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.