What my target audience preferred about my final cuts compared to my drafts

Diary entry week 7, 8 and 9

Over the last three weeks I have looked at my feedback from my peers and tried to make all the necessary changes to what they wanted. I also uploaded my original photos which I used for the final cuts and analysed them and said what I edited, which wasn't much.

The original photos which I used for the final cuts

This is the main image in which I used on my conetents. The only bit of editing I done was on Adobe In-design, Where I cut out either side of my model, so the image fitted on the page and inline with the others. I could have just used it like it was and made the whole image smaller but it looked stupid as you couldn't really see the main focus, which was the model as he was too small so you couldn't get the full effect of the pose he was doing which shows his personallity.

This is my front cover image. Again not much editing had to be done with this one. This time I used Adobe Photoshop because In-Design cannot do what I wanted. I had to cut around the whole image because I wanted my models face to cover the name of the magazine but not the stories on the front. When I then put the image on my front cover I had to make it bigger so it filled up most of the page because when doing my research I found that, having a large image of the artists head was most common and effective so I tried to replicate the idea and I was happy with how it came out overll.

This image was originally going to be used for my front over but the above image looked more effective and fitted with the artists personallity more, so it went on my contents page instead. I was just fiddling round with my contents page and needed an a small image so I decided to cut the everything out on In-Design except the artists glasses. I thought it looked unique so I kept it there. Again not much editing was done to this image.

This is my double page spread image and no editing went into this, I only made it bigger on the page so it looked better. This image was going to be on the contents page originally but i tried it on the double page spread and I liked it so I kept it. I like this image because he is throwing the stone without a care in the world and he doesn't really mind what it hits or where it goes, so I think it goes with how he is portrayed and fits in with the whole magazine. Origianally I wasn't going to use this image for this as I had another image which really looked good on the page but I thought I would go with this one as it is something abit different.

Final cuts

This is the final version of my magazine front cover. Overall I am very happy with how it looks compared to my first draft. I have filled in alot of the gaps and white space with either bigger text or more main stories or as you can see I added some black lines going horrizontally accross the page to fill the space where there wasn't enough room for a cover story. I have also decided to make the main artists name the biggest text on the cover so it stands out from the rest, because on my first draft I had put it on the bottom of the page in a small bland font which  didn't stand out like it should have done. I also made the image bigger because when I was looking recent Q magazines they had made their image take up practically the whole page, so i then went with doing this and made it as big as I could without it looking stupid or pixalated because you wouldn't see a pixalated image on the cover of a professional image. When I looked back on my peers feedback i realised that they said they didnt like how i had covered up the stories with the artists head so I decided to move the image over to the right hand side of the page and then put the stories just overlapping his hair. I decided to cover the name of the magazine up because when i was analysing front covers I seen that they covered the magazine name because it is already a known name so you can afford for it not to be shown but for people to know whats insde they have to be able to see what the main stories are and I wasnt showing this so not many people would have bought it.

This is my final cut for my contents page. Overall I am reasonably pleased with how it looks, I like how everything seems to have its own place. When analysing other existing magazines i liked the blocky style so tried to replicate it but also i like the look of having large images on it so i mixed the to together as i think it looks boring to open a magzine and just to see piles upon piles of writing, it would un-interest me and I wouldnt want to read on. The main image if of the main artist as I wanted to keep the theme running through the whole thing, so people will know that the magazine is mainly all about this artist. Again with keeping the same sort of stle running all the way through I have went with the colour scheme red, black and brown. I have used red for the most important things so it stands out then brown and black I just thought were nice colours to go with. The main image of this artist also goes with the personality which he is portrayed like. Cock, arrogant or confident, the arms out pose brings accross this attitude as if no-body in the world can challenge him because he is the greatest person around.

This is my final cut double page spread. I have two opinions on what i think of it, half of me does like it but half of me doesnt like it. My rough cut for double page spread I was in the same frame of mind. The photo i really like because again I think it shows the type of person he is, a full grown man throwing stones in the sea like he doesnt care about anything, so I think that photo sums up the title of the page. The artists name i made bigger so it catches the readers eye and it brightens the oage up even though it is in black. I also put a quote from the artist in the middle of the text to catch the readers eye and to break up the large amount of reader which will be done. I put a quote next to the artist in the photo just to fill up the space and make the page look more interesting to look at, rather than just lots of blue sky everywhere. I you are able to reaf the article i really like how I have done that because it really does bring out thye artists true colours about how arrogant he is and everything else the title says. Again I have stuck to the three colour scheme as it makes the whole magazine more professional and make everything seem like it is from the one magazine and not justb random paes which look like they have been pulled out of other magazines at random and shoved in this one.

Overall I much prefer this final cut to my rough cuts earlier on in the project as the whole thing looks more professional and it is interesting and attractive to look at.

Diary entry week 6

This week I received my feedback from my peers about what they thought about my magazine. Because of this, I can now make changes to my magazine making it look more professional and appealing to my target audience. What I have found from this is that I need to make sure you can read all stories which are on the front cover because for my rough cuts my image covered up lots of the text which people did not like. So I will make these adjustments for my final cut.

Feedback Analysis

After creating my first draft for my magazine I had lots of mixed opinions on the whole product. For my front cover many people were complementing on the image as they said it catches their eyes because of the seriousness expressions which I got the model to do, also when I analysed magazine covers I found out that mainly for Q magazines they had a large close up of the artists face and they were staring into the lense of the camera, this is most effective for the front cover so I tried to replicate it. The criticism which is got for making the image this big was it covered up the text on the front cover so on the final product I am going to have to get the balance right between how much text I cover. I was also told the model in which I picked was good because he is very photogenic so it doesn’t look like he is afraid of the camera. A couple of people commented on the size and placing of my barcode, and where is the price, so I made the barcode smaller, moved it down the page slightly and added in the price just above it.

For my contents page I had only a few positives and many negatives, when I first made it I thought it looked very good and was happy with it but now that I have been pointed out things which don’t look so good on it, I have realised what is wrong with it and I don’t think it looks very good at all, a couple of people said that they didn’t like the layout of it. I have started changing the layout, as I have added in an extra photo and made them all slightly smaller as people said only having two images didn’t look very good, I was originally going to have three images but I decided just to have two in this first draft to see what people thought, they as you can tell they didn’t like it so I will go back to having three images. Also I have changed the text size so I can fit more stories in so it looks more like a magazine as it will have more stories in so it will be worth the money. One person also said that all the titles need to be the same as in either small caps of capitals, so I changed them all into capitals.

For the double page spread I had a lot of compliments saying about how professional it looked because of the layout, also a lot of people liked the quotations. Because of the research which I carried out I found out that they have a quotation somewhere on the page then they have one in the middle of the article as I catches your eye and gives you a break from reading all the text. I also wanted to have drop capitals at the start of the article but I forgot about that and a few people realised that and so I will add them in for the final product. I had mixed feedback for the image on the spread as some people thought it fitted the title very well which is also what I thought, but then one a couple of people pointed out that the image looks like it should be on the front cover so I am going to have a look at some of the other photos which I took and see which one looks better.

Diary entry week 5

Throughout the past week or so I have been creating my rough cuts on the computer with the help from my previous lessons on how to use Photoshop and In-design. I didn’t only used Photoshop once and that was to cut out my front cover image but the rest of my magazine was created using In-design.