Final Work

My Final Drafts Of My Music Magazine>>>>

                              ^^^^My Final Music Magazine Front Cover.

^^^^My Final Music Magazine Contents Page.

^^^^My Final Music Magazine Double Page Spread.

Double Page Spread Drafts

^^^^Original /Draft of DPS.

I started by choosing to write my article as a catchy interview and then experimented with how to lay it out on my double page spread and display it using conventional techniques. To create this first Draft I first took the ideas from my research and draft designs. I then looked at other similar genre music magazine double page spreads that I liked from magazines like NME and Q as well as looking through my DPS Research/designs to create a conventional looking Double page spread that's effective, attractive and targeted to suit my 15-25 aged target audience. I chose to use the red colour throughout the page as it’s the most eye-catching colour to the eye, stands out from the page, is conventional of other music magazines and fits with the house styles continued from the other pages of my music magazines. I felt the red colour also contrasts well with the black and white background, making it look attractive and eye-catching. I cut out the image from its background, as it was unattractive and not conventional, by using Photoshop eraser and auto select tools. I experimented with using a black and white effect on the image as I felt it gave it a modern, edgy and attractive feel the suited the magazine and its target audience as well as contrasting well with the bright red colour making it attractive. I tried to include conventions of music magazines such as stand first, large image, page numbers, issue date, brand logo/name, large masthead, columns, pull quotes, teasers, drop caps, name of writer and photographer and a catchy article with defined questions and answers. I tried to write a believable article/interview that’s realistic to what an Artist may say, including natural reactions like fillers 'errr' and (laughs). I formatted my article in conventional columns and clearly defined the questions and answers with colours to make it easy/clear for an audience to understand and read as well as being conventional. I then chose quotes I thought where significant, eye-catching and typically relevant to music magazines to use as pull quotes and as my masthead to make people want to read it as there quotes direct from the artists mouth that withhold information, making an audience want to read on to find out/understand more about it/them. I tried to make my stand first attractive with descriptive words and puns, holding back information, along with the masthead, in order to persuade an audience to read it to find out more. I made the font size 11 and font style Arial as they are conventional of music magazines, easy for majority of a young audience to read from and I also felt they made it look the most attractive against the other house style of the page. Despite this I feel there are many negative points about this draft that could be improved such as the overall finish and style of the double page spread, using all the house colours (yellow, red, black, white), completely erasing the background of the image to make it professional, using a more dominant, conventional and eye catching image and masthead, adding some more conventional points and improving the overall quality and design to make it look as professional, attractive and conventional as possible. 

^^^^On this Draft I tried to change all the negative points about my last Draft and started to concentrate more on style and presentation of my Double Page Spread rather than structure.  Some negative points about my last draft which I altered on this one were the image, the masthead, the style and prominence of the writing, injecting more colour and the overall style of the magazine to make it look like a professional music magazine rather than just a random document. I firstly decided to go against the black and white idea as it was dull, unattractive and didn’t fit with my previous other page drafts (Front Cover, Contents) well or house styles. I thus experimented with how colour would make my double page spread look which I overall felt made it look more bold, defined, professional, attractive and eye-catching, drawing the audience’s attention more directly towards it than in the last draft. I added the colour yellow into the design so that my DPS fitted with the house styles of my other pages which also have yellow on. I also feel using this colour gave my DPS design more depth, making it more bold, interesting, attractive and eye-catching to an audiences eye. I felt my masthead was boring, unattractive, small and dull in my last draft so on this one I experimented with changing the design, using different size fonts, positioning and colours for each word like some popular music mag DPS's do from my research which I felt made it eye catching and stand out more for being unique and different, fitting the style on my artist and my magazines indie/modern pop genre. I also used overly emphasized, large quotation marks as its conventional of music magazines, making it look edgy and hipster making it relevant and attractive to my 15-25 stylish, hipster, qwerky target audience. From my research I also found that a popular, interesting and stylish convention in many magazines especially Q was to take the first letter of the artists name and place in behind the text/body of the article. I therefore felt I would experiment with this in order to make it look as attractive and professional as possible giving of positive and realistic connotations about the artist - connoting them being bold, attractive and dominating the music industry. I therefore placed a large D for 'Danny Manson' behind the body of the text in a red colour and stencil font to fit with my magazines house styles and my artists style, then reduced the opacity levels in Photoshop so that the article/ writing was still visible, as that’s the main point of the page in the first place. I edited the ‘Hip' brand name/logo in Photoshop by adding shadow and highlighting effects for continuity and accuracy of the logo which is repeated on all the other pages in the same style. I then edited the style and shadow effects on it also to make the word stand out from the page, making it more, bold, dominant, noticeable and eye-catching so that an audience are more likely to remember the name of the brand 'HIP' who brought them this article/interview, imprinting the idea of buying it again into the audiences brains. I placed the hip logo/ name in the bottom right hand corner of the page as its conventional and means its at the audiences figures tip when they turn the page meaning there more likely to remember the brand name/logo and also more likely to buy the magazine again in the future as they will remember it. I changed the pull quote in the middle of the article by adding shadow and highlighting effects onto it as I felt this would make it look more professional and conventional. By doing this it made this quote more bold, noticeable and attractive, meaning an audience are more likely to be drawn t it and be intreged to read the rest of the article as they want to find out more. Doing this also meant that this pull quote completed the style/design of this DPS and fitted with the rest of my music magazines house styles for continuity making it look professional and eye-catching to my audience. I also experimented with highlighting specific words in the first stance to highlight the main focus's and points of the overall article such as 'HIP' in red and 'Danny Manson' red and underlined which is conventional of many similar genre music magazines do like NME and Q. I felt by doing this I highlighted the focus and point of the article by making them bold and dominant, drawing in an audience attention (red being the most eye-catching colour to the human eye) making them more likely to continue reading the whole article, as well as merging the house styles (fonts, colours) making this draft feel more like and belongs together and with the other pages than the previous draft did. Highlighting the word 'HIP' also reinforces to the audience a reminder of the Brand that brought them this magazine, making my brand 'HIP' more likely to be popular with an audience and therefore more likely more people will remember to buy it as they will remember who brought them the unique exclusive articles/interviews within my magazine. I also defined the article and made it look as professional, attractive, dominant and bold as possible by placing black lines between the columns of the article. I felt this suited the style of the artist and the magazines design complementing the house styles and colours making my magazine look attractive, professional and as if it belongs together. I also chose a coloured dominant image as I felt it complemented the design elements more than a black and white one. I chose an image with a background I didn't have to crop to make it look as professional, attractive, real and conventional as possible. I chose an image with a seductive look, directly at the camera for conventional direct address that captures an audience’s attention drawing them into the page, making them feel the need to read the whole article. I chose an image where I felt my model looked, stylish, attractive and believably typical of an indie pop artist. Despite the clear improvements there are also many things I could still experiment and improve on as well as some conventional aspects being missing from this particular d. To make it like a professional music magazine I need to add conventional elements to the draft such as a page number, descriptions, photographer and writer names, pages titles and what the Artist is wearing. I also feel there are some design elements of this draft that I could change, alter and improve upon, including the image, making the titles bigger, experimenting with using more pictures and changing the format, making some of the writing bolder and clearer and perhaps removing the big D from behind the text or fading it more as it makes it hard to read the writing behind it.

^^^^On the this draft I firstly ensured that I added all the extra conventional features onto my draft that weren't there on the previous draft such as page number on the left bottom corner  name of photographer, name of writer and 'Danny Manson' titles to confirm the page. I also chose to experiment with the image using Photoshop and photo manipulation to see how I could make it look the most interesting, attractive and edgy to suit the artist’s indie pop style and also to stand out as much as possible in order to capture an audience’s attention. I experimented with making the image black and white as I felt it gave the image an attractive edgy feel that suited the indie pop style of my music magazine as well as the Artist. I felt that in the previous draft the background was irrelevant and distracted attention and focus from the main image therefore not catching an audience’s attention as well as it could as it lost some of its dominance. I therefore experimented with cropping the image out of its background using the auto select tools on Photoshop and the fading eraser and straight lines tools to make the image as natural and believable looking as possible so that it doesn't look like it’s just been placed onto the page. I therefore chose a faded black and white background which fitted with the images black and white colour but was light enough to make it stand out from the page against it. I added a white glow around the number 3 so that it stood out from its black background and could be clearly seen to make it easy for an audience to read and define it from its background. I added a black line under the skyline title 'Danny Manson' to fit with the defined line theme on the article/second page, complementing the design, making it look dominant and easy to read as well as fitting with my magazines house styles for continuity. I also experimented with removing the 'D' from the background of my article as I felt in the previous Draft it was distracting, unnecessary  made the Article/writing hard to read and made the page look unattractive as the page felt over crowded, as if it didn't fit together well or properly. I felt this overall design makes the red and yellow colours stand out making it dominant, attractive and easy for an audience to read. Despite this I still think there are many negative points about this Draft that could be improved upon such as the image and its background as I don’t think they fit together well as the background has unnatural shadows and the image has unnatural uneven edges. I also feel that the 2 pages of this DPS draft don’t fit together as despite that black and white colour giving it an edgy, indie, vintage feel it also goes against the house styles and other themes on the second page and throughout the rest of my magazine. I feel this makes the whole DPS look dull, not dominant and not stand out as much against the red and yellow colours making it ineffective and unattractive. I feel colours will work better on my image to fit with the house styles, to attract an audience’s attention, drawing their eyes towards it and making the image look more believable, interesting and attractive. I also feel a lot of the sections of this design don't fit together well which make the design look unprofessional with no connections so it looks unattractive, doesn't draw an audience’s attention and has no dominant/ key focus points which distract audiences attention. Such as the box with the photographers and writers names in them, the background against the image, the skyline and some of the fonts that don't fit the house styles and look unattractive. On my next Draft I want to improve the design so it has more continuity, dominance, suits the house styles and looks attractive, perhaps changing the image all together. I want to experiment with how dominant and attractive I can make it look, whilst fitting the conventions and suiting the style of my artist and genre.

