Music Magazine Evaluation

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  Here is my evaluation. I have used a website called prezi, as it makes powerpoint presentations more interesting instead of just writing out an essay.
Some of the writing may be a little small for you to read, but to zoom in you just need to click on it.

To get some feedback I asked my friends over social networking sites what they thought of my front cover. I posted my cover on facebook to my friends to see what they thought.
I asked my friends because they are the target audience of my magazine.

Using another social networking site, I asked my friends for their opinions over twitter.

My feedback was very positive, which I am pleased about.

Final double page spread

Here is my final double page spread.
I have stuck fairly similar to my original plan. I knew from my first ideas that I wanted a full page photo - a design which I have stuck to, however it did take a lot of planning for the photo to be just right. I found it difficult to get the right combination of photos and text on these two pages, and also to make the pages look corporate and part of a double page spread. 

Like my contents page, for the background of my text page, I have used a photo that I originally took in my cover photoshoot and changed the colouring on photoshop to a light sepia, so that you can see it but it does not distract away from the text.

The decisions for my full page photo and how I edited it, is on an earlier blogpost. Over all I think that all the colours refer to my original colour theme, and what stands out for me, is the red in the front models hair and lips, compliments the red writing on the other page.

Finished Contents Page

Here is my final contents page design.

I have explained my choices for the designs in my previous blog posts.

I have used five photos on my page, as I think they are very important to a contents page and make it more intereseting. I also think it looks effective to link the photos up with the page numbers.

I think my contents page and front cover have a corporate theme - with the pink righting,  dark, high contrast photos, black boxes and same font.  To make a magazine successful you need it to be indentifiable and I think I have achieved this as you can see a standard design in both the contents page and the front cover.

For the background of my contents page - I struggled with as I thought it looked to blank and plain.  So after a little trial and error,  I used a photo (one that I took in my first contents photo shoot) that I had manipulated to a very light sepia,  and covered the background with it. I think this looks better than the blank spaces as it looks more thought out and professional, and although most of the photo is covered up,  you can see the guitar at the bottom.

My Music Magazine

 This is the completed version of my front cover, contents page, and double page spread.

This is my front cover,  I have stuck closely to the original designs of my magazine cover plan. 
For my cover photo I have taken my inspiration from Q! and NME magazine overs, which featured close up photos of singers Adele, Florence and the machine and  Cheryl Cole. The close up photos add intensity to the compostition. I had a fairly clear idea from the beginning of what I wanted for my cover photo, and I have used this idea and fit it in with the style and design of my front page. I chose my model, because of her red and blonde hair, which represents attitude, as it is different and makes a statement. My model has fairly pale skin and has very dark makeup on,  this highlights the contrast of the dark and light tones and makes the darker tones stand out more.  The model wears black clothing, and rock styled jewellery (chains, a cross, big rings), and I have her leaning against a plain wall, which also represents attitude and intensity. I have manipulated this image using Adobe Photoshop CS5, by changing the contrast of the photo, which makes the model stand out and compliments the black clothing on light skin. I have also slightly increased the brightness and got rid of any blemishes in the skin, to ensure clarity in the picture. (I have explained my photoshopping technique and how I did it, in an earlier post). I think I have accomplished the 'rock chick' style with the  curly glossy hair, dark clothing and eye make up, rock style jewellery and intense expression. There is a slight shadow of the hair of the model which I left in when photoshopping the model as I like the lingering effect and think it adds volume.
Also when posing I asked the model to place her hand in front of her mouth, this is an action generally considered to be used when deep in thought, this increases the intensity, giving the impression the model has something on her mind.  In the photo the model looks into the camera as this addresses the reader and buyer of the magazine directly.
When placing the photo onto the background of the page, I set the original photo background to transparent so that it is separate from the background of the front cover and can overlap the masthead slightly. This makes the magazine look more professional, as I have thought about readers still being able to recognise the magazine. I think by covering part of some of the letters in the masthead shows how popular the magazine is by proving that it is easily identifiable and recogniseable without being able to read the whole masthead. It also shows the confidence and reassurance that the producer of the magazine, feels towards the magazines buyers. So I have incorporated this into my design as I think it makes my magazine look more professional and thought out.

Shown in my earlier posts,  I found creating a masthead very difficult. I wanted something fairly simple, but bold and recogniseable. I went through lots of different stages and ideas for my masthead, and eventually after surverying my target audience and getting their opinions, have created a suitible masthead for my magazine.
The title for my magazine is black, and in the font Elephant,  it is in a fairly big font, so it stands out on the page.  The main colour theme for my magazine is white, black and pink/red. This represents rock well, and are some of the main colours I think of when thinking about rock.  I have not made a background for my masthead and it is simply black lettering with a white background. This contrasts well and makes the black writing stand out well.
I think that my masthead font is very sophisticated and mature and the edging of the letters is striking and quite sharp, which relates to the rock genre. I was very conscious when making my magazine, that the style, layout and text would look too comical and childish. I think that by making the title simple and structured, I have stopped this from happening and my magazine looks professional and successfully aimed at the 16-25 age range.

