Contents Page Draft Three

This is the third draft for my contents page. I have changed the image of the front cover for my magazine with an image of a single artist as I didn't like having the front cover there and there was still too much of my main model with it there. I have also changed the colour of the "subscribe and save" text so that it is different to the caption colour and cannot be confused with them, as well as placing a transparent box around the captions to separate them a little bit more.

Things to improve include: 

• Add a picture of the editor (me) to the bottom of the editor's letter.
• Make the lines around the boxes a little bit thicker to make them more predominant.
• Change the title text so that it reads "Contents" and then "In This Issue..." across the top.
• Add boxes around the "Features" and "Regulars" titles to make more of them, and perhaps make them bigger so they are more dominant.
• Add boxes around the images to keep up with the "box theme".
• Generally edit the whole layout to make it neat and keep all the boxes in line with each other.

Contents Page Draft Two

This is the second draft for my contents page. I have replaced the image at the bottom with an image of the front cover of my magazine, added a pull quote that appears on the front cover, changed the boxes around so that all boxes are red, removed the boxes around the captions and added page numbers to the cover lines.

Things still to improve include:

• I am not completely happy with the image of the front cover, I may change it to just a single image of a different model other than my main one as I feel he appears too often.
• Order my cover lines so that they are in number order and format them a bit differently so that they are easier to navigate.
• Add lines/transparent boxes around the captions so that they are still at least outlined by a box.
• Generally move around the different pieces of text to make it more conventional and appealing.

Contents Page First Draft

This is the first draft I have made for my contents page. I know that it still needs quite a bit of work, but I have made it mainly to just get a feel for the layout and where all the text will go etc.

There are some good things to it, however, such as a recurring theme with the front cover and a conventional "block" appearance, but here are the things I want to improve for my next draft:

• Remove the "contents" title as the main title outlines the fact that this is the contents page.
• Add page numbers to the "Features" and "Regulars" columns so the reader knows where to find the articles.
• Edit the title texts to match the front cover more, e.g. add gradient overlay and stroke effects to them.
• Maybe keep all larger text boxes in the red colour and have smaller ones as black, or equally no text boxes sometimes (just an outline, perhaps).
• Make more connections to the front cover using the theme from it and perhaps a small image of the front cover linking to the different articles.

Front Cover Final Edit

This is the final edit for the front cover of my music magazine. Taking feedback about my final draft, I edited my front cover in these ways:

• I made the cover lines a more tradition font and added a couple of extra to fill up the space as my front cover looked quite empty before.
• I edited out the reflection of my model in the trombone.
• I changed my main cover line so that it included my model's name and a pull quote from my DPS.

I also edited the splash so that it was a little bit smaller and has a black outline to make it stand out even more and I tilted the text inside it to make it look a bit different to the rest of the text. I created some custom shapes to put around the main points of my text to grab the reader's attention even more to those particular articles.

I will take feedback from others and make changes according to that in the future.

Eighth Front Cover Draft

This is the eighth draft for my front cover. I have considered the audience feedback I received for my last draft and experimented with it. I didn't like having the title in all capitals, or having the bar code horizontal, so I left them as they are. I tried to move my cover lines around a bit to make them more organised and I researched what the most conventional way to place the bar code was and discovered that there is a mixture of horizontal and vertical positions, so I decided to leave mine as it was as having it horizontally would mean that it could get in the way of my main image.

Seventh Front Cover Draft

This is the seventh front cover draft. I have now changed some of the fonts of text and the sizes of words to make them stand out more and emphasise the important information. I have also added a tease at the bottom to entice my audience even more.

I received audience feedback about this draft, here is what people said could be improved:

• The bar code is sideways - is it more conventional to have it horizontally?
• The cover lines are just dotted around.
• Make the title all capitals to make it stand out more.

I also received positive comments, which were:

• Good colour scheme and layout that represents the genre
• Photograph looks professional and high quality.
• Looks realistic how the main image overlaps the bottom graphics.

Looking at this feedback, I am going to experiment and try out the improvements that I have received and see if I like them.

Sixth Front Cover Draft

This is sixth draft for my front cover. I have now moved the cover lines around to fill the space around my main image, edited the title, masthead and "inside this issue" line slightly using the gradient overlay tool to make them stand out more. I also changed the font of the text on my bar code and edited the shapes around it slightly to make it smoother and look more professional.

Again, I am fairly satisfied with my front cover and have no major things to edit. I will just continue to experiment and try out new things and see if I like them. The main articles of text now stand out more from the rest, the space around the main image is filled and my bar code looks more realistic.