^^^^On this Draft I wanted to bring all the positive points from my other DPS drafts together such as the conventional layout, house styles, indie-pop appearance and fonts as well as getting rid of and replacing some of negative unattractive points about my last drafts such as the image, use of black and white, going against house styles and the two pages looking disjointed from one another in order to create the best draft possible. The first thing I did when creating this draft was select a different image from my shoot which was taken on a location that suited the artist and my music magazines style for it to look as attractive, professional, relevant and as realistic as possible unlike in my last draft which I felt was ineffective therefore I replaced the image in this draft. From my previous drafts and research I found that the conventional use of direct address proved effective in making an image eye-catching, attractive and dominant, drawing audience’s eyes towards the page so they subconsciously felt the need to read the entire article. I therefore chose an image which was looking straight at the camera/ audience in order to keep the effective, attractive and conventional use of direct address on my music magazine Double Page Spread. I chose this pacific picture also as I felt the model's appearance (hair, clothes) look slightly rough and of the edge yet stylish, which I feel is a typical and believable look for an Indie-Pop Artist in the 21st Century as well as his age and style fitting and attracting my 15-25 hipster target audience. I feel my model also appears rather attractive and seductive in this image, which I feel grabs my audience’s attention in making them want to read this article and the rest of the magazine (as this is one of the first few pages in my music magazine.) I feel the outside fence location is also typical of an Indie-Pop artist shoot, allowing an audience to easily interpret what kind of Artist 'Danny Manson' is, which makes my model seem like a believable artist and my magazine seem professional. This also gives the audience positive connotations about 'Danny Manson' as it makes him seem outgoing, off the edge, cool, rebellious and a true life liver, which would attract an audience into wanting read the article therefore retaining and building the Artist and brands popularity, like in similar and current music magazines like 'NME', 'Billboard' and 'Q' do. The image also gives no information away about what's to come in the Article leading an audience to want to read on as there human nature leaves them to be intrigued as to what's happened with Artist and what the article is about. I kept the style of the layout with the image on one side(left) and the article on the next(right) as well as all the other conventional elements like the page number in the bottom corners, name of writer and photographer, pull quotes, drop caps, stand first, issue date, brand name, article in columns and extra-large quotation marks as they were on previous drafts as many of them are needed to make the DPS make sense, work as a professional music magazine DPS, make things easy and clear for an audience to understand, read and define and to make the layout clear, effective and understandable. I also feel that many of these chosen elements make my music magazine DPS look attractive, stand out, eye-catching, relative to my artist and the genre, conventional, effective and draw my audience’s eyes and attention towards the page making them want to read the whole article. I changed the font on the photographer and writers names so that they complemented and blended in with the house styles of my music magazine for continuity, accuracy, effectiveness and so that my magazine/DPS feels as one attractive design that fits together rather than it appearing unattractive, disjointed, ineffective and as if they had just been placed there like on my previous DPS drafts. I felt this was important to make my DPS attractive and eye-catching to make a audience want to read it and buy my magazine again. I also changed my font, making it larger and clearer therefore easier for an audience to understand and read. I placed a white box neatly around the writing so that it was clearer to read, suited the house styles, colours and box themes and complemented my DPS layout/design. I made the box/writing blend around my image to make it appear like a part of the DPS, as if it’s meant to be there rather than it just looking disjointed and unattractive as it did before on other DPS drafts. I experimented with using the various eraser tools in Photoshop to make the edges of the box less neat, more rough and fitting to the design of the image so that it felt connected not disjointed and complemented the layout/design as well as maintaining and complementing the Artist's rough, of the edge, indie pop appearance which I feel builds the design and its aesthetic elements to make my DPS look believable, professional and effective. However I kept the credit writing (photographer, writer) in a smaller font so that it didn't distract an audience’s attention or focus away from the main points of my music magazine (images/article). I decided to add a 'DM' for 'Danny Manson' behind my text on an angle as I felt it complemented my design, layout/Magazine/DPS styles and house colours/styles. On a previous draft I placed a 'D' (for Danny, the artist in the article) behind my writing, taken from the similar design element 'Q' music magazine use on many of these articles which I felt made there articles look dominant, attractive, bold, stand out and qwerky, reinforcing to an audience the artist behind the article. However when I used in on previous drafts it looked good, interesting bold and dominant but felt slightly disjointed from my previous design, making the article writing hard to read and understand. However on this draft I felt I would experiment with taking this design concept and making it work in a positive way on this particular draft as I personally like the idea as I feel it positively connotes the artist as dominant, captures an audience’s attention and clearly reinforced to an audience who this particular article is about. To get over the problem of this design element making my article hard to read, I reduced the opacity of the letters so that the article was still easily clear enough to read easily on top of it. I chose to use both letters 'D' and 'M' as they are both my artists initials and as he is known by both names, I feel the using both initials clearly enforces who the artist is automatically, as when an audience see this page they would automatically associate it with him, putting my article/magazines message across to my audience as clearly as possible. I also feel that by using both initials and placing it on an angle it makes my music magazine/ DPS stand out from the crowd (other similar genre music magazines) for being different, meaning an audience more likely to remember this music magazine and buy it again, and increasing popularity. I decided to make the 'DM' in the background a stencil font, large size and red colour so that it was clear, dominant, obvious, stood out (red is the most dominant/eye-catching colour to the human eye) as well as fitting with the house styles (colours/fonts) for continuity, making it look professional and as if it belongs with the design rather than disjointed like it did look previously. I feel that the way this design element was placed complemented the house styles for continuity, suited the genre of the brand/artist as it appears edgy, dominant and attractive and is overall effective. I also removed the line under the skyline as I felt it was unnecessary, unattractive and distracted attention away from the other main points of the article/ DPS (image, pull quotes, interview.) As well as this I spaced out my article more as there was a gap on my previous drafts at the end and I felt by doing this it made the design look more professional and perfect as well as allowing the font to become larger/more spread out, making it as easy as possible for an audience to read clearly and easily. Overall on this DPS draft I tried to make the design fit together as best as possible and not feel disjointed as well as complementing all my music magazines house styles for continuity making it look attractive, eye-catching and professional. I tried to metaphorically polish the design elements from previous drafts to make them as effective and eye-catching as possible and got rid of those which I felt made my design ineffective, unattractive and unprofessional.  I feel that there are still several points that could be changed, altered and experimented with such as perfecting the image in Photoshop, seeing what the layout would look like presented in a different way, perfecting some of the writing/font elements and experimenting with the design and colours on my Masthead in order to make my DPS as interesting, attractive, eye-catching and professional as possible. On my next Draft I want to experiment with changing my layout around, altering things and perfecting elements of my DPS in order to achieve the best final DPS possible and to see what I can do with my DPS and what works best overall.

^^^^ On this Draft I mainly wanted to experiment with changing the layout of my design elements to see how it looked and what I could do with it in order to make the best DPS I possibly could. I firstly kept all the writing elements/ designs as they were previously like the masthead, stand first, pull quotes and interview as I felt they were predominantly effective, attractive and worked well as previously stated in my other drafts but then I just moved them around to near opposite positions they were in before to see what effect this would have to my overall design. From my research I found that many effective DPS's went against the conventions which made them stand out for being different and often look more appealing, attractive and eye-catching to their target audience. Therefore I wanted to see what effect this would have on my DPS. I feel that this layout does look interesting and makes it stand out for being different but I also feel that it looks unprofessional and unattractive as it has no dominant focal points and the dominance of the colours are lost within this white-ness of the background and gaps in the design. To make this design work I had to stretch some elements like the masthead and bundle the first stance into 3 lines to fill space and to make it look dominant and professional however by doing this it actually made the design look unattractive, disjointed, not well thought out, not eye-catching and all round unprofessional (as a music magazine). I therefore think that for this layout to work, I would need to tweak, change and alter some of the design elements like the masthead and the stand first so that they fitted and complemented the design. Therefore the previous layout worked better for this/my particular DPS design elements, concepts and ideas. Another problem was working the 3 joined images, that I had chosen to experiment with on this particular draft, as when I put them all together it was hard to make them work without them being out of proportion or stretched which ended up leaving gaps in my overall design which therefore made the whole DPS look unattractive, unprofessional and not an article which would attract an audience’s eye or that they would want to read. To make this design work I would have to use fewer images so I didn't have the problem of them stretching and them being out of proportion which would allow for the dominance of large images. I would need to inject more colour and blocking so that it complemented my house styles, stood out from the crowd and was dominant as well as editing my writing/font elements so that they fitted with the design and didn't feel disjointed, stretched and out of place. Overall it would need more planning as this layout doesn't work well with my DPS's chosen design elements. On this draft I also chose to experiment with using more images to see what the overall effect would be. I chose 3 images which I felt looked effective, attractive and dominant when they were alone, got rid of their backgrounds (using Photoshop's various eraser and auto select tools), placed them together in an overlapping order in Photoshop and placed them on this draft design to see what they looked like. One of the problems with this was when I placed them onto the DPS it was hard to make them fit accurately without them looking out of place, disjointed from the design/DPS and without them becoming stretched or out of proportion. To make this design of a DPS work it would take a lot more planning. I would most likely have to space the images out or make them larger or use less images so the images actually worked precisely within the layout without being stretched, unattractive or out of place. Each image has also been edited in a different way to make them look as attractive, effective and perfected as possible. The problem with this is when put together in a group they look unattractive and disjointed as they look like they aren't meant to be together. This also goes against the house styles making this page have no proper focus points, not fit with the rest of my music magazine, look unattractive, isn't eye-catching and doesn't capture an audience’s attention. The idea of using more than one image together was taken from other qwerky DPS's from magazines of a similar genre like Billboard, Q and NME. I feel that on the one hand using this concept has made my DPS more interesting and stand out for being different. However on the other hand the images feel too close together which makes the Artist look like a cloned boy band rather than just one artist, there all edited differently with different colours making them look unattractive, disjointed, like they don't belong and as if they have just been placed there, their bodies have been chopped of at the bottom where the article sits making the images look fake, like they have no bottom legs, stupid, unattractive, takes away the illusion, unprofessional and is unconventional of music magazines.  To make this concept of using more than one image on one DPS design work effectively, attractively and eye-catching-ly I would have to space the images out so they looked like images of one artist and not a cloned boy band(also so the images don't stretch), make the images larger so there more dominant with focus points, use full size images so they don't look fake, stupid and like they have no legs, overlap the article onto the images (like professional music magazines of a similar genre like Q, Billboard and NME do) so the design feels like it belongs together and effective rather than appearing disjointed and unattractive, the Artist's poses would have to be completely different for full effectiveness to show his different personalities/traits/styles and each image would also have to be edited in a similar way than joins the colours and house styles together so that they don't look disjointed, unattractive and like they don't belong together. Overall I feel that the ideas behind this draft are effective, make the draft stand out for being different, appear eye catching and attract an audience’s attention however there are lots of negative points about this draft layout/design too as previously stated such as the images, font placement and design layout and a lot of things would have to be changed to make this design work. Overall I feel the previous Draft layout worked better for my chosen design elements and article as the design appeared the most dominant, effective, attractive, eye-catching, attention grabbing and professional compared to this draft. On my next draft I want to experiment with using the positive points about this draft and my previous drafts, getting rid of some of the negatives and seeing what else I can do with my design/layout in order to make it look the best music magazine double page spread I possibly can.

