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Final Versions

Final Double Page Spread

Above is my third and final DPS version. In my second version I focused on the first, text based page. In this amendment, I added a QR code, gradient background, credits and article accents.

In order to maintain consistency within my house style, I have used: a monochrome image similarly to the contents page, the same gradient from the front cover, the same body font from the contents page and cover, continuation of grid widths from contents page, same page number size/placement, and the end symbol is a square version of the masthead. On this basis, I believe this DPS has a strong continuation of house style.

Bringing in elements from the preliminary College Magazine and primary research, I have included a QR code within the DPS. On the last page of the Issuu document here, I asked my target audience if they would like to see interactive content in the magazine. Whilst the response was lacking, I was keen to involve the readers in as many ways possible, and a QR code is a feature which whilst drawing attention, does not distract the reader from the main content. Using the same process as the College Magazine here, I've used the code to offer 'behind the scenes clips' which will further appear to fans of the artist.

I showed this version to the focus group, and the one amendment which was suggested was to make the text a slightly lighter teal. As I was concerned with maintaining the house style, I wanted to stay true to my colour choices, and have decided to dismiss this comment and uphold the consistency across the design.

Own Advert Design

When presenting the magazine, within my overall flatplan I have added space for an advert from Alt Magazine itself, placed on the page after the contents page. Instead of being a third party advertisement, I intended for this section to advertise a subscription service for the magazine. As the magazine is released monthly and costs £3.50, to buy a years worth would cost £42. With any subscription comes a discount, so I decided upon a 25% discount, which is large enough to interest potential subscribers whilst still maintaining a profit for the magazine itself. As an added incentive to this £31.50 offer, I have included an app for the magazine as well as an offer of exclusive online content.

My primary research showed that 80% of the target audience own a smartphone, suggesting that an app would be another platform to extend the convergence of the magazine. By making this available on the two sector-leading platforms Apple and Android, this widens the scope for possible downloads. By integrating push notifications into the app, this will help keep Alt Magazine in the readers thoughts, strengthening the readership.

In order to exploit an integral part of the magazine further, the promise of exclusive content only for subscribers conforms to a point raised in my primary research; 55% and 70% like to know about new music and technology (respectively) before anyone else. This majority figure means the addition of this content is enticing to the reader.

As this advert is from the magazine itself, I was keen to maintain the house style, especially against the contents page. For this reason, I used the same grid margins as the contents page and DPS, as well as using the same light teal colour from the regulars section of the contents page. As always, the fonts remain the same throughout the publication.

I created the app image from the masthead 'A', overlaying it with a transparent gradient. The mock device is created using two different rounded rectangles. The only elements of this page which I did not create myself are the apple and android logos, taken from here and here.

Normally, the contents page would not be on the page after the front cover, and in the overall flatplan I have allowed two full page third party advertisements on the 2nd and 3rd pages, meaning that when the magazine is finally presented, while it may appear straight after the front cover, this would not be the case in a full magazine.

Final Front Cover

Above is the final version of my front cover. The only amendment which needed to be made as a result of the focus group was to enlarge the price. I did originally have it quite large, but I then minimised it to the same size as the issue number for the second draft. As a result of the focus group, I marginally enlarged the price, making a subtle difference which will highlight this element further.

Final Contents Page

Based on the amendments made in this post, above is the second contents page draft. By sticking to the monochrome images, I believe the aesthetics of the page are heightened. Despite, changing the food image in the previous post, I have once again altered the image to feature the original two plates. As well as working well in black and white, the two plates signify dining with another, as the article would portray. As a direct result of the focus group feedback, I have changed the content headers to a dark teal, adding a variation of the existing house style in order to further strengthen the aesthetics of the page.

I informally showed this to the focus group once again, and they all recognised the changes which they suggested, and were happy with design of this page. I did place both the colour draft and this draft next to each other, and they all agreed that this version was more aesthetically pleasing. For this reason, I am confident to make this my final version.

During the process of creating this final contents page, I have adhered to all of the comments from both the peer feedback and focus group. I believe this final version has considered and adhered to the target audiences wishes, whilst retaining my original design intentions.

Contents Page Amendments from Focus Group

As noted in this post, the main point raised for the contents page was the use of full colour images rather than the monochrome versions. Below is a recording of these changes created by using the screen capture element of Quicktime Player. I shall show the amended draft to the group to ask their opinion of the change.

Below is the result of the changes made in the video above. The images and social buttons have all been changed to full colour, and the content titles have been changed from the dark grey to the dark teal. Personally, I like the title colour changes as they subtly enforce the strong house style, yet I am not fully convinced that the full colour images fit in with the aesthetics of the page. 

The main element of the page which I found the most distracting was the food section. The image appeared over saturated, and was quite distracting. I was still keen to stick to my revised flatplans as much as possible, and in order to do this, I used another one of my images which originally featured two plates. These could have connotations of the act of eating lunch, but I find this too complicated in full colour.

Despite the aforementioned cluttered aesthetics of the image, I feel that this image still has potential. In order to work around this, I used photoshop to edit out the background, leaving just the one plate in the foreground. I shall use this image to replace the previous food image in the contents page to both aid the aesthetics as well as cater to the target audience's wishes.

Below is a draft version of the contents page with the changes a direct result of the feedback from the focus group. Changes include: full colour images, replacement of food image to one plate crop, content titles changed from dark grey to dark teal, and the side bar colour changed to background colour of front cover. 

Whilst these changes are from the focus groups feedback, I personally feel that the full colour images are too distracting against the general aesthetics of the page. Whilst I think the food image is clearer than the one in the original draft, when pairing this page against the front cover, while the full colour remains the same, the tones in the images aren't consistent.

