Front Cover Feedback

I have asked the following questions to get feedback for my magazine cover and the following answers are the results of what people said.

What would you say is bad about my magazine cover?

- The text in the puff needs to be easier to read.

- Maybe use a different shape for the puff.

- Although the price is clear, it could be made bolder to stand out more.

- Make the bold words stand out more.
- Make edition number and date clearer or bigger.
- Make taglines stand out more
- Since the title colour is black, it is hard to read letter going over the models hair. For example: the R might look like a B
- There is a black background behind the text and in the bottom right hand corner, it conflicts with the models jacket.
- There not be enough writing or text in some places.

What are some good points about my magazine cover?

- Laid out and organised well.

- The font is easy to read against the background.

- Good colour scheme.
- Nice title and use of alliteration in "Bad Boy Boaty". Makes it sound catchy.
- Different use of fonts.
- The price is clear.
- Good use of different colours
- Nice overhead title.
- Title stands out
- Title font looks good.
- Attractive to look at.
- Good image.
- Like the spaciousness of the cover.
- The model clearly stands out.

Double Page Spread Research

Q Magazine Double Page Spread

The clothing that Jay Z is wearing could be seen as representative of the genre of music which he creates and sings, rap. He is wearing a chain, what looks to be a plain black T-shirt and black sunglasses. All of these items could be associated with rap music. Also, the page is 50% text and 50% image. I personally don't think that is a great idea as, although there will need to be a lot of text, too much text in one place can put people off reading it. Also, it seems like the colour scheme includes red as the image is shaded red on the left hand side and there is a big, bold J in the middle of the text page. The J draws the attention of the reader and the letter J would have been chosen as it is the first letter of Jay Z's name and you usually see in articles that the first letter of the article is usually made bold. The colour red would have been red as the main  colour of Q magazine is also red, so the colour scheme is continuous throughout the magazine.

Rolling Stone Magazine Double Page Spread

The page is split unevenly as the picture is larger than the text. There may not be enough text on this particular double page spread, but I think that having a larger picture is a good thing as it looks more evenly spread out. Continuing, the title of the double page spread has been made bold, black and quite large. Because of this, the title stands out against the background and draws the readers attention. There is also what may be the magazine title or edition as it says "women who rock 2012". Finally, since the colour scheme is black and white, the picture of the model draws the readers attention, not only because of the size of the image but because there is no other competing colours on the double page spread. This makes the picture of the model the main feature of the double page spread.

Kerrang Magazine Double Page Spread

For this double page spread, the different pieces of text are clearly separated by the question being asked being in a different colour, pink, than the answer. Again, there is less text compared to the image. Finally, there are 2 different boxes in the top right hand corner of the magazine and the bottom left hand corner. The box in the bottom left hand corner is a quote from the interview as it reads "I'm not one for advice, I'm one for mistakes" and the box in the top right hand corner may be the bands name so that the reader can easily see what the double page spread/interview is about. I have looked at other images of the double page spread online and the text in the top right corner box says "The Pretty Reckless", so I assume it is the band or singers name.

Billboard Magazine Double Page Spread

Finally, this double page spread also has different sections of text separated, but instead of a different font colour showing the different separations, some of the text is made bold. There is more text compared to the image, but unlike the other double page spreads, I think that the text still looks quite evenly spread and nicely laid out. This may also be because there is text either side of the image and the text isn't all on one side of the magazine. I like the look of this double page spread and I may take inspiration from it when I make my own.

Mojo Magazine Double Page Spread

In my opinion, I think that this double page spread look good. The image and the text fits neatly on the page and is quite unlike most other magazine double page spreads. However, it shares features with the other double page spreads as it has the text separated into clearly divided columns and there are also quotes and other bits of text which stand fill in the wasted space.

After looking at these double page spreads, I have an idea of what I will do for my double page spread. I will try and do an interview with the main model of my magazine cover, Bad Boy Boaty. I will try and lay it out in the same way as the Billboard and Kerrang magazines have been. I quite like the idea of the text being like separate boxes, but I think I may struggle to organise it neatly as well as the pictures. The Mojo magzine double page spread also appeals to me. I think it is different and the text and the image all fits neatly on the page.

Contents Page Research

This is a Prezi that I have made about other magazine contents pages. I have looked at Q magazine, Kerrang! and Four Four Two contents pages to see the different features and layouts used in preparation for the production of my contents page.

Draft Front Cover

This is my final draft cover. There isn't much more I think I can add. It is very different to the earlier draft as I needed a way to make everything fit on the page neatly and for different parts of the magazine to stand out. I placed the masthead at the top of the page because, looking at other magazine covers, that is where they are usually placed. This may be because when magazines are lined up on a shelf, the bottom of the magazine is covered up so it would make sense that the masthead is visible at the top. Continuing, also for the masthead, I used a font that I thought went well with a rock magazine. It wasn't a font style that I included in the questionnaire but then the fonts I did include in the questionnaire probably wouldn't have suited a rock magazine. The colour scheme is slightly different to what I had in mind at the start of making my magazine cover. I wanted to use a black and white colour scheme with maybe a little bit of blue as these were the colours suggested by the questionnaire results. But then I realised, it would have been hard to make things stand out by using these colours. Instead I used a red and yellow colour scheme to make the cover lines stand out but still used a kind of black and white colour scheme with the background and the picture. Also, regarding the picture, I chose to stand in a pose that made the model look quite hard and manly, I tried to do this by standing with my arms crossed to show this but it could also come across as me looking like I don't care at all. Finally, for the puff and some of the cover line descriptions. In the puff, I made the words "free" and "special" bold and in some of the cover line descriptions I made the words "best", "exclusive", "latest", "many" and "hot" bold so that they stand out more to the reader.

Age Stereotypes

This is a Prezi I have made about our classwork on how different age groups are associated with different stereotypes.