^^^^On this particular DPS draft I wanted to take the concepts and styles of my previous draft and experiment with how I can improve them and alter them to see what they would look like in order to make the best draft I possibly can. I decided to keep the article and the rest of the bottom half of this draft in the same position/style as they were in the last draft (didn't edit them) as I feel alone they aesthetically look good, attractive, dominant, fitting of the house styles and overall effective. However I decided to change the image position, first stance position and masthead completely to see how I could improve them. My last draft went completely against many of the conventions of a music magazine which proved to make it a rather ineffective and unattractive DPS so therefore I decided to place the images on the left hand side and masthead and first stance on the right hand side as this is conventional of a music magazine. I felt that by doing this it made my double page spread look more conventionally like a music magazine and therefore appears professional and believable as a real music magazine DPS as well as appearing slightly more attractive than my previous draft. I decided to experiment with changing my masthead to see what appearance it would give to my DPS. Many DPS mastheads in similar genre music magazines like Q, Billboard and NME use the Artists name as the title of their article which I feel is effective on other music magazines to emphasise who the Artist is and what the article is about making it clear to an audience as well as connoting the artist appear dominant thus I chose to experiment with doing the same thing. On my previous draft the artist behind the article didn't appear as dominant, obvious or clear because the images were small and his name was in a small font, therefore I chose to display his name/masthead in a large font which I feel connotes the artist as dominant, makes it clear who the article is about, its conventional professional and complements the boldness of the house styles. I decided to display the masthead text 'Danny Manson' is a stencil font and black colour with a red shadow behind its background (edited with the blending options in Photoshop). I did this as the font and colours fitted and complemented the house styles making the masthead feel connected as part of the music magazine/DPS rather than as if it had just been placed there like on many other drafts.(conventional). Red is also the most eye catching colour to the human eye and black is the most powerful colour which I feel makes the masthead stand of the page(shadow effect), eye-catching, attractive, effective, dominant and grabs the audience’s attention when they look at the page. I also think the chosen fonts and colours on the masthead/artist name complement this artist’s indie-pop genre and style, positively connoting him as powerful, dominant, stylish and of the edge, helping to increase the artist and music magazines brand Hip's popularity. I spread the stand first out do it fitted neatly into two lines rather than randomly into 3 like on the previous draft. I feel this made it look more professional, conventional and attractive to the audience's eyes. Overall I feel these changes have improved the appearance of my last draft but I still feel there are a lot of things that need to change to make my DPS as professional, effective, eye-catching, attention grabbing, dominant and attractive as possible. Some negative points about this draft are the images (connected like a boy band, stretched, different colours, not dominant enough, look like they have no legs, unconventional), the blank gabs within the design, the lack of dominant colour and proportion and the way the layout fits together as it looks disjointed. (Many negative points still relevant/current and carried over from my last draft). Overall I feel that the original layout on my first few drafts(four) worked better than this one as its more in proportion, dominant, suits the images, conventional, attractive, suits the house styles, professional, blends together precisely and is the most aesthetically pleasing. On the next Draft I want to experiment with what else I can do with my images, article and overall DPS design/layout in order to create the best DPS I possibly can. I want to use my research and concepts from other music magazines of a similar genre like Q, billboard and NME to create a new, interesting design for my DPS, removing and replacing some of the negative points from this draft and bringing together some of the positive points from all the drafts I have done so far.

^^^^On this draft I predominantly wanted to experiment with what else I could do with my music magazine double page spread, my images and house styles to see how effective an unconventional DPS could be in order to make my music magazine/DPS stand out from the crowd as well as to enable myself to make the best music magazine draft I possibly can. I also wanted to take the positive ideas and concepts from my last draft like the placing of the interview/article at the bottom, house styles and dominance of the masthead and also experiment with improving the negative points about my last draft such as the placing, stretching, lack of dominance, unprofessional and unattractiveness of my images, the blank space, none proportional layout and the overall feel of each element of my last draft being disconnected and disjointed from one another. One of the first things I did on this draft to experiment with the elements of a DPS and to improve upon my last draft was to move the images and place them differently in order to make them appear more interesting, professional and attractive compared to in my last draft. On my last draft the images overlapped in a way that made the Artist look like a cloned boy band and therefore I spaced the images out in order to make it seem like images of just one Artist, non a band (realism, clear audience understanding) which I felt made the image placing/design more effective, understandable, attractive, interesting and dominant. I decided to use images edited in similar ways and with similar colour tones so that they complemented each other, fitted the house styles and blended and looked like they belonged together, unlike in my last draft, I felt this change made the images look more dominant, professional, believable, attractive and effective. I also tried to use a range of different images in order to improve from my last draft, as I felt this showed the different sides/personalities to my music Artist more, making the page more interesting, attractive and dominant, showing my music brand 'Hip's' dedication to their Artists. I chose to put two images on each side of the page as in my last draft I used three on one side on the page which meant the images were stretched and squeezed out of proportion making them appear unattractive, not professional as well as loosing there dominants. I felt by placing two images on each side of the page which overall takes up around 50% of the double page spread restored the dominance of the Artist onto the page (conventional), making the DPS personal to the Artist giving off positive connotations of them (Danny Manson) being attractive, powerful, dominant, cool, edgy, a laugh and easy going as well as making my DPS appear attractive, eye-catching, bold, effective and stand out for being different. I also tried to use and choose attractive and seductive images which would draw an audience’s attention towards the page and make them want to read my whole Article. To create this image effect, I used the blending options, spot/perfecting healer, clone and colour effects tools on Photoshop to correct and perfect the photos to make them seem as perfected, attractive, effective, bold and dominant as possible as well as making each image edited in a similar way so this draft DPS feels connected and relevant rather than disjointed and dull like on my last draft. I then got rid of the original dull backgrounds of each of the photos using the Harsh eraser and auto select tools in Photoshop and the soft eraser to fade and smooth the edges of the images to make them seem more believable, realistic and blended into the background. I then turned the images to a straight upright position and placed the images in an attractive, lined up position, the way that I wanted them and in the placements that I felt looked the most attractive, dominant and effective. I tried to plan the spacing and layout out of this draft as much as I could in order for all the elements of my double page spread not to be stretched, out of proportion or with big gaps like on my previous draft. Planning the spacing and position of this layout/DPS draft helped to make my draft appear more professional, in proportion, with fewer gaps, less stretching of the images and have an overall more connected and attractive feel. Despite this I still had a problem with this design and the placing of the images for a few reasons. Firstly I feel that this placing of images doesn't appear as dominant, bold and attractive as the DPS I have created with other Drafts as the images are smaller and the page is more busy and therefore doesn't drag the audience’s attention towards the page as much as my DPS drafts with one image do as it doesn't have any key focus points or clear structure. When placing the images onto the layout they still ended up being stretched out of proportion slightly when trying to place them which means this draft looks quite unattractive, unprofessional, dull and not as bold. This creation and placing of the images took a long while to create however doing this meant that it was hard to get rid of their backgrounds on Photoshop entirely without leaving traces behind. On this particular draft some of the original backgrounds of the images have not been fully removed, erasered or deleted which means it has left random traces on my masthead which suddenly makes my DPS look unprofessional, unattractive, dull and not as dominant. Another negative point about this draft is the problem of the images being cut of at the bottom or side which makes this DPS look unprofessional and unbelievable as each image looks like they have no legs, removing the attractiveness of this design concept. I overall feel that the design elements of the images in this particular draft are more effective and attractive than in other drafts with more than one image as they are more spaced out, in proportion, larger, dominant, attractive, connected (colour) and relevant. However for this design element of the images to work certain things would have to be changed, altered and improved such as removing the whole of the images backgrounds, using full size images and making sure the images are in proportion not stretched in order to make this overall DPS design look as professional, attractive, realistic, believable, dominant, bold and effective as possible. However I do feel that the use of one large image on my DPS designs/drafts has proved more effective than using more than one image as they appear more attractive, bold, dominant, eye-catching, have clear focus points, less busy, easy to understand and take information in, interesting, conventional and effective. Another point I tried to improve upon on this draft, from a negative point on my last draft, was to try and make this double page spread draft appear more connected and like each element belongs together rather than it looking disjointed and dull in order to make it my DPS appear as professorial, attractive and effective as possible. I also felt that the placing and design of the Masthead was boring, dull, and unattractive and went against the house styles due to its font. I therefore decided to use a font stencil as it fitted with the house styles, complemented the Artists Indie-Pop style and linked the Artist clearly with my music magazines brand 'Hip' as I used the same font that is used on their Brand name/logo. I then placed the Masthead behind the heads of the images in order to make the design feel more modern, attractive, conventional, stand out, fit the Artists indie-pop style and connect the design together more in order to make this DPS draft feel connected and as if it belongs together rather than feel disconnected, dull and out of place like on my other draft. I chose to use a bold black font as it contrasted well with the images and backgrounds of these pages in order to make it noticeable, stand out from the page and complemented the house styles, colours of my DPS/music magazine and connoted the Artist positively as bold and dominant. Overall I think that this experimental design had many positive elements about it such as the unique layout which makes it stand out from the crowd, the images make the article personal to the Artist showing his different personalities/sides, the layout seems more connected than in other drafts rather than disjointed and the house styles work well together for continuity and to make this DPS feel like it belongs together. Some Negative points about this draft are that there’s no clear focus points, there’s still many white gaps that are blank, its unconventional and the images are slightly out of proportion/stretched. Therefore this draft is effective, different and bold but could be improved to make it appear more attractive, professional and dominant. On my next draft I want to experiment with improving and developing one of my better/experimental existing drafts and adding extra design elements in order to improve my Draft as much as possible in order to make the most effective, dominant, bold, attractive, eye-catching, attention grabbing, strand out and interesting final draft I possibly can.

