Analysis on first draft of contents page

This contents page was initially going to be the final contents page. As I observed the page, each day during our Media lesson I found that it’s rather distracting and looks more like a student’s magazine. I also got a few school mates to give me their frank opinions on the contents page. They all though that the colors are loud, especially the sunny yellow box with red and navy blue writing in it- they thought it was rather blinding. Some also said that it looks immature for a Media student, although they like the font of the ‘Inside BLAST BLAST BLAST’.

Having thought over the feed back that I got, I decided to completely amend my contents page as It looked no where near the genre ‘funky-pop’.

I agree, I am at fault and I should have thought about this a while ago and worked it out in my plan. Well, I guess the more we are exposed to different types of software like PSD, the more we are able to explore it and therefore we are able to think out of the box rather than incorporate the standard ideas into our work.

It was late, but I did do some extra research on different types of backgrounds. I went through books of graphic designing and magazines too, and got fascinated.

First draft of contents page

Final Front Cover Analysis

My final front cover is practically similar to the first draft. The only difference is that I added more text to it. It makes it look a little more busy and appealing. I would say that my magazine has a good balance of text and image

Final Front Cover

Analysis of the first draft of my front cover

On my main cover, I thought of using bright and attractive colors in order for it to stand out. I really liked the picture of the girl that I took, as the background colors were contrasting with the red hair on model/artist. I thought about playing with the conventions of a magazine, and thus I decided not to incorporate too many text boxes on the front cover, I wanted the picture to stand out. also, not all magazines have the barcodes on the front cover, and so I decided to eliminate that.

To make it a little more eye catching and ‘funky-pop’ sort, I decided to use colors that would go well with the outer navy blue part of the background. The fluorescent pink writing with a hint of white adds to a sense of ‘funky-pop’ and also works well with the font. Whereas the orange outlined title ‘BLAST’ is also appealing. As the title is orange, I thought of using more orange and thus I colored the strap line orange with navy blue writing in it, in order to stick to the conventions of colors.

First draft of my front cover

Questionnaire Results

What gender are you?

60% of the students I asked were male and the rest 40% were female. By viewing this trend, I decided that my magazine will be aimed at the female sector.

How much would you be willing to pay for a magazine?

47% said 2-3 pounds, 43% said 3-5 pounds and only 10% said 5+ pounds.

I guess, as I asked mainly students, they would of course look for the cheaper option as many of them are on budgets. Being realistic, I aimed at setting my magazine price at four pounds. The colored ink, the graphics, the paper and the labor would also be costly and thus, taking that into consideration, I decided to price my magazine at four pounds.

Would you rather prefer an image dominant cover with little text, or more text a fewer pictures?

53% prefer an image dominant magazine and 43% prefer and a text dominant magazine.

Students, being students would definitely go for a visual effect and the statistics clearly suggests that the students I interviewed preferred a more visual effect, thus majority of them selected the ‘image dominant’ option.

What type of music genres do you like to listen to more?

23% said ‘rock’ 3% said country, 30% said funky-pop and 60% said RnB.

Observing this trend, I decided to make a ‘funky pop’ magazine as it had a good number of students listening to that genre.

How often do you purchase a magazine?

Only 20% buy a magazine at a weekly basis, 90% on a monthly basis and 25% never buy a magazine. And thus, I selected the weekly option.