Final Front Cover and Contents Page

I feel I made good progress on both of these areas due to learning more about layout, text and photography. Layout was a key part of this as my earlier pieces often had a lot of white, unused space. However, with these pieces I learned where to add more text to fill in spaces and to make pictures bigger and bolder to detract attention away from those empty areas.Additionally, the layout was something I had to work on as often my work was not balanced. I solved this by sticking to a strict column system in both pieces of work. In addition, I felt I have implemented a house style, something I struggled on before, by sticking to a colour scheme, using the same fonts and through small design details such as , including 'The Buzz, Weekly Edition, at the bottom of each inside page.Moreover, my skills in photography have improved through using a more appropriate model compared to my first photoshoot and directing the models in the best way to pose.

Contents Page Research

I have chosen this magazine as it is based on the charts, meaning it will be more useful when planning how my contents page will look as I want my page to correlate with other magazines of the same genre.  On the upper left hand corner the logo of the magazine is placed. This helps to continue the house style of the magazine through appearing more consistent as the magazine title is implemented on all pivotal pages. The readers are also reminded of the magazines title, making it more memorable. Consistency is also developed through there being a clear colour scheme implemented on the contents page. The colours are blue, black and yellow – all eye-catching colours attracting the reader’s attention and ma

king the page hard to ignore. An organized layout is displayed through there being a clear layout of three columns, this is to make it easier for the reader to direct themselves to the pages they want to see in the magazine. Each section is also separated by sub-headings making the magazine layout clearer. To add interest and make the page more appealing to the eye a variety of pictures have been included. Moreover, not only one artist is featured but several making the page more interesting as the reader gains a further insight into other features. A chart table is also placed to the left of the page making the reader fully aware of the genre the magazine uses. It also adds interest to the page by giving the reader something interesting to read already. The title of the page ‘Contents’ dominates the page, meaning the reader knows what exactly what page they are on. It also adds interest to the page and makes it more eye-appealing as the title has design features placed on it.

Original Photos

Front and Contents Page Draft

Photoshoot 1

Further Contents Page Research

Although this contents page does not fit in with my music genre I felt it was important to research many different types of contents pages to get a better feel for how to present mine and for more ideas. On this contents page I like how well it fits within the rock genre which 'Kerrang!' specialises in due to its dark colours and bold text. I hope to make my contents page fit well with my music genre also through the use of colour and font. I plan to do this by only using sans-serif font meaning the modern font reflects the modern chart music I will feature. Additionally, my colour scheme of red, white and black, will fit in well with my music genre through being bright though the red but also modern through the contrasting black and white. This correlates with my music magazine as chart music is often happy and bright but also current. Moreover, on the 'Kerrang!' contents page the picture of Slash at the top is well-taken, however I do not feel it fits well with the page due to being too big compared to the text. The columns on this piece are something I particularly like due to it making the page appear organised and easier to read. I hope to use this in my own contents page to make it easier for the reader to read the page and to give me a strong layout.

I like this contents page due to its brights colours the the attention-grabbing picture. The picture is well taken and reflects the youthful, fun vibe of the magazine. Moreover, the prop of the guitar makes it clear that the magazine is based on music and is a fun prop for the magazine. Despite liking the picture I do not think a picture like this would fit well with my work due to not being modern or sleek enough. However, I will take important aspects away from this such as the importance of colour and lighting in contents page photographs. As the pink colour of the guitar helps the picture stand out more, whilst the lighting on her face means the photograph looks more professional. However, one aspect of this contents page I do not like is there only being one column to display the features of the magazine. This is due to it looking crowded on one side and not being as well balanced due to the picture taking such precedence over the page. I would not just include only one column on my contents page as I want the text to be well spread out and include nearly all articles on my magazine, not just the features. Another thing I will take away from this contents page is how I want nearly all of my colours to match as on this page there is a great mix of colours that do not necessarily go together such as, pink and red. In my contents page I plan to only use a very limited number of colours to make it appear more neat and modern. I also feel I put too many colours in my preliminary task so would want to avoid this in the future.

I like this contents page a lot mainly due to the use of red. 'Q' magazine use the red only in places where they want to highlight important things such as the page numbers, important featured and the issue number. This is something I would want to use in my own contents page as I feel it is very good at bringing attention to certain areas of the page, whilst the bright colour makes it appear more modern. However, again I do not like the use of just one column as I feel it makes the page look cramped as all the text is fitted into only one place, meaning everything featured cannot be viewed from the reader.  Moreover, I do not particularly like the photographs used as I , personally, prefer all photographs to match and compliment each other. However, in this many different colours and types of photography have been used meaning the pictures clash but ,on one hand, this does make the page stand out more. A particular feature I enjoy is the title and text below as I feel it continues a good house style through mentioning the magazine name again and keeping with the same colour scheme; the house style makes the magazine easily identifiable. I would like to include design elements such as this in my own contents page as I feel it would make it look more professional through implementing a house style further. Furthermore, another aspect of this contents page I like is the mode of address such as, '140 song to download now!' which entices the reader in through being direct but also the use of punctuation like the exclamation mark makes the text stand out more and the readers attention is more likely to be grabbed. 

Overall, I feel I have learnt a great deal from researching further. This is due to it allowing me a greater insight into things I want to include such as, text in three columns and a direct mode of address. 

Contents Page First Draft

I like the continued colour scheme in this piece, however I feel it needs improvement. This is due to there being too much white space, whilst the pictures are not big enough. To solve this I will add more text or underline the title to fill in the white space. Moreover,  I will make the borders thicker on the pictures and enlarge them to fill up white space. However, I do like the chart table as I feel it emerses my magazine in its genre and establishes how my magazine front cover is based on chart music. Another detail I quite like is including the front cover and issue number on the upper right hand corner as I feel it makes the page look more professional and interesting, but there is still white space around this area which I need to fill.