^^^^I decided out of the last three experimental drafts this one was the most professional, dominant, interesting, attractive and aesthetically pleasing. I therefore decided to experiment with it to see if I could add any extra details of improvement to see what it would look like and if I could make it any better. Within articles I made reference to a rumour of Danny Manson (the artist in the article) having 'a fling'. Many music magazines(and other form of media-newspapers, TV, gossip magazines) of a similar genre like NME, billboard and Q, over-emphasis certain aspects of their articles by using puns, kickers, images and teasers which suggest shocking, new or interesting information which grabs an audience’s attention into reading there article/music magazine. As this is meant to be an exclusive interview I felt this particular information about 'Danny Manson' having rumoured relations with another music Artist Paloma Faith would be of particular interest to my music mad, reality show obsessed, hipster 15-25 aged target audience. Therefore I decided to emphasise this particular information in a way that i felt would grab the my audience’s attention towards the page, making them want to read the article and therefore making my music magazine as successful as possible, also increasing the popularity of my music magazine as my audience feel they’re getting exclusive, one of information and will therefore want to buy it again. I therefore felt the best way to grab an audience’s attention and associate both artists together was to use an image as it gives the illusion of realism and an audience will automatically associate the two Artists together as their faces are placed within the same DPS article. I then decided than I need to back this image up with some written information that audience’s secondary understanding yet leaves out key details and questionable facts which would act as a teaser to an audience, making them want to read on into the article to find out more. I therefore chose to write a simple catchy phrase in the form of a pun that withheld information, relevant to the Artist and connected both images on the page which is 'Manson's rumoured 'Love Affair' with singer-songwriter Paloma Faith....' I decided to place both Artists names within the phrase so an audience automatically connect both Artists together, suggesting there having some kind of relationship. I then decided to use a pun which was a play on the lyrics/title of one of Paloma Faiths recent songs, the quote 'Love Affair', which I felt made the information relevant to the Artist, catchy and memberable and left the audience with suggested information that makes them feel the need to read the whole article in order to find more about what 'Love Affair' actually means. I chose to place an ellipsis '...' and the end of this description/written information as it suggests that this information continues and will be described in more detail within the article itself, which subconsciously persuades audience/makes them feel the need to read on. I felt using the word rumoured acts as a rhetorical question which with holds information that can only be answered if the audience read the whole article. Overall I feel this piece of information is relevant to the image and connects both artists. I feel that adding the addition of the image and the description complements and improves this draft, adding conventional elements with rhetorical questions, puns and teasers building the interest and believability of this article, persuading an audience to want to read the article to find out more. This is typical and conventional of other similar genre music magazines like NME, Billboard and Q and makes my draft appear more professional, attractive and eye-catching, drawing in an audience’s attention, making my music magazine/DPS overall more memberable which means an audience are more likely to buy my music magazine as they enjoy it and feel like there gaining exclusive information, building its popularity. I chose to place the information in a white box under the image and to place the whole thing within the article (at the bottom) as this is professional and typical of music magazines, makes it look professional, fits with the house styles and blocking themes and complements the layout by balancing the space and content. I edited the apparent 'Paloma Faith' image in Photoshop in order to make it appear as attractive, clear, perfected, and dominant, fitting with the house styles/colours and professional as possible in order to draw an audience’s attention towards the page and to read the article itself. The description under the image is also in an Arial Font and size 11 writing as it conventional of music magazines, looks attractive, fits with and complements the house styles and also makes it clear and easy to read. I also edited the Masthead and changed it to a stencil font in order for it to complement the house styles/fonts, be relevant/ fitting to by Artist/Brands Modern Indie-Pop genre and to overall complement the style of my music magazine DPS which I felt made it as attractive, eye-catching, effective, bold and dominant as possible. I feel this edition to the draft improved the design and its concept a lot however I still feel this particular draft is not the best as stated before on the previous draft. This is because there are many negative points about this draft such as the use of three contradicting images that are small, unattractive and overlap, the layout not fitting together smoothly and feeling like its disjointed and just been placed there rather the appearing effective and attractive and the unconventional placing of writing makes the layout and designs look unprofessional and unattractive compared to other drafts like my forth one. I feel that to make the image and description work within my DPS/article however to make them work to full effectiveness I will need to change my lay out are replace the negative points with good points. On my next draft, I want to take the best and most effective and professional draft I have created previously and place this added design element (image and description) onto my most effective draft in order to improve it and complement it as much as possible. I then want to continue to perfect and develop my most favourite, best and effective DPS in order to create the most attractive, eye-catching, bold, dominant and professional DPS for my music magazine that I possibly can.

^^^^On my next Draft I have chosen to develop my most professional looking, attractive, dominant, bold, aesthetically pleasing and effective DPS I have created so far in order to create the best DPS and end result I possibly can. From my previous Draft I found that using an image and description to highlight a part of the Article/interview, where both famous music Artists Danny Manson and Paloma Faith had a rumoured fling, proved an effective method in making my magazine more interesting, eye-catching, effective and attractive, adding believability and interest to the article, drawing an audience’s attention towards this DPS and also subconsciously persuading them to read the whole article to find out more(the truth) as its suggesting yet withholds information(conventional). I therefore decided to place this design elements within this particular draft/layout which I felt improved upon the original design, making it as professional, intriguing, dominant, eye-catching, attention grabbing and attractive as possible. Despite experimenting with changing my masthead I felt this masthead of a pull quote was more interesting, bolder, effective, attractive and attention grabbing than just the artists names as it suggests exclusive and intriguing information about what the artist has actually said within the interview, persuading an audience to want to read on to find out more and the meaning behind the quote. Therefore I feel this current masthead is more attention grabbing than just the Artists name, which doesn’t tease the audience or suggest as much. I also feel these mastheads colours and styles are more eye-catching, vibrant, dominant, interesting, attractive and stand out for being different than my other masthead drawing the audience’s attention towards the page, with the current masthead fitting and complementing the house styles of my music magazine/DPS too. On my next Drafts I want to experiment with elements of this design, the image and masthead in order to make them appear as attractive, effective, professional, eye-catching and perfected as possible in order to persuade an audience to want to read this article/magazine/DPS and buy my magazine brand Hip again in the future as they liked it that much.

^^^^On this draft I wanted to continue to develop my best DPS draft design/layout in order to make it as professional, eye-catching, attractive and professional as I possibly can. One element I felt I could experiment with and improve upon even more was my masthead. From my research and previous drafts I found that a bold, unique, dominant and colourful masthead was effective, eye-catching and attractive (especially for a male Artist) as well as complementing my house styles, my Hip brands style/genre/theme and the Artists Indie Pop genre, style and colourful personality. I therefore wanted to continue to develop my masthead so I emphasised and highlighted words of importance so that it draws an audience’s attention towards the main points, helps there understanding of the article and looks aesthetically pleasing, interesting, unique and attractive therefore standing out for being different. I felt that highlighting and emphasising words in colours meant that words in both yellow and red spelt out a separate phrase 'one male Spears' and 'day version Britney' which leaves the audiences with even more unanswered questions and teasers than encourage them to read the whole article as the masthead makes them feel the need to find out more, complemented by the way it’s a catchy and rememberable layout and phrase. I used the colours red, yellow with black and white as there conventional, there dominant primary colours, there vibrant, stand out from the crowd and complement the colour scheme well. Red is also the most dominant and bold colour to the human eye and therefore will draw an audience’s attention directly towards this page. I used Photoshop to create every word separately and used to shadow effects and alter/stretch tools to make each word slightly different to the next which I felt created a unique masthead, that’s aesthetically pleasing, attractive, bold, attention grabbing, eye-catching and stands out from the crowd. I used shadow and highlighting effects on each word so that they are clear, noticeable, dominant, stand out from the page and automatically grab an audience’s attention when they see this page due to its unique, bold and dominant appearance. The up and downs of the writing and the changes in colour, font and size are almost a symbol of what’s to come in the article - the ups and downs of the Artists life, the happy times (yellow) and sad times (red) and complements the artists edgy, outgoing and unique personality which makes the page relevant and personal to the Artist in the interview, 'Danny Manson'. I used the Fonts Stencil and Cambria in order to suit the house styles for continuity and the changes in font symbolising the Artists off the edge, unique, ever changing, misperceived personality and life. I decide to keep the writing cleanly upright as if on horizontal lines (unlike on the previous draft) as due to the complex and uniqueness of this mastheads design, I believe by doing this it makes the masthead easier to read, bolder and clearer to understand as soon as an audience look at it (as British humans naturally read horizontally from left to right). I used over-exaggerated speech marks in black as it emphasises the fact this is a quote direct from the actual real artist, it conventional, successfully used by similar genre music magazine like MNE and Q and complements the house styles and indie pop genre, style and design of my music magazine and Artists. The fact it’s a unique looking masthead makes it more interesting, effective and attractive which means it will easily be remembered. This suggests an audience are more likely to remember this Article and the music magazine brand that brought them it which will therefore make them more likely to tell friends, colleges, family ect (increasing popularity) and are therefore also more likely to buy the magazine again, just like their friends, families, colleges ect are more likely to be persuaded to buy my music magazine Hip too.(often for the first time). Overall I feel this is a very successful, professional, effective and attractive double page spread for my music magazine. On my next Draft I want to perfect the minor detail and add any extra design elements or conventional aspects that will complement and improve my current draft in order to create the best final double page spread draft I possibly can.

^^^^From previous Drafts I found that using the background of 'DM' in red (stencil, large font)proved to be an effective way to make the artist appear dominant/attractive/edgy, the page appear attractive, effective, stand out, unique, complementing the design and the magazines indie/modern pop genre. Therefore I decided to experiment with adding this element back onto my current most effective, professional, new and improved contents page draft design which I felt made it appear even more attractive, bold, professional, effective and dominant, which I feel adds to design in order to make as much positive development and progression as possible in order to make that best final DPS draft I possibly can. On my next draft I want to experiment with perfecting these design elements as it's on an unattractive angle that distort and covers up the Paloma Faith image (negative point). I also want to experiment with editing the main photo/image of the Artist 'Danny Manson' so that it’s as perfected, attractive, bold, attention grabbing and dominant as possible as well as to also try and make the image complement the house styles/colours as much as possible in order to link my brand Hip and the Artist altogether and to make my music magazine DPS look as Aesthetically attractive, effective, relevant, dominant and bold as possible.

 ^^^^On this Draft I edited the main image of the Artist 'Danny Manson' using the spot healing, healing, clone, eraser and perfecting tools in Photoshop to perfect his skin as much as I could in order to make the image look as professional as possible and the artist to look as attractive as possible in order to persuade the audience to want to read the article as well as allowing the brand to gain a reputation of promoting there Artists successfully and in a positive light. I also edited the eyes of the Artist 'Danny Manson' in the main images using the liquidify tools to open his eyes as much as possible so that the use of direct address is emphasised as he appears as if he’s looking positively directly at the audience (conventional) giving the DPS a personal touch and drawing an audience’s attention directly towards the page as they feel like the Artist is looking directly at them making them more likely to feel the need to read it. I feel opening his eyes more also makes him took more attractive and good looking (promoting him positively). I also edited his eyes using bright blue small circle tools in Photoshop, which I reduced the opacity of for realism, and placed on top of the colour of his eyes in order to make his eyes seem brighter, bolder and more attractive(boosting and complementing the Artists cool/attractive public image), improving the quality of the image to make it seem more professional as well as improving the effect of direct address as an audience as more likely to notice his eyes and be draw towards the page by them. I also changed the colour of the Artist in the main images shirt using the auto-select tools in Photoshop to select his shirt, then choosing a red colour and reducing the opacity till it was believable that the shirt was actually red. I did this in order to connect the pages together and to make the image complement the house styles/colours, which makes the whole DPS feel connected and linked together as well as automatically associating the brand 'Hip' with the Artist, subconsciously reminding an audience of the brand who brought them this article/interview. I also edited the 'DM' which is placed behind the body of the text so that it was on a more attractive angle the suited the house styles and looked aesthetically pleasing and effective as well as to move it to an angle that didn't ruin, distort or cover up the smaller image of 'Paloma Faith', like it did on my previous draft. On my next Draft I plan to add any minor conventional details and modify any aesthetic/design details which I feel may be positively improved by editing and tweaking them in order to make my final draft as professional, attractive and effective as I possibly can.