Slightly underneath the masthead on the left, is the tagline.  'Tune into the music'  - simple and relates to a music magazine.
Keeping my magazine corporate,  all the text on the front page is in the same font as my masthead. The tagline is fairly small, nothing fancy, in black wrtiting, but I think that you can see it easily against the white background and it does not interupt anything on the front page.
Just underneath that is the cover stories text.  The writing is slightly bigger than the tagline, and is in capital letters. I think this makes it look more important on the page, and gives a 'you can't miss it' feel. To incorporate the pink/reds into the front cover I have written the top cover story in pink, the next in black and the next in pink again. This links all the colours and separates the different stories. The top story is 'March 2012 top hits', this is very relateable to music and top hits are very common in a music magazine, as the producer wants you to know that the magazine is up to date with all the latest music. The second story is 'Tour dates revealed'  I chose this because I think that it is important for the magazine to keep the readers up to date with not only the latest hits, but the latest music events, and this also highlights the range of articles and stories in my magazine.
The third cover story is 'World exclusive interviews' this is a persuasive technique as 'world exclusive' means its purely exclusive to this magazine, which persuades the reader to buy the magazine as they won't get that interview anywhere else. I have also put the 'world exclusive' in italics to highlight that phrase and show its importance. 
The main cover story for my magazine is on the lead singer of band Obscura, Katie C (model on cover photo). The heading for the cover story, simply 'Katie C' is in pink/red lettering,  this links to the other text colours and compliments the colours in the scarf of the model. I have placed a black box behind the text as the text would otherwise be split between the white background and the clothing of the model,  this makes the text look uneven and difficult to read. The black box behind my text, looked effective,  so I then decided to make it corporate to my magazine, and place the other text related to the cover story,  on top of black boxes. The other text for the cover story is in white,  one of the boxes behind the text is a circle,  this is the quote and statement for the cover story. This is an important part of a magazine, because a shocking, interesting quote draws the reader in. The bottom writing tells the readers there are -exclusive photos from the bands photoshoots. I have made sure that the text on the cover is interesting and makes people want to buy the magazine.  
When your magazine is lined up with other magazines on a rack, you want your magazine to jump out and have something different. Your front cover has to show the buyer what your magazine has to offer, and why the buyer should pick your magazine. Using the term exclusive, helps with this,  it shows that the magazine has something to offer that others don't and that is important as there are a wide range of other music magazines out there.

The date and price of my magazine are placed just under the masthead on the right. In fairly small plain black writing, the date is not a feature that you want to take up a lot of room, however you want to be able to see it. This helps the buyer keep up to date with each issue, and make sure they havent bought two of the same magazine.  The price I have placed just under the date, as it is important for the buyer to be aware of,  however not a main feature.

Finally in the bottom right of the page is the barcode.  It is important that the barcode is out of the way of any photos or text, but is needed on the cover, as the shop keeper needs to access it easily when scanning it at the till.

Overall I am happy with my design, I think that it looks like a magazine front cover and I have had positive feedback from people in the target audience. I like the use of colours in the cover and the corporate image that is set by the same font of text and layout.

Development on cover design

After putting my magazine together,  the contents page and double page spread with my cover, I felt like my cover had too much white. I also read through some of my earlier notes in media about front covers, and not making the background white as it looks less planned out and professional.  So I knew that I could not add anything to my front page, as it would pack everything together and make it look cluttered, so I thought about changing the colour of the background slightly to a light grey.

I tried a few different samples and surveyed 5 of my friends to see which one they preferred.

4 out of 5 of the people I asked said the top left sample, as they said the darker grey didn't suit the colour theme,  and the top left was only a very light grey.
I agree with them as I think that the offset white shows a little colour in the background, without distracting away from the rest of the page. Looking back now I think that the white background was too bright.  I will use the top left design in my magazine.

Front cover survey

I found it really difficult to finalise my front cover. I had a few designs which I was not sure would be most popular, so to get the best design for my magazine, I decided to try it out on my target audience.
I emailed 18 of my friends over facebook - a mixture of girls and boys, and asked them to decide which cover they could see as being a real magazine.

                                                            1

 2

The first cover got 8/18 votes and the second cover got the other 10 votes.

For the first cover I recieved comments such as: The cover has less white, which makes it look more planned out and proffessional; I prefer the title with the black background as it stands out more; There is a definate corporate image which is targetted for girls - this makes it different for other music magazines.

The second cover recieved comments like: Less cluttered and more professional; I can imagine picking up this magazine in a store and buying it; I like how the black and white background differs from the pink writing of 'Katie C' as it emphasizes it a lot more - making it attention grabbing.

75% of the males that I asked chose the second magazine cover and all said that they would read it, I think this shows that although I have primarily targetted women, males are interested too, which shows a successful magazine. I think that because of this I will go with the second cover, I think the feedback was overall better and it got a few more votes. I am fairly confident with my choice.

Magazine article research

For my double page spread, I will need to write an article, that is appealing and interesting. So I have decided to research content from music magazine pages, to give me an idea of what to include.

Here is an article on Lily Allen,  the headline for the article stands out, is interesting, and it makes people want to read it.  The headline of my article I think needs to be gossip, and shocking, so that people are interested. Even though it is a music magazine, I think that this heading shows that you don't just have to include reference to music as the only part of the article. I think that a quote makes the headline more effective as it comes directly from the artist, which shows primary sources.

Here is an example of part of an article layout. Its in the format of an interview which is very common in magazine.

I think for my magazine double page spread I will include an interview as it is easier to layout and write,  also it is more interesting as you are getting answer first hand answers from the artist(s). It is a lot more easier to read as you are able to glance at the article and there is not too much text, which my target audience will not like.

Planning Process

As I have been designing my magazine, I have added to a powerpoint showing the changes I have made and why,  and explaining the different stages I have gone through.
I have uploaded my powerpoints onto slideshare.

CLICK HERE for the powerpoint analysis of my front cover planning process.
CLICK HERE for the powerpoint analysis of my contents page planning process.
CLICK HERE for the powerpoint analysis of my double page spread planning process.

Contact Sheet

Here I have a contact sheet for my original photos for the magazine cover, contents page and double page spread.