Sunday 27 February 2011

Audience Feedback

I decided to conduct a questionnaire to give to members of my target audience, so that I can receive feedback. I printed off ten copies and distributed them to males and females as my music magazine is aimed at both.

These are the questions I came up with:

Questionnaire
1.    What do you think of the colour scheme?
2.    Would you consider buying this magazine? Why?
3.    What stands out the most on the front cover? Why?
4.    What could be done to improve the front cover? Give detail.
      5.    What do you think of the cover image?
6.    What do you think of the layout on the contents page?
7.    What do you think are the strengths of the contents page? Give detail.
8.    What do you think are the weaknesses of the contents page? Give detail.
9.    Do you think the double page spread looks professional? Why?
10.  What do you think of the images on the double page spread?
11.  What could be done to improve the double page spread? Give detail.
12.  What do you like about the double page spread and why?
13.  Do you think that the overall production looks professional? Why?  

14.   Do you think it could compete with existing music magazines and why?








After distributing my questionnaire to ten people from my target audience I realised that the responses were extremely positive, and in the questions where I asked for improvements the changes would be easy to do, such as the black and white images being made brighter. The target audience generally thought that the contrasting colours worked well together and that they thought it was bright and bold. Furthermore they thought that all the images were well taken and looked professional. Most of the people said that the main cover image suited the indie genre well as well as looking eye catching. All the people that I asked thought that the images that separated the feature and regular columns turned out to be an effective layout. The main thing people thought were weaknesses on the contents page was that they thought there wasn't enough colour. Each of the people I asked said that the double page spread looked professional because of the layout and photographs. Finally everyone said that the overall production looked professional as they said it looks like a real magazine, therefore they said that it could compete with existing magazines.

Thursday 10 February 2011

Production - Additional Images

As I had changed the layout on my contents page I had room for a final image. However I had none spare so I had to conduct another photoshoot.





Wednesday 19 January 2011

Production - Screen Shots of my Double Page Spread

Again, around every 10 minutes I took a screen shot of the production.

To begin with I added the document to the double pages altering its size so it fit. I then changed the questions into a different colour to make them stand out, and I did them blue so that it would match the colour scheme of my magazine.
I then decided on the image I was going to use and imported it onto the double page spread.
Next I added a quote on to the picture and edited my image in photoshop so that I could use a unique font for the headline. Furthermore I added a drop capital at the start of the article. This is my first draft.


After looking at my first draft I decided to make the image an entire page and get rid of the quote. The font of the headline was too similar to the font on the front cover, so I changed it to the font to impact to make it more basic. Furthermore I changed the drop capital to blue to make it look more interesting and made the line count 5 so it gives more of an impact. Due to making the image bigger I had to add an extra page to put the rest of the text on.

Next I added a black text box and put in a quote from one of the band members to break up the text slightly, so it entices the reader.

This is the additional page I had to create as my interview would not fit on one page. As there was a lot of white space after the article had ended, I had to import another picture that I took during a photo shoot to fill it up.

As I had developed a new colour scheme I needed the double page spread to follow this so I changed the headline of the article to red, the drop capital and also the quotation marks in the quote I selected. I also made the text box bigger so that I could fill the empty space on the third page. I also got rid of the white box behind the headline as I had changed the colour of the text to red so you could see it better against the photograph. Finally I added words and photos by on the first page.


As I had made the text box bigger on the second page, the gap had closed off. Furthermore I increased the size of the image.

Production - Screen Shots of my Contents Page

Roughly every 10 minutes I took screen shots of my contents page to show its production. 

First of all I added the title Contents to the page and wrote down all the regular and feature articles that would appear in the magazine. Next I constructed a picture box so I could insert an image.

I then chose an image that I wanted on my contents page and moved the feature column to the other side,as once I had finished adding all the articles both regular and features could not fit in the one column.


I felt that my contents page was lacking colour so I added a strip of blue at the top, and I changed the text colour to white so that it would be the same colour scheme as the front cover.

I then added a black text box to put behind the text regulars and features to make them stand out more. Next I imported another image and tried to find a layout that would fit them all on.

I imported my final image and found a suitable layout that would fit everything on. I moved the feature column so that I could fit all of my images on and have a subscription advert in the corner, whereby I have added a picture of my front cover. This is my first draft of my contents page.

After looking at my first draft I realised that the layout wasn't very effective so I put the regulars and features in contrasting columns again. I next moved my subscribe section from the bottom of the page to the top to fill up the space next to the word CONTENTS which gives the page a better overall look. Since I moved the subscribe section I had to create a box for me to import a final image.

To fit in with the colour scheme I changed the colour of the regulars and features boxes from black to red. As I had room for an additional image I imported another photograph of  Lydia Owen, who has a feature article within the magazine. Finally I also had to change the picture of the front cover in the subscribe section as I had made changes to it, such as the red and blue colour scheme.

I had to take an additional picture as it looked strange with two very similar images, so I invented a new band. Therefore I had to change one of the feature articles so that it would be cohesive to the image.

Monday 10 January 2011

Production - Screen Shots of my Front Cover

Front cover

Roughly every 10 minutes I took screen shots of my front cover to show how I have created it.
Here I have just started to create my magazine front cover and added the title.

I added a barcode and added my positioning statement.

I wrote all of my coverlines on the cover, however I don't like it all being black.

Since I discovered from my questionnaire results that the target audiences favourite colour was blue I decided to change the text colour. I also wanted my title to stand out more so I made it bigger, changed the colour and added a white outer glow by going into layer then layer style. As the title covered part of the main image I copied the main image put it in front and used the rubber to reveal the title behind the image. Moreover, since the outer glow on the title was white I thought it would be more appropriate to use white text on the cover. I also moved the price of the magazine onto the top of the barcode as well as the web address because there was a bare space in the corner which I felt needed to be filled.

I continued to add more coverlines to fill some of the spaces, keeping to the new blue and white colour scheme.

Afterwards I decided that I needed an extra coverline on the right hand side as it was too bare.

After looking at my front cover I decided to change the artists name due to the fact that I had already used the word Indie several times within the coverlines. Next I moved the title down so that I coud fit the positioning statement above it. I made the barcode smaller (by doing ctrl t) after I realised that it would be too big once I printed it off. At the bottom of the magazine I added a strip listing bands and artists that would feature in the magazine by creating 2 separate shapes so I could fill them in, in different colours Furthermore I moved the price under the title of the magazine.


To make the main coverline stand out more I changed the colour of the rest of the other coverlines from blue to black. Moreover there was too much blue on the cover so this was another reason why I changed them to black. I also increased the size of the artist's name.

When the front cover was printed off I noticed that the blue was fairly dark and wasn't eye catching enough. Therefore I made the blue brighter by using the fill tool, and changed the name of the magazine to a bright red which stands out a lot more. I also made the main coverline slightly bigger by using ctrl t.

To make the main coverline stand out against the cover image I put an outer glow around the artists name and quotation marks.