Magazine Feedback

I have had a lot of feedback for my front cover and contents. Most of the feedback is positive but there was also some criticism.
For example, people have said:

"I like the font- it highlights the magazine's Genre"

"The barcode (On the front cover) is too big"

"There is a lot of free space- needs more cover lines"

"I like the pose of the model on the front cover and her hair colour (red) compliments the colours of the house theme."

"I like the colours used"

"The two fonts mainly used go well together"

"I like the house theme in general- the fonts really go well with the colours featured"

Double page spread example- Kerrang!

Final Contents Page

In my final editing, I made the background grey, instead of white so it would compliment my house theme. Then I changed the size of my cover lines so they would not take up too much space and moved my 'subscribe' rectangle right. Next, I added two photographs that I took at a recent concert. After this step, I added text to compliment my photos, including 'headline' text which was in the font '28 Days Later' for both the My Chemical Romance and Sean Smith items. Then I added some background information on the articles and gave the writing for the Sean Smith articles a drop shadow, an outer glow and a stroke effect. I also rotated it so that it would stand out. For the My Chemical Romance text, I added a drop shadow and outer glow. I also added an outer glow and a drop shadow to my photograph of the My Chemical Romance frontman. I also edited the word 'Contents' by adding an outer glow and a stroke effect to make it stand out to the reader. Obviously the brightness and contrast of the live photographs had to be edited and the edges had to be cropped. Here are the original photos.

Final Front Cover

For my final version of my front cover, I added a black banner at the bottom of the page to make 'Plus! Sonisphere Lineup Revealed!' stand out more and so it was clearer than before, where it was quite hard to read due to the photo of my model being directly behind it. Next, I changed my main cover-lines so that the text was right-aligned, which made the text fit the page better. I also moved my model to the right slightly so I could fit text to the left of her head, as I felt the empty space should have been filled in. The text I inserted says 'Sean Smith + Young Guns + Green Day' to make the issue seem like it contains a lot of content. The writing is in the font 'Adler' and is red. The reason I used plus signs was because they are a very common feature on magazines, including Kerrang and NME. I also added a photograph that I took at a recent My Chemical Romance concert and flipped it so that it would face to same way as my model. I added a slight border and drop shadow to make it seem like a picture that would be featured on a real music magazine. I also added text over of the picture, also in red, stating 'My Chemical Romance Return!'.

Contents Page- stage 3

For the third draft, I added the word 'Contents' in the font 'Adler' and the colour red to the right of the word 'Arena'. I also moved the 'Also in this issue:' section upwards and added smaller text in the same font underneath the artist names to show what the articles were about. Another thing I added was text saying 'And More!' in black 'Adler' font to show that there are other things included in the issue.

Contents Page- stage two

For my second draft, I changed the writing in the top left-hand corner from 'Contents' to 'Arena'. I also added 'Issue 100, December 2010' underneath it but towards the right. Another thing I included was a red rectangle with 'Also in this issue:' written in it in the font 'trashed'. I added a black rectangle behind the 'competition' section to make it stand out and changed the writing to capital letters and made 'Meet BMTH' red. Another red rectangle was added to put behind a text box which mentions how to subscribe to the magazine. This text was in the font 'Adler' and was white, apart from 'Over 30%' which is black and also 2 font sizes bigger to be eye-catching. The word 'subscribe' is in the font 'trashed' and is all in capitals.

Contents Page- stage one

This was my first draft of my contents page. I added black text in the top left-hand corner in the font 'Trashed' which is the same font as the magazine logo on the front cover. This is to show a 'house style'.
I also added a list of the bands mentioned in this issue which was black and in the font 'Adler' however, the page numbers are red and in the font 'Trashed'.
Another thing I added was a competition at the bottom of the page, 'Competition!- Meet BMTH!' also in the font 'Trashed' which is all black except for the word 'meet' which is red.