. I may choose to experiment with some more dramatic low key lighting in order to create a more creative and abstract image for the contents page or double page spread however. 

I will be taking a series of around 50 - 70 images to ensure I have a variety of facial expressions (serious, happy, seductive, facing away from camera, eye contact etc) and different shot types (some close up, medium and long shot). From this series of images I hope to get at least 5 successful photos that are worthy for post production in Photoshop and from these I will choose my front cover, contents page and double page spread images.

Double page spread draft