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Final Products

Final Front Cover

 Final Contents Page

Final Double-Page Spread

Updated Version of Contents Page

This is my updated version of my contents page. For this I started completely from scratch. The design of this contents page is a lot different to my first draft. I did this because I wanted to have a fresher outlook on what a contents page looks like. So by doing two different designs, it makes it easier to compare them both.

Instantly, you can see that the colours coordinate and are balanced on the page. There is also a head-liner that has nothing to do with the main image (Taylor Swift) - this is conventionally done on a lot of researched contents page products. It makes the reader interested in two things at once, thus making them want to read forward and buy the magazine. Secondly, I have in-putted 3 more photos to balance out the amount of content on my page. Therefore, there is now more visual information for the reader - therefore making it more interesting.

Updated Version of my Front Cover

This is my updated version of my Front Cover. I have made some changes to my design as I felt it did not look as professional as I would have liked. One change evident straight away is the name of the band and the placement of the festival plug. I felt as if there was a lot of empty space at the top of my Front cover that left all the information around the sides look as if they were floating about with not much use. therefore, to fill that black, I moved the festival plug to the right hand side, therefore leaving room for a new Headline. Firstly, I changed the headline as I felt like the text was mis-matched and did not fit the conventions of the type of band that feature in my magazine. The black and white was too fussy and made the text seem pop-arty and childish. Also, my headline was way too small on my previous draft and I didn't think it stood out well to my audience. Therefore I changed the font and the size to fit in with both my magazine layout and the band.

The subheading 'How they conquered a nation' looks as if it has been shattered, I did this to fit in with the idea of conquering. Just like the double-page spread, they may have won over the public with their music, but they had a hard time recovering from fame. It an symbolise the slight downfall and shattering of the band but also represent the conquering of their nation.

Finished Double-Page Spread

This is my final version of my Double-page spread. With a help of a current modal already in a music magazine, I was able to achieve the correct conventions for my genre of music. From my previous drafts, I have included more visual factors. This will relate to the audience more as it will be more pleasurable to look at. Also, because it is a double-page spread, I felt as if extremely bright colours would put the audience off reading the content as it may act as an eye-sore and not contrast very nicely. But, with a pull-quote that features on both left and right-hand side of the page breaks up the heavy load of writing and makes the image of the band look more involved with the article. 

Also, to involve the audience with the band a lot more, I used the promotional technique of advertising social media sites. This is conventional to music magazines as digital media and promotion is generally used via web 2.0. Therefore, if people log on to twitter, they will see a post featuring this band and also promoting the magazine in which it is featured. Therefore, it's a win-win situation. 

Double-Page Spread Development

Double-Page Spread Mock-Up

Double-Page Spread Plan

I did this plan on PowerPoint using the different shapes. Although it is a simple plan, it is a good foundation of where to put the different aspects of a double-page spread, such as pull quotes and Headlines. It means that when I transfer my photos to Photoshop, I will already have a clear idea of what I need to put in and where.

Therefore, now I can think more about how the different fonts and colour schemes will look and fit in with my plan. Meaning that I can focus more on the initial design as my layout has already been established.

Contents Page First Draft

This is my first contents page draft. I used the convention of including the magazine title in my contents to link the two together. However, as a first draft, I think it went OK but not amazing. To improve I need to make the page layout look more realistic and professional. I have realised that the Band Index serves little purpose and I think for my next draft I will rid of it and replace it with another feature story as I think I need to be more diverse with my contents page. I think there needs to be more information about what is inside the magazine, just as my Front Cover features more than one headline.

Contents Page Photos

These are first-hand images of when I went to see Taylor Swift in concert. I purposely took my camera to get these shots for my media project as I thought that it would be a good opportunity to feature someone who would already be set up on a stage. Therefore, I wouldn't have had to take photos in a studio with props. These photos are more realistic and fit the conventions of a music magazine more as they feature props like mics, guitars, stage lighting and apparatus.

These are good for my Contents Page as she will feature as the main story. Also, they are reasonably good quality photos so they look more professional. Whereas if I set a mini-stage up myself with a few models, it wouldn't look as realistic as the real thing in a massive stadium with hundreds of fans.

Contents Page Google Mock-Ups

Contents Page Draft

Second Draft Of Front Cover Music Magazine

Second Front Cover Photoshoot

Evaluation of Front Cover - First Draft

Firstly, my initial design for my front cover included a 4-member band. The time frame I had to get photos for my front cover was too short to sort out getting the band in. Therefore, I settled with having just one band member on the front cover for the draft so I could determine whether my idea of incorporating a flag would work. This therefore meant that I had to make slight changes to the main heading of my magazine. I kept the theme of my model being in a band by saying that the person on the front cover was getting the band back together.

Furthermore, I have still kept to the colour scheme of red, blue and yellow. I think this works well with my image because my model is first of all wearing blue and has the flag of Great Britain draped over his shoulders – reinforcing the fact that he’s in a British indie band. The colours in the feature pictures follows my conventions because there is red tinsel, therefore it fits in with the theme.

For my second draft I need to add a shadowed affect onto my text to make it stand out for and not look so 2-dimensional. The white text against the light background is hard to see; therefore I think it needs a black rim. Also, my title needs to be changed, as I don’t think it looks very professional. I aim to have a clean-cut title like Q magazine or NME – something a lot less fussy than the one on my current draft. Therefore, I need to play around with logos and font more before I settle with my final title.

There are evidently a lot of exclamatorys, I did this to make my text stand out more and to make it more exciting. It tells the reader/audience that the information is exclusive and important; therefore they will be more likely to buy my product. This is conventional throughout all magazines.

Finally, I feel as if my main heading needs to be more refined. It needs to stand out more on the page. Therefore, throughout the whole magazine draft, I need to make my features ‘pop’ out more to the reader. Last of all, the fact that the photos of Blur are free is not very convincing to the reader because within a magazine there are many photos and I don’t think someone would buy a magazine primarily for the photos inside. They’d want either a free ‘mega-sized'

First Front Cover Draft

Front Cover Music Magazine Plan