Task 4: Preliminary task evaluation

Preliminary task evaluation

Front cover:
One thing that went well for me was my use of text. From the feedback I received, I was told that my masthead is very appropriate for a college magazine, and is large enough to be recognised as a masthead. My cover lines are also appropriately written in relation to the target audience of college students and that the colours of the cover lines and the masthead match to the book the cover star is holding, keeping the house style in place. The font sizes I used for each cover lines are also appropriate, as I have made my main cover line clear and used the specific colour of black to reinforce the focus of the cover story. I also have small lines of descriptions below cover lines again with a suitable size. I was told that my font styles are also conventional to the magazine and are clear and readable. However in terms of the text used on the front cover, the colour scheme needs to be improved on as it clashes with the colours of the image and therefore is not clear on some areas it is put on. In addition to this features, I used icons of social networking sites on my front cover which I linked to my contents page, again to keep the house style, which was another thing that went well for me.

The photography of the front cover also went well as I used the correct shot type of medium close-up when I was taking the picture. However, the cover star stood in front of a busy background, which caused me a lot of problems. I couldn’t put the cover lines and other information I wanted to put in the areas I had planned to. This meant that my page layout was not the way I wanted it to be and I had to cram most of the features altogether which limited the interesting look of the cover. To do my front cover, I used photoshop. At some points in the process, I used it very easily without any problems. However, I had problems when trying to blur out the busy background on the photo, and it did not turn out the way it was planned. Again, the busy background made it difficult for me as the colour scheme did not go along well with it which was an issue. This affected most of my plans about the front cover.

Contents page:
The first thing that went well for me was the photography I did. I took pictures of different areas in the college and different students to represent the different contents in the magazine. I also took a second image of the cover star again to represent the cover story and to link it with the front cover. From the feedback I received, I was told that I have good use of text and that it is clear. My journalism skills were also considered ‘good’ with minor grammar errors. I was also told that having small lines of descriptions with headings in the contents page gives it a structured, clear and understandable look. In addition to this, I separated and gave more space to the cover story, naming the header ‘cover story’ in order for it to stand out, and to reinforce the most important topic in the magazine on the contents page. This is a conventional feature for most magazines. The colour scheming for the text used is also good and there is a good colour combination of all the headings being green and all the descriptions being lilac.

 The page numbers are also written in a green colour to make it stand out, which is a conventional feature in all contents pages.  However, the page numbers are not in order, which may be something I would need to improve on, even though I did not do in them in the right order because I ordered the magazine contents from most exciting to less exciting, instead of putting them in the order of the page numbers. I was told that having page numbers on the images were helpful on referencing and matching stories with images on the page and that it gives it a modern and clear look. However, due to the colours in the images, I had problems with picking colours for the page numbers on them as I wanted all numbers to be black, but it was not visible in all of the images, and I therefore had to make them different colours, but the colours I picked are still a part of the theme colours. To improve, I will make sure I take clear images and the use the right type of colour over them. I used InDesign when creating the contents page. I didn’t have a lot of difficulties using it, but the layout I wanted to use didn’t work out. I wanted to use columns on each side but due to the layout of the images it didn’t look in place, so I had to cram the columns of text which affected the whole layout of the contents page. To improve, I will make sure to try and change the places of the images and the text so the columns will look right. Another feature I used to keep the house style of the magazine is the use of social networking links. On the front cover I only used icons of social networking sites. However I matched it with the icons on the contents page where more information was given such as account usernames, again conventional of a magazine as the audience can follow the magazine through them. I used a large title for the contents page and included the masthead along with the phrase ‘contents page’ to keep the house style of the magazine.  I was told however that this could’ve been improved further where I could’ve used one letter of ‘C’ between ‘LSC’ and ‘Contents’ to make it look more interesting and styled.

Key points for development when producing music magazine:

Front cover:

·        Taking more appropriate images – Images that have a limited amount of writing or a busy background will help me when putting text over them as this can affect the whole layout of the front cover.

·        Appropriate colour schemes – The front cover will look better and will be more readable if the colour scheming is right with appropriate colours that go along with the image used.

·        Spacing – Using more spacing between the cover lines and other features means that not everything will be crammed and will look more attractive to the reader rather than it looking boring.

Contents page:

·        Right use of columns – Using more space between the headers and descriptions mean that the columns will be distributed in an orderly way, and will be more conventional rather than it looking like there is writing all over the page.

·        Use of layout – Putting the images in different places will mean that the columns will work out and the whole contents page won’t be affected.

·        Not making it too busy – It may reflect a boring look if the contents page looks busy with a lot of text in it. So I will try and use a limited amount of text and images in my music magazine contents page.