^^^^The main Aesthetic/design element I wanted to improve upon on this Draft was the 'DM' which sits behind the body of the main article/interview/text. On previous drafts I experimented with using different Fonts and found that a normal 'Rockwell' font was the most effective on this particular design element as it complemented my music magazine/DPS's house styles and the rest of the layout designs the best, I felt it suited the Artist 'Danny Manson’s' style, complemented the brand/artists Indie-Pop Genre, looked aesthetically attractive, effective, bold, stands out, dominant and is clear for an audience to read. On this Draft I experimented with replacing the stencil font with the Rockwell font on this particular design element which I feel proved the most effective font as it complemented the design, Artist, house styles, brand and genre the best and I feels it overall looks very effective, dominant and attractive. I also chose to experiment with reducing the opacity of the large 'DM' behind the article even more in order to make the article itself easier and clearer for an audience to read. On this draft a main conventional point I chose to add to this design is a list of what the Artist wears in the main photo/image. Some magazines include this as a way of promoting the Artist and to gain money from clothing companies/ designers/ shops who sponsor the brand to dress their Artists in items of clothing in order to promote them. Music Magazine brands like NME, Billboard and Q also often add a list of what there artists wear as there audience/readers, who are fans of the major artists, will be interested in where they got their clothes from so they can buy them there selves (for themselves or boyfriend ect), which gives an audience/reader even more reason to want to buy this music magazine. I felt that adding this conventional element/design would be effective for my particular brand 'Hip’s target audience as there predominantly stylish, hipster 15-25 year olds with keen interests in fashion and shopping (and obviously modern music) and therefore I feel will be particularly interested in my music magazine if they can also find out where their favourite Artists get their clothes from so they can look as good as them (relevant to my target audience). I made the clothing list a small font as its conventional and isn't the main focus of my article and a white colour as it fits with my house styles/colours and contracted well with the colours of my image making it as easy to read, clear and noticeable as possible. I also chose to make the photographer and Writers credits on the main image  (left hand side page) slightly smaller as its conventional and I didn’t want it to distract attention from the main focus of the article - the Artist 'Danny Manson'. I feel that overall this Draft is the best DPS I have created so far and there isn't much left to do with it in order to perfect it as much as possible. I feel that my next draft will be my last draft and the only things left to do are predominantly small details that will help to improve and perfect my design as much as possible in order to create the most professional, attractive, effective, dominant, aesthetically pleasing, believable, stand out, attention grabbing and eye-catching final draft.

 

^^^^On this Last Draft I just wanted to perfect a few minor details in order to create the best final DPS draft I possibly could. One of the main things I changed on this draft was the large red 'DM' that sits behind the main article/interview/text. On my previous draft I reduced the opacity of it in Photoshop however I felt this made this design element less dominant and hard to notice and therefore it didn't look as effective and attractive as it did in previous drafts. I therefore felt reducing the opacity was unnecessary as the writing was still easily readable (for my young 15-25 target audience) when the opacity was increased slightly and I therefore chose to increase the opacity of the design element slightly on this draft so that it looked attractive, dominant, bold and clear. I then decided to change the position of this design element so that it was placed horizontally at the bottom of the page. I decided to do this as from my DPS research I found that writing/design elements like this looked much more conventional, attractive, dominant and effective when placed horizontally across the bottom of the page. When I changed this design elements position I felt it instantly made my design more attractive, bold, effective and dominant as well as making it feel more connected and easy to read as it fitted the motion of my vertical writing (as people read horizontally from left to right) and therefore by changing the position the design element suited my DPS design more as well as complementing my Artist and Brands styles, house styles and music genre. When changing the 'DM' writing position it also helped to highlight and emphasis the brand name Hip in the Corner of the page, linking both the Artist and brand together which subconsciously reinforces to the audience the brand who brought them this exclusive article, making them more likely to remember and want to buy Hip music magazine again. The 'DM' also overlaps onto the right hand side page slightly which gives it an edgy feel fitting of the magazine/artists indie - pop genre and also links both pages together in and effective way, clearly emphasising that both pages are meant to be together as one. The one problem I had with placing this design element at the bottom of the page was that it covered up and distorted the smaller image of 'Paloma Faith', making it look dull, less noticeable and not as effective as it was in previous drafts. I overcame this problem by moving the image upwards into the right hand side column which meant it was just as effective, noticeable, attractive and clear as it was in previous drafts. By moving this smaller image of 'Paloma Faith' upwards, I also felt it made the all-round layout design look more attractive and also made the image feel more connected with the article and design as it was merged within it, making it appear more noticeable, clear, relevant, attractive and effective. I also chose to make the issue date '15th January 2013' a bold font so that it stood out from the article, which instantly establishes it’s on its own and not part of the article itself. I then spaced out and evened out the main article/interview text as much as I could, placing the black lines equally between them, to make it look professional, believable, conventional, effective and attractive as possible. I also made sure each word was on the page and could easily seen and read by its reader/audience as that’s the point of an article being there in the first place as well as moving the article away from the bottom edge of the page as its conventional of a music magazine, allowing the writing not to get muddled in-between the issue number, brand name and page number, clearly defining each section of the DPS. I finally made the Masthead as large as I could on the page (without covering up any other words) as I wanted it to look as eye-catching, bold, dominant and conventional as possible in order to capture an audience’s attention, making it noticeable, attractive and effective. I feel that overall this Final DPS has been perfected as much as it can be without ruining the design or layout. I therefore believe my final draft is the best draft I have created and I also believe it is an overall effective, dominant, eye-catching, attention grabbing, attractive, effective, aesthetically pleasing, stand out, unique, conventional, bold, complementary, professional, believable and successful final Double Page Spread draft.

Contents Page Drafts

^^^^My initial first draft of my contents page.

I started to create this using Photoshop from the designs and ideas from my contents page research, digital mock ups, hand drawn drafts and electronic drafts. I used the conventions of other similar music magazines contents pages, of a similar genre, like Q and NME to create this. I did by this by including a issue date, masthead, splash, logo/brand name, list of features and sub-headings, page numbers and relevant images. As my target audience predominantly are ranked C1-E in the social class system I included competitions to win things as well as free posters to encourage them to buy the magazine as they have the chance of doing/seeing things they can't usually afford. The competitions and posters were linked and carried on from those on the front page so that both pages like there part of the same magazine and for continuity and reinforcement of teasers to the audience. I continued the colour scheme and house styles (font, themes) on from the front page for continuity so that they link together, look like they belong together and appear professional. I tried to put contrasting colours next to each other so that everything could be easily seen, eye-catching, clear and bold. I included a subscribe box like other popular magazines like NME has, to promote it and remind people subscribe, another bargain for the target audience. I continued my sell line 'the new music revolution' by writing 'be part of the revolution' as an encouragement (teaser) at the bottom of the page making my audience want to turn over and read this revolutionary magazine. I placed an arrow at the right corner of the page as it’s at the reader finger tips and is prominently pointed towards the concept of turning the page, keeping the audience in suspense by teasing them in wanting to read on to see what the full articles are about. I used the colour red, being the most eye-catching colour to highlight the areas of importance to draw an audience’s attention towards them. I used the images as teasers as to what's to come in my music magazine. I used language/sub heading that are relevant to my young audiences and are often used in weekly magazines of my genre such as 'Regulars'' 'live!', 'exclusives', 'news', 'reviews', 'radar' and 'Hip'. These words are typical jargan associated with the music industry and music magazines as well as being words used and understood mostly by my target audience’s age group 15-25. I tried to include features/articles that fitted with my target audience’s interests were relevant to the present day/week, were typically included within music magazines and were interesting enough to make people want to read the them. I wrote 'This Week Inside HIP' as my masthead instead of 'Contents' to give it that of the edge less obvious feel, make it feel friendly not patronising and emphasising that it’s a weekly magazine which reinforces this concept into the audiences minds, reminding them to buy the magazine again next week. This also makes it sound like a useful page than just a boring factual page like the word 'contents' does. When writing page numbers on my Artist Alphabet and on my images I made sure the numbers used on both linked in with each other accurately and was random so that it was believable, conventional and accurate of a music magazine. Magazine contents pages like NME include a 'Band Index' on their contents page which makes it easier for their audience to find the articles, music, information and gossip on their favourite bands there the most interested in. However I thought it would be more useful to include Artists in general 'Artist Alphabet' as my music magazine features all different types of Artists, not just bands and therefore this would be the most useful for my magazine and target audience. I called it an 'Artist Alphabet' as that literally defines what it is, a list of artists in my magazine in alphabetical order along with the pages their featured on. However I also thought this was catchy and rememberable as it uses alliteration also making it sound 'HIP' and relevant to the brand. When using my brand name on my contents page, I always used my specific 'HIP' logo in the same font, style and colour so that the audience will familiarise with the brand, remember who brought them this amazing music magazine and it will become easily recognisable by its bold style and colours thus increasing its popularity. I also started to focus in on detail to make it accurate and precise like a professional music magazine would be by including things such as 'Full T&C available on the website' in italics which are needed to be included as legislation by law but I put this in smaller font 'small print', which is conventional of music magazines and other magazines as it maintains the audiences focus on the most important, eye-catching and attractive things about my Music Magazine contents page. I also tried to display my images in a 'hip', cool and interesting was with the most interesting main images/articles being largest and the ones that weren't as interesting main slightly smaller.

