2. Front Covers Compared
Masthead taking up ~50% of width
Red/White colour scheme
Listing down the side
Key Cover Image
Sticker
Some form of banner
3. Analysis
My design has been inspired by Q and NME Magazine who also aim their
magazine at the Indie genre.
Having the masthead cover ~50% of the page is similar to how NME and Q’s
mastheads are displayed on the page. I decided to go against the red and white
convention and go with a blue instead. I believe this helps my magazine stand
out more from the others currently available. I have used similar fonts but tried
to vary some of them to give the magazine a more unique feel to it.
NME have packed their front cover full of information, Q try and keep the text
minimal on their front cover. I decided to go somewhere in-between the two
magazines to try and get the best of both worlds, while still making sure the
cover image was clearly visible and was not obstructed by any text.
My featured artist is in a much larger font than anything else on the page, this
is to draw attention to the fact the magazine has content based around
somebody important and to catch the readers eye to enTune itself.
4. Contents Pages Compared
Same layout as Q Magazine.
Competition/Saving Money, same idea as NME
Cross-media Convergence
Page Numbers with masthead included
5. Analysis
My design is greatly inspired by Q magazine’s layout for their content
page. It is nearly laid out exactly as Q magazines is. I decided to do this
based on audience feedback I received early on in the task informing
me that the layout Q magazine had used was very readable and made
for a very professional looking contents page. I took this advice from
my target audience and applied it to enTune’s contents page.
I used the same heading “Features” and “Reviews” as I felt that it was
more appropriate for my target audience than simply “Contents”. I also
have split the page up similar to how Q have done by having a
background for the main parts of the layout. Features and Reviews are
in roughly the same location too. This should help a reader to recognise
enTune as an indie magazine and could potentially have readers from
Q purchase both magazines.
One of the things that I didn’t see Q or NME magazine include was
technological convergence. I feel that in the current era, it is vital to the
success of any business to include technological convergence,
especially in the form of social networking for my target audience.
7. Analysis
Looking through my audience feedback, I found that people
preferred the vintage effect on the photo of Lady Gaga in Q
Magazine. I decided to re-use this same style in enTune’s double
page spread, but I decided to go further and have the images
appear as part of a photo shoot and have them with an old-style
polaroid effect also. Audience feedback has told me that I have
done this successfully and that the images really create a vintage
affect and engage the reader.
The amount of images on this page has been shown through
audience feedback to be successful in making the article seem
less daunting and boring to read. This will help when people
come to buy the magazine and are flicking through.
The colour scheme should hopefully portray the uni-gender side
of the magazine and not single out a single gender.
8. Sketches > Drafts Front Cover
Stage 1: Initial Sketch of Stage 2: With feedback I received from my
sketch, I went ahead and drafted a layout of my
how I want the layout to be. magazine that I thought would look quite
This was based off market good. I didn’t include the banner at the top on
this stage. This is a mockup using artists that I
research into similar was inspired by for the magazine. I didn’t
include the angled banner under the masthead
magazines of my chosen in this draft.
genre.
9. Drafts > Product Front Cover
Stage 3: My Initial draft using
my artist and my edited image.
Audience feedback told me I
should include the banner so I
included it in this version. My
audience feedback told me
that there wasn’t enough text
on the page and that the text
was too hard to read.
Stage 4: In response to my
audience feedback, I included
more text and changed the
colours of the text, I included a
sticker as somebody suggested
it to me as a regular
convention. A drop-shadow
was added to the banner at the
top in an attempt to make it
stand out more on the page.
After numerous changes, this
is my final front cover.
10. Sketches > Drafts Contents
Stage 1: Initial Sketch of how I want Stage 2: With feedback I received from
the layout to be. This was based off my sketch, I went ahead and drafted a
market research into similar layout of my contents page that I
magazines of the indie genre. This thought looked good. This is roughly
design will be changed as audience the same layout my final product uses.
feedback suggested the image was Audience feedback told me I should try
and include a competition feature, so I
too large. have done so in the next version.
11. Drafts > Product Contents
Stage 3: My Initial draft using my
artist and my edited image. This is
roughly want my final product
looks like as you can see from the
two images here. My target
audience informed me that most
magazines included page numbers
on the images to make it easy to
see where the article was. There
was a lot of white space so I added
in social networking. My audience
told me that the features box was
too hard to read and that there was
not enough information about
each feature.
Stage 4: In response to my
audience feedback, I included
more text and changed re-
formatted the way I displayed the
features list and the page numbers.
I made sure all the images were
perfectly aligned and included
social networking in my final
version.
12. Sketches > Draft Double Spread
Stage 1: Initial Sketch of how I want the Stage 2: With feedback I received from
layout to be for my double page spread. my sketch, I drafted the layout of my
I had this based on my research into magazine using Calvin Harris as my
other magazines. When I asked my artist and “lorem ipsum” as my text
target audience what they thought filler. I was unsure about this design and
about this, I was informed that the asked my audience feedback what they
band image took up too much room, as thought. They suggested a use a layout
such I changed it for the next version. which you can see in the next version.
13. Draft > Product Double Spread
Stage 3: This is my final draft of my
double page spread. After asking my
target audience what they liked and
didn’t like about the page, I found
that the text was too difficult to read,
that Nicole’s head in the middle
image would be in the middle of a
fold, and that the article didn’t look
very professional.
Stage 4: In response to my audience
feedback, I changed the colour of the
text, and played around with the
contrast of images, I have made the
text much more readable and split
the article up into 2 different
columns. This should help to create a
more professional look to the double
page spread itself. The main image of
Nicole is now on the left hand side of
the page, and the image running
down the middle of the page will not
fold her face in half. This is my final
version of my double page spread.
