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.