^^^^I continued to make my music magazine conventional by adding conventional, needed things onto my contents page that I hadn't yet included such as an issue number and page numbers down the side of my features/articles list. I placed these numbers down the left hand side of my features/articles as its conventional of music magazines. I also made all the page numbers on my page red, unless it was hard to see them, as it fitted with the house styles (brand logo) sand drew attention towards them as its the most eye-catching colour which I felt was important as the page numbers are the main point of a contents page thus making it easier for as audience to read and find them. I used black on the Alphabet Artists list and articles/features list writing as it contrasted clearly with the red of the numbers and the light background making them easy to distinguish, read and find. I placed block colours behind my sub-heading, titles and masthead in order for them to stand of the page and my read much clearly as there against contrasting colours, to fit with the house styles and themes along with the continuity of the blocking theme from the front page making it feel like both the front page and the contents pages belong together. As the masthead/main heading was black with yellow behind it and the sub-headings/smaller titles were yellow with black behind it made them link together well along with making an audiences eyes clearly distinguish that there titles but of different kinds. I also added a block yellow colour behind the 'Win X-factor tickets' so that it fitted with the house/styles/colours and blocking theme, was conventional and stood out from the page drawing the audience’s attention towards it. I continued using the same stencil and Calibri fonts for continuity so the page felt like it belonged together and with the front page. I moved some of the articles features around do that they were in the order they would be in throughout the magazine as so that the page numbers made sense and related to the page numbers used on the Artist Alphabet for continuity and believability of this being a real, professional magazines. Under each sub-heading the page numbers were listed in order as its conventional and makes it easier to find the pages of the articles the audience want to read which is the point of a music magazine contents page in the first place. I extended James Arthur's article/feature title so that it sounded more appealing to the audience and gave away a bit of information so that the audience would want to read the article to find out more.

^^^^I experimented with altering the style of my contents page to see what it looked like, I did by this using my using my contents page research and using the conventions of similar style music magazines to mine. I kept the background and the style of the display of features down the left hand side and there conventional, look effective and fit with the house styles of my Front Cover. However I made the list of features a larger font so they were clear, bolder and easier to read. I used a traditional Masthead title of 'contents' to make it blatantly obvious to an audience what this page of about and for. I made the masthead red with a yellow shadow and black inner shadow effects to make it bold, eye- catching and stand out along with making it the same font used on the Front Cover so everything fits with the house styles and general style of my music magazine. I displayed the word 'contents' on 3 lines like other music magazines to make it look contemporary and relevant to my 15-25 target audience. I experimented with changing the picture and using one large image as I felt the smaller images looked tacky and unprofessional on my previous draft as they were too similar, didn't stand out and had to be stretched out of proportion to fit the style of my contents page design. I put a page number next to the image as it’s conventional and is the point of a contents page so an audience can find the article about this particular artist easily. I added twitter and Facebook contact information onto my contents page as from my focus group I found that these social networking sights were popular with my indie-pop loving 15-25 target audience and would be another way to boost the popularity of my music magazine, keep people up to date (personal touch), advertise, link my page to artists accounts and get feedback from my audience. I kept the splash on my contents page as its relevant to my features and front cover as well as acting as a teaser. However I made the splash fit with the house styles by changing the colour and made it stand out, look more professorial and bold by putting the real V-Festival logo on it and using more contrasting colours. I edited the images by using auto select tools and faded eraser to get rid of the images background, make it look natural and rid of lumps and bumps like my models baggy trousers and top. I changed the arrow as it looked dull and ineffective and I wanted to make it look attractive and stand out so I used a 3D arrows that pops out from the edge of the paper making it more noticeable, contemporary and like that of other music magazines. I felt the subscribe box was effective and conventional however I moved it to the left to fit with the design like on other music magazines like NME.

Despite all this I feel that this contents page looks unprofessional, unattractive and the design doesn't look like it fits together very well. I feel that the 'Artist Alphabet' was an effective idea on my other draft and this draft isn't conventional or bold enough and doesn't fit the purpose of a contents age as there isn't enough information on it and there's lots of blank space. I feel that the masthead isn't bold enough and the design isn't box-like enough to be as conventional and effective as other music magazines.

^^^^I experimented with changing my design again. I did this by applying all the elements that were effective from my previous drafts like the Artist Alphabet, splash, brand name and boxed features and discarding all the ideas I didn't think were as effective. I then found contents pages from other successful music magazines like NME, Q and Billboard that I personally liked and looked attractive and effective and applied some of their conventions and styles to create an effective and attractive layout and design for my music magazine through attention to detail. I used a block scheme and continued my house styles from the front page as there conventional, relevant effective, making my magazine stand out and dominant. I kept the subscribe box and Facebook/Twitter section as I felt they were effective and conventional but I merged them together to fit with the theme and style of my magazine. I used the typical Facebook and Twitter icons so that it was more official and obvious to an audience as to what they were there for as these symbols are automatically associated with the Facebook and Twitter Social Networking sights. I defined both subscribe and social network sections by a clear line to make each side obvious and clear to an audience's eye and I also thought it looked casual and contemporary like designs on other music magazine contents pages. I added mini magazine front cover images to my subscribe box like other music magazines do on their contents pages to make it believable that my brand has produces several previous issues before this one. I used magazines of the same house style and colours to my front cover to make it a realistic and believable that they are from the same brand. I put my brand name/logo within my masthead as its conventional and reinforces to the audience who brought them this magazine. I used a typical, conventional blocking theme to display on my features and used the contemporary style of NME for the subtitles as I felt it looked effective, modern, fresh and attractive. Along with using the names for the subtitles that were typical of music magazines similar to mine, conventional and relevant to the vocabulary used by my 15-25 aged target audience. I made sure each of my list of features where catchy, interesting and relevant to a contemporary audience. I also added descriptions under each of my titles of features as its conventional, makes them sound more interesting and acts as a teaser or kicker to persuade an audience to want to go ahead and read the articles. I added a plus section to my list of articles as I felt it was effective on the NME contents page, conventional and allowed me to display details of every feature and article that's in my entire music magazine which is the point of a contents page in the first place. I used a bright yellow backing behind my artist alphabet to make it stand out, fit my blocking theme and suit the house styles of my music magazines - I also did this with my main feature title for the same reason. I also spread the list of Artists out so they were clearer and easy to read for the reader/audience looking at them making it easier for them to find articles about their favourite Artists. I kept the splash as it was effective and fitted with my features and front cover too. I used the masthead 'HIP THIS WEEK' as I felt this was effective on my other drafts as its contemporary and informal however I changed the design slightly to suit the theme, make it as bold, attractive and eye-catching as possible and also because it looked effective on one of NME magazines contents pages, which has a similar target audience to mine. I displayed the date line and issue number within the design of my contents page so that they looked like a page of the design rather than just thrown on which I felt made it look more professorial and attractive. I moved the arrow section to fit with the new theme and layout of my contents page and changed some of the colours and background of the wording so that they stood out from there background and could be read clearly. I used an image I had taken from a physical model and one I had taken from an Olly Murs Album front cover as the main images of this contents page. I felt these images complemented each other (similar poses) well with Olly Murs being relevant to the genre of my magazine and the week this was published. I also made sure these images related to the features and Artist Alphabet. I edited the images using faded and blunt eraser and the auto select tools in Photoshop to get rid of there backgrounds so i could place the images together as a joint article/story/feature. I felt the images were a good contrast in style but as if they had be taken specifically in the same pose by a photographer for this particular article about them competing for an award. I used their last names to create a catchy and punchy headline through alliteration 'Murs Vs Manson' to attract an audience’s attention/eye and make them interested in wanting to read the full article. I made it clear the article was about them competing for something with the bold 'VS' sign in between them in a clear red colour and stencil font, fitting with the dominant house styles. I put the headline underneath the images with a description as it conventional, act’s as a teaser and is similar to that of successful music magazines like NME. I chose to do all the writing under the images (headline and article description) in block capitals so they look dominant, eye-catching and almost shouted at the audience to make them feel like they must read the rest of the article. I also used rhetorical questions and teasers within my article description to make an audience want to read the article to find out the answers to these questions. I made my main feature/article of the contents page relevant to the Front Page as well as about the Brit Awards as this is a major awards ceremony which involves many indie and pop top chart artists which is the predominate genre of my music magazine.

^^^^^I made subtle edits to this draft, paying attention to detail to make it as effective, attractive and as much like real music magazine contents pages as possible(professional). I started to edit the mini magazines on my subscribe box by adding the hip Logo/brand name as the masthead to make it look as if there images of previous music magazines, making it look like I have had several music magazines out already - making it believable. I changed the line separating the subscribe section and tweet/Facebook section as it looked like it didn't belong there and had just been accidentally rubbed out. I therefore used a dotted line as I felt it looked more professional and fitted with the style of my music magazine better. I made the writing on the subscribe box slightly bigger to make them more bolder, clearer, attractive and dominant in appearance.

^^^^I perfected my design my moving around my features so they were evenly spread out making my magazine look professorial  conventional as well as easy for my audiences eyes to read. I removed the line dividing my subscribe and social network section as I felt it was unnecessary, didn't fit the theme, wasn't professional and didn't look like it was meant to be there. I added an extra 'Hip' masthead onto my third mini-magazine Front Cover image for believably of it being a previous issue. I added a large page number (in conventional house styles) to my Main Headline/Feature as it's the points of a contents page, conventional and allows my audience to find the article clearly and easily. I changed my splash so that it contained the real V-Festival logo so to make it official, professional, believable and allows an audience to instantly recognize the logo and the festival it stands for. However I kept the colour of it red to make it eye-catching and fitting with the house styles but used an inner shadow effect to make it appear 3D and stand out from the page.

^^^^I added and experimented with changing different elements of this contents page design/draft to make it look as effective, conventional, professorial, attractive and as relevant to contemporary 15-25 aged target audience as possible(attention to detail.). I added a page number to my splash as it's conventional and the point of a contents page is to make it easy for an audience to find the articles/features they want to reads page numbers. I edited the Artist Alphabet by adding a white box around each of the individual artists names which NME have also used on some of their contents pages 'band index' and there music magazine has a similar genre and target audience to mine. I also did this as I felt it gave my contents page an edgy, modern, young feel making it attractive. As well as highlighting the Artists names therefore drawing the audience's attention/eyes towards them making the design effective, professional, dominant and also fitting to the conventional blocking theme.

^^^^I moved the page number of my main headline as it looked out of place and it wasn't made clear as to which feature/article it was associated with. I also changed it to a red colour to fit with my theme and the rest of my page numbers as well to make it as bold and as eye catching as possible as the page numbers are one of the main points of a contents page and also an audiences/readers made focus. I added a white shadow around the arrow in the subscribe box in order to highlight it to make it clear to a reader/audience that the contents information relates to how to subscribe to HIP music magazine. I highlighted the last names Manson and Murs with the colour red to make the point of the headline clear as well as red being the most eye-catching colour to the human eye. I made the writing of the description of the main headline of my contents page larger to fill the page and to make them stand out to catch the audience's eyes as much as possible. I did the same with the 'Tweet + Like Us!' section to make it as clear, dominant, noticeable and eye-catching as possible. I changed all my features to capital letters as its conventional (Like in NME and Q), eye-catching, dominant and almost shouts at an audience therefore grabbing there attention to want to read the full article. I moved the 'VS' up to fill the space as it looked out of space. I also spaced out the words in my subscribe box to make it more in proportion as well as making the Facebook and Twitter symbols as in proportion and noticeable as possible for a professorial (attention to detail) finish.