Upon showing the original contents page draft (featuring the black and white images) and this amended draft, they originally preferred aspects of the colour version. However, when pairing this against the cover page, they agreed that the house style was carried across more strongly through the first draft. Looking back to the peer assessment post here, the feedback of the original colours used in the first draft are well received. As the black and white choice has been reinforced by this, I shall edit the original draft to include elements from these amendments.

Second DPS Draft

Based on amendments made in this post.

Focus Group

In order to gain feedback on my third front cover draft and first contents page draft, I conducted a focus group consisting of my target audience. This included 5 females and one male pictured below, whom are all aged between 16-17 years old. As my target audience is aimed at mainly females aged 16-21 years old, this offers a portion of my target audience. Despite this, from my research I have considered this age group as a whole, so I do not believe that the majority opinions from this selection will be overly different than those of 20-21 year olds per say.

The main aim of this focus group was to gather honest opinions about the front cover and contents page. Because of this, I aimed to not steer the conversation too much, allowing opinions and comments to come through. Below is the voice recording of the focus group paired with annotations referencing the areas which they are referring to:

To further summarise, the main points raised were:

• Professional looking masthead - especially integration of guitar
• Aesthetically pleasing colour scheme which carries well across both pages
• Well organised content aided by columns
• Price too small
• Contents page too monochrome - images in colour
• Integration of another colour - red from lips

Overall, I am pleased with this feedback from my target audience. The fact that subtle details - including the guitar masthead and refinement of colours in the house style - are popular both prove my primary research as well as justify the change of masthead design. The conventional style of the contents page also proved popular, with the group unanimously agreeing that the columns are organised and make it easy to find content.

As mentioned in the clip, the price was originally larger in the first draft, but after my personal critical evaluation of the front cover I felt that the price was too big, distracting away from the main cover line. The group seemed unsure if a change was necessary, but such a small element like this can always be revised, and perhaps increasing the size slightly may make this content easier to obtain.

The monochrome images was a deliberate choice as to aid the house style. I felt that the full colour images were too distracting against the quite sleek design, and I did not want to overcomplicate this. However, this was a concern raised in the focus group, so I shall experiment with changing the images to full colour or perhaps changing the main image of the cover page to monochrome to further the conventions.

The addition of another colour was also noted, with the red from the cover artist's lips a specific example. Personally, I feel that the unanimous response to the current colour scheme of teal/grey does not need to be added to, so I shall refrain from integrating another colour. However, I could always exploit the darker teal used for the editorial text into the title elements of the contents page.

Critical Evaluation of First DPS Draft

Before gaining feedback from my target audience regarding the first double page spread draft, I printed a rough copy of the page in order to refine grammar and various other elements which weakened the overall composition of the page.

Above is the first revision of the page. I mainly focused on limiting the body text in order to have more room for other elements, hence not making the page look cramped. Grammatical errors have been highlighted, as well as elements which aren't as impactful as they should be. Namely, the standfirst appeared to blend into the body text, the pull quote did not add impact and was lacking quote marks, the subheading seemed incomplete, and the word credits were in the same weight. 

The image above demonstrates the revised changes to the standfirst and body text, as well as the removal of the pull quote and underlined standfirst. As the body text has been shortened by the changes, this allows space for the header to be moved down, yet this would be greatly limited by the inclusion of a pull quote. For the moment, I like how the text appears less cramped, although the large spaces left from the justified text are quite distracting. For this reason I shall experiment with having the text aligned to the left, which whilst creating a jagged margin, will remove the space errors.

This final image shows the last adjustments I needed to make in order to achieve the second draft of the DPS. Here I have added two pull quotes in a similar format to the original ones, but instead placing the lines at the side rather than top and bottom. Aligning the pull quotes proved difficult, however I thought it was vital in order to continue the clean lines of the page. Furthermore, I have added a small content section where there is information about a product endorsed by the artist, which is common for interviews to plug a product.

By focusing on the one page, I was able to notice details which may have been overlooked should I have focused on both pages. In my third draft, I shall focus on the other image-dominated page.

Double Page Spread First Final Draft

Construction of First DPS Draft

Using the same technique I used for the contents page construction, above is a time lapse showing the development of the first DPS draft.

Third Final Front Cover Draft

When creating my first final draft of the contents page, a significant portion of the house style is based upon my primary research of colours for my original masthead (post found here). The teal colour which proved popular among my target audience was key in the development of these pages. However, as my original cover draft only included the anchorage text to the main cover line in this teal colour, I wanted to make a more obvious adjustment to integrate the teal colour further.

As the textual elements to the page have already been regarded as successful from the feedback I received from my peers (this post here), I was determined not to change these elements. As the olive colour was now made redundant through my colour choices in the contents page, I decided to change the background colour. The background now possesses a subtle teal hue, which I find actually emphasises the textual elements further. I shall refer this to my target audience to gather their feedback on the change.

Contents Page Progress Time Lapse using iMovie

Peer Feedback

Feedback

In order to gain feedback on the first contents page draft and the second front cover draft, 4 of my peers looked at both these pages. In turn, they left comments to questions which I found most useful for furthering the development of these designs. My target audience is mainly females at aged 16-21 years old, but in order to gain a varied response two males and two females aged 16-17 completed this response.

Positive Comments:

• Colour use is relevant and subtle, complimenting a professional-looking design
• Cohesive use of fonts
• Easy to read cover lines, with the main cover line eye catching yet not overwhelming
• All knew either the exact genre or relative genre of magazine - strong brand identity and iconography
• Consistent use of house style
• Enjoy fact content is split by colour blocks (contents page)

From this feedback, I am very confident that my magazine suits the purpose of my original intentions. The subtle choices of colour and font have been appreciated by the target audience, as well as a clear recognition of the intended professionalism for the design. 

Despite this, I still believe that there is more which I can alter to further perfect these designs.