^^^^I changed the writing on the headline description/detail to a bold font so that it complemented the bold and dominant theme/design/house styles. I changed the words 'Brit Awards' on the headline description to a red colour to highlight the point of the article, make it seem more official, relate it  to the brand logo/colours and red is the most eye-catching colour to the human eye making it noticeable and dominant. The main thing I experimented with and changed on the draft was the image. I did this to see what it would look like against the other image and if it was better to have them in similar poses or different poses to show individuality. I felt it looked quite good to show individuality and contrast despite the image being slightly not in proportion. I also experimented with editing the image through photo manipulation such as using liquidify tools to make my models muscles bigger, corrector and heeling tools to perfect my models skin and blending options to improve the brightness and quality of the picture. I think this helped make the image appear more professional, effective, attractive and eye-catching. I also added a tattoo to his arm relevant to being a music artist which says 'life is nothing without music' which I feel complemented his look and pose, giving him individuality and making him a believable Singer/music Artist.

^^^^On this Draft I wanted to maintain the general structure as I felt it was effective but I wanted to experiment and change some of the additional effects, displays and image's to make this contents page as believable, attractive, professional looking and effective as I could. For this draft I was inspired by other similar music magazines of my genre like NME and Q to make my magazine look believably professional and effective as a contents page. I took aesthetic and structural elements of these music magazines and combined them with my own ideas, experiments and house style to try to create an attractive and effective contents page. One of the mains things I changed on this draft was the central focus structure. I felt that on my last draft the 'Manson Vs Murs' idea was relatively attractive, believable and effect but I also felt it looked rather childish, fake and non-professional so I wanted to experiment with using one image as a focus point to draw the audience's attention towards the page so they also don’t get an information overload (like in the previous draft with two images). I chose a photo that I felt looked attractive and stylish in order to automatically persuade my 15-25 stylish, hipster audience to want to read the whole article. I also feel that using one image is more effective than the two images in my last draft as it gives the page a clear focus point, making the magazine seem personal as if the artist 'Danny Manson' is actually looking directly at the audience/camera (conventional, professional), improving their likeness of the magazine/Artist thus making the audience more likely to buy my music magazine again. I chose an image that was looking directly at the camera in order for it to draw an audience’s attention towards the page, giving it a personal touch with direct address also being conventional of music magazines therefore making my magazine look professional. I decided the get rid of the background of the image as it was dull, boring and would of distracted an audiences focus from the main image, I did this by using the various eraser and auto-select tools in Photoshop. I then replaced it with a plain coloured square background which is conventional of music magazine contents pages (especially NME) which I felt helps to draw an audience’s attention directly towards the Artist image which is the main part of the article/a music magazine, which was effective in eliminating the distractions of the original images complex background. I used a grey colour as I felt it contrasted well with the colour of the Artists top to make the image stand out as much as possible as well as using a white shadow effect around the image which I felt made it look more professional, effective, conventional and stand out from the page in order to capture the audience’s attention when they look at the page. I also felt that by using a box around the images it fitted with my house styles, blocking theme and the conventional use of blocking on music magazine contents pages. I placed a page number in the corner of the box as it’s conventional and is the point of a music magazine contents page (to find the pages/articles easily). I chose to make it a large font, red and with a white box around it so that it complemented and fitted in with my house styles as well as to make it stand out more than any of the other numbers, as its the number of the main article so I wanted to highlight it the most. The white box is also conventional and complements my house styles/blocking theme. I chose to make the writing underneath the font styles Calibri and stencil in black colours so that they went with my house styles, complemented my artist 'Danny Manson' and my  music magazines 'Hip' 's Indie-Pop style/genre and also to make the words dominant, bold, clear, stand out and easy to read. I made the title of the article the stencil font as its the bolder font and therefore would highlight the most important piece of information by making it stand out and the most dominant. I used the pull quote 'My Grandma Still Does My Washing' in order to give my audience an insight into what's to come in the article/interview, which acts as a teaser to the audience making them feel the need to read the article in order to find out more. This pull Quote is also conventional, adds a personal touch, making the article/contents page realistic, believable and professional. I used a black font and a yellow shadow on the pull quote in order to complement my house styles/themes as well as to stand out from the page and the writing around it as it’s the most interesting, important and significant information compared to written the information surrounding it. I used a yellow colour behind the title 'The World Went Mad For Manson' to highlight its importance, as its gives away the main summary of the image/article making it one of the most dominant and significant pieces of information on the page. The use of boxes surrounding the title also fit the house styles, conventionally complement the blocking theme of a music magazine contents page and make the words stand out from the page in order to dominantly catch an audience’s attention. I chose to use the phrase 'mad for Manson' as it acts as a form of alliteration and a pun, making an audience more likely to remember it as its catchy, therefore more likely to remember to read the article and buy my music magazine again. The use of alliteration/pun is also a conventional aspect included within many professional music magazines like NME, Billboard and Q which makes my magazine even more professional looking, believable and effective. I made the word 'Manson' a red colour as it’s the most dominant colour to the human eye and larger font as he’s the artist behind the article and therefore the main point of it, so by doing this it highlights the Artist as the main feature, making his name appear bold, dominant and eye catching. Using the colour red and stencil font on the Artists name also directly links the Artist with the Hip Brand, as my music magazine Hip uses the same colour and font, reinforcing to the audience the brand that brought them this exclusive Article (increasing popularity, more people will want to buy the magazine again). I felt that the colour red also positively connotes the artist as loving, passionate, dominant, bold and attractive (relevant positive connotations of the Artist).  I decided to put the description of the article in italics as its conventional and less important but I also made it a bold font in order for it to appear dominant, clear, noticeable, attractive and fitting of the house styles. I used my research of contents pages in order to come up with 'The moment that...' idea as it’s a similar concept used on NME's contents pages, who are of a similar target audience and genre to my music magazine 'Hip', which I felt was an effective, attractive, interesting and dominant design feature for a contents page. I feel that the phrase 'the moment that..' is effective in making the audience feel like there reading something exclusive and new and is an informal phrase that makes the contents page feel personal to the Artist/audience as well as an edgy phrase that connotes the brand positively and complements the brands modern pop/indie-pop genre. I would use this phrase as a motif/design concept on every current contents page made for Hip Magazine for continuity and so that an audience would familiarise with it and the brand (increasing brand popularity) which would also help them to understand the layout so they can easily find the articles they want to read the next time they purchase it. I maintained the blocking theme throughout as its conventional is complementary to the house styles, effective, dominant, attractive, suiting of the indie-pop/modern pop genre and defines the page, making it as easy and clear to read as possible for my audience. I used shadow effects where I felt necessary to make elements stand out from the page, eye catching and dominant also helping to highlight the most important aspects of this draft. I decided to add an extra 'win X-FACTOR tickets' section onto my draft as it linked to my front cover and articles on my contents page and I also felt this was something that would attract an audience into buying my magazine again as well as predominantly interest them as my target audience are reality show mad people who are lower on the scale demographically and therefore wouldn't be able to afford such luxury’s. I decided to use a stencil font for continuity and to suit the house styles of my music magazine/contents page in order to make my contents page effective, attractive, professional and successful. I used the real X-Factor symbol/logo in this section to show its official and to make it believable and professional in appearance. As it’s an important/main section, I used the red and yellow house styles to highlight the page number that the X-Factor competition is on dominantly so an audience can easily find it (point of a contents page). I decided to move the V-Festival splash up to the top of the page as I felt it complemented the new layout better, filled the blank space and allowed for overlapping which makes the splash feel connected to the design (unlike in the previous draft where it felt disjointed), stand out, conventional of similar genre Music Magazine (like NME and Q) and complements my music magazines edgy, contemporary, indie style thus directly targeting my modern, stylish, indie/hipster contemporary 15-25 target audience. I wanted to change the presentation of the splash as I felt the 'V-Festival' splash on the previous draft didn’t work well with the contents pages/magazines house styles, looked unprofessional, dull, fake and didn’t give clear information about why the V-Festival is relevant within this music magazine. I therefore decided to change it in a way that an audience would understand, that was clear, dominant, attractive, aesthetically pleasing and effective. I decided to use the real body of the 'V-Festival' logo within my splash design to represent it as official, believable, professional and so that an audience instantly recognise/establish what it is about. I used a faded background from red to yellow as it fitted/complemented the house styles (unlike the background in the other draft), connotated the happy, summer-y feel of V-Festival and the colours of V-Festival as well as overall making it look attractive, unique, dominant, effective and stand out from the rest of the page. I made the page number yellow to highlight the main point of the splash and the 'Exclusives Inside' black and in capitals so that it contrasts with its background so its bold and clear to read, suits the house styles/genre and almost shouts to the audience the information as a way of persuading them to want to turn to the page to find out more. I decided to experiment with placing black dominant lines between the articles which I felt was a successful way to define each section of the contents page, make them clear and complemented the house styles/blocking theme. However I wanted to make them edgy, qwerky and unique in order to make my music magazine contents page stand out from the crowd (other music magazines) so I used the eraser tool in Photoshop to break the lines up which I felt was an effective and attractive way to complement the rest of my contents page, my music magazines genre and make it unique/stand out from other music magazine contents pages. On this draft I predominantly tried to space out, correct and define each element as much as I could in order to create the best final draft I possibly can. Overall I feel this Draft is the best contents pages draft I have created so far as it appears the most professional, dominant, conventional, attractive, full of information, relevant to the front cover, effective, bold, unique, fitting of the genre/house styles and stands out from the crowed. However I still feel i can perfect some small details like the writing, accuracy of placing/layout, making the dominant black lines the same pattern and experimenting with changing the image as the current one isn't the best quality. On my next draft I want to use some of these current ideas to experiment with the effect it would have if I used more than one image for separate articles. I then want to continue to develop and perfect my best draft in order to make the best final draft I possibly can.

 

^^^^Many Contents pages from professional music magazines like Billboard, Q and NME highlight more than one article and use more than one main image and therefore on this Draft one of the main things I wanted to experiment with was the effect using more than one main image and main article would have on my current effective, conventional, attractive contents page layout and design. I chose two of my most interestingly and effectively edited images (of different models), which have been edited in Photoshop using various colour and perfector tools, that looked attractive and effective when on their own. I then removed their backgrounds using the various auto-select and eraser tools in Photoshop, and placed them onto my contents page in a conventional staggered position, similar as suggested in my hand-drawn drafts and contents page research. I then chose to replace their backgrounds with conventional block colours which I felt complemented and contrasted well with each image to make them look dominant, attractive and stand of the page in order to grab the audience/readers attention. I conventionally placed the page numbers onto the top corner of each image/background in a red colour, stencil font which suited the house style, modern/indie pop genre and was bold enough to be clearly read and noticeable (there the point of a contents page, to find articles easily). I then placed pull quotes in the remaining spaces next to the images in order to conventionally give an audience an insight into what’s to come within the articles, which act as a teaser to an audience, persuading them to want to read on to find out more, also making the articles seem personal and exclusive to the Artist. I chose to make them a red colour and Calibri font in order to suit and complement the house styles, stand of the page, be easy to read, noticeable, eye-catching and bold with red being the most noticeable and dominant colour to the human eye. Despite this I feel that changing the central focus has not been as effective as the central focus/article layout in the previous draft design. This is because the images and there backgrounds go against the house styles and don’t suit the layout, the backgrounds of the images haven’t been fully removed, the pull quotes have been squashed and stretched into a tiny space, there’s are no shadow effects to make the words/images stand out and overall looks unprofessional, ineffective, disjointed, doesn’t suit/complement the design/ layout, is unattractive and dull. To make this design work I would have to use backgrounds/ images that suited the design and complemented the layout, use images taken horizontally not vertically so the pull quotes can be spread out not squashed, smooth out and get rid of the white edges around the images and use more boxing (boxes) and overlapping as its conventional, to fit with the blocking theme, the house styles and to make the design idea feel connected to the rest of the design/layout. Overall I feel the display of main articles /features/ images worked better on the previous draft anyway as they were displayed in a conventional, professional and box like way, complemented the house styles and themes, fitting the design/ layout the best, didn’t make the page seem as disjointed (information overload) and allowed for clear focus points of attention that drew at audience’s attention towards the main points. Other small details I changed and altered in order to perfect my layout/ draft design of my contents page were using the same Zebra pattern effect on all black defining lines for continuity, to create clear house styles and to make the layout more attractive, unique, interesting and stand out against other music magazines for being different (an audience are more likely to remember the brand, increasing its popularity). I also added various shadow and highlighting effects on many of my texts to highlight important areas, make them look attractive, dominant, clear, bold, noticeable and stand out from their backgrounds, complementing the house styles edgy, bold appearance and genre. I also defined and accurately placed some of the sections in my subscribe/contact box to make them clear and obvious to an audience as well as putting the words 'Tweet and Like us' on a slant to suit my music magazines edgy, contemporary style and to clearly define the subscribe and contact sections within the box. I made the words in my subscribe box as large, bold, bright and clear as possible in order to make them appear bold, effective, attractive, dominant and eye catching to the audience so they are clearly noticeable and easy to read. Some other negative points I could improve upon on this draft are placing the word 'Inside' back inside its splash, giving the bold black defining lines equal patterns and making sure everything is accurately positioned and placed to make it as attractive, believably professional and effective as possible. On my next draft I want to improve upon the best draft I have created so far (previous one), adding the extra positive elements I have put into this draft as well as developing and experimenting with improving detail on it as much as possible in order to create an effective, attractive, professional, aesthetically pleasing, eye-catching and successful final draft of my contents page.

^^^^On this Draft I chose to take the best existing draft I had created so far and developed it, adding positive elements and developments from my other drafts in order to create the best final draft possible. I also then continued to develop my contents page draft by experimenting with different design concepts and using my Contents Page research and conventions to continue to improve upon my contents page draft as much as possible. Some of the new things I improved upon, developed and changed on this draft are firstly the page number on the main image/article which I changed from a white square to a yellow circle with shadow effects which I felt made it look more attractive, dominant, stand out, professional, effective, bold and complemented the house styles, colours and themes. I placed the word 'Inside' back inside the splash so that it wasn't random, disjointed and unprofessional but made since and was conventional. I added more shadow effects on my main image in order to make it look more believable and stand out from its background in order to capture an audience’s attention when they look at the page. I also used the perfecting,  healing, spot healing, clone and blending option tools in Photoshop to smooth out, even out and perfect the artist in my main images Danny Manson's skin in order to make him look more attractive and dominant as well as improving the quality of the image, making it appear effective, professional and conventional. I experimented with removing the background behind the words 'Mad For Manson' as I wanted to emphasis and highlight the Artists name more as there the point behind the article and he's the person who's going to make an audience instantly want t read the article/interview. I also added a bright yellow box around the article description in the centre of the page as I felt it clearly defined the section making the information easier to understand and take it, complemented the house styles and conventional blocking theme, highlighted it and made it look bold, attractive, eye-catching, noticeable and even easier to read. I added the effective, professional and attractive improvements from my previous draft onto this draft such as adding shadow/highlighting effects onto the most important/dominant text, making the 'Tweet + Like Us!' session to a slant to suit the house styles and define this section, spreading out and making words larger on the subscribe and contact box to define each section, make them look professional, noticeable, readable and complementary of the bold house styles and I also made also the bold black defining lines the same zebra pattern for continuity, so they complemented each other and the house colours as well as to make them look unique, bold, attractive, effective and stand out for being different. Overall I feel this is my best design so far as it’s my most attractive, unique  bold, dominant, effective, conventional, stand out, professional and eye-catching. However I still feel some improvements could me made such as experimenting with changing the image for one more eye catching, professional and better quality one, placing the yellow box back around the 'mad for Manson' section again to clearly define the section, highlight it, complement the layout and make it appear dominant and also edit the arrow so the writing fits inside it and so the whole thing feels like part of the design rather the disjointed. On my next draft I want to continue to develop and improve the minor negative points about my current draft and mainly focus on experimenting with the effect it would have on my draft if I changed the main image.

^^^^My main focus on this draft was to experiment on the effect it would have on my current design if I changed my image completely  I therefore chose an image that was of good quality and on its own looked attractive, dominant, eye-catching, effective and attention grabbing. I then edited the image in Photoshop to make the skin look more perfected so that the image looked as attractive, effective and professional as possible and also so that the colours of the image were bolder so that they complemented the bold house styles, colours and themes of my contents page and music magazine I then deleted the dull, unnecessary background using the auto-select and eraser tools in Photoshop and placed the image as accurately as I could into the space where the previous image sat effectively and conventionally. I feel the quality of the image and bold colours instantly made the draft design look more believably professional, effective, attractive and complementary of the house styles. However some of the negative points about using this image are that it doesn't fit as neatly inside the box, looks lost and dull on its background  not in proportion, makes the artist look like a thug and not as lovely and attractive and feels disjointed from the design. I overall feel the image on my previous drafts looks more attractive, effective, bold, complementary and connected  However I feel my previous image can be improved my using the bold, dominant colours of this current image to make my previous image stand out from its background, complement the house styles, look bolder and more professional.  On this current draft I also placed the yellow box back behind the 'Mad For Manson' so the design felt connected, bolder, more dominant and easier for an audience to clearly define, read and understand. I also made the article description a thinner font as its conventional, looks more professional and clearly define the title and the description. I also moved around some of the central writing elements until they were as neat, professional, accurate looking and attractive as possible in order to create the best final contents draft I can. However some improvements I could make to this draft are changing the image to a more attractive and effective one, spreading out the list of articles evenly, making the writing on the large arrow fit the shape of the arrow and experimenting with altering smaller details to make them look as good, attractive, professional and effective as possible. On my next draft I want to experiment with replacing the current image with the more effective previous image and improve upon it as well as perfecting some of the smaller details in order to make the best final draft possible.

^^^^The main thing I did on this draft was replace the image on my last draft with the most effective previous image. I then attempted to make some improvements on it in Photoshop using tools such as liquidify, clone, healing, blending options and spot healing to perfect, brighten and highlight the image as much as possible in order for it to look as attractive, effective, good quality, professional  stand out and dominant as possible as well as to complement the bold house styles. I feel this makes the draft look more effective, attractive, complementary and professional therefore making it more dominantly eye-catching to an audience. I added all the positive improvements made to my last draft in order to progress and make this draft as believably professional, effective and attractive as possible. I then made improvements from my last draft such as evening out the features and subscribe box which I felt gave my contents page draft a more professional, perfected, eye-catching, understandable feel, progressing from my last draft. Despite this I still feel that small improvements could be made to this draft such as spacing out the features, placing the sell line into the large arrow shape properly, using contrasting and dominant colours in all areas, making all writing bold and noticeable, highlighting areas of importance, replacing the number '9' and making my pull quote relevant to my double page spread article for continuity. Therefore on my next draft I want to improve on all these points and experiment with improving all the elements of my contents page in order to create the best draft possible. I feel that by doing this my next draft will be my last draft and will be my most attractive, dominant, eye-catching, effective, attention grabbing, stand out, effective, bold and professional draft I have created.

 

^^^^This is my final Contents Page Draft.

On this draft I basically wanted to improve each element of it as much as possible, using the positive elements from my other drafts to improve it as much as possible and getting rid of any negative points I found from my other drafts. On this Final Draft I experimented and perfected each element of the design I felt could be improved upon in order to create the most attractive, effective, eye-catching, professional, bold, dominant and attention grabbing design I could. One of the main things I completely changed on this draft was the actual image. This image is of very similar style to my previous one however it is of much better quality making the page look much more professional and more edgy which suits the artists indie-pop style and is more intimidating looking which is conventional of music magazines of my genre making the page appear more noticeable, mainstream, attention grabbing, attractive, effective and eye-catching as well as connoting the artist positively as bold, dominant, stylish and strong willed. I also made the image appear brighter and bolder by making the shirt a darker blue colour using the auto-select, colour and opacity tools in Photoshop which I felt complemented the house styles bold and dominant colours as well as contrasting well with the red and yellow colours making the image stand out dominantly making the page look attractive, eye-catching, effective and bold. I added a bow tie onto the Artist image as well which I felt gave the artist a unique, qwerky and edgy feel, making him rememberable and stand out from other similar Artists for being different, making him/my model seem like a real and believable artist. In addition to this I experimented more with shadow and highlighting effects on the image and its background as much as I could in order to make the image and its background look joined together realistically to give it a sense of realism, believability and professionalism as well as to make the photo look attractive and stand of the page as much as I could in order to capture the audiences eyes and attention in order to make them feel the need to want to read the exclusive 'Danny Manson' article. I also edited the writing in the large arrow (a negative point from my previous drafts) so that they fitted into the arrow neatly in a curve to link them together and make this design element make sense which I felt made it look more attractive, understandable, eye catching and effective. I then placed a coloured background around the edge of each word, a white colour but yellow around 'Revolution' as its the key term in the phrase, in order to make the writing readable, noticeable and attractive as on previous drafts they were hard to read, dull, unattractive and blended into the background. I feel this suits the house styles and bold, dominant layout/theme of my contents page/music magazine. I made the 'Tweet and Like Us' phrase larger and more noticeable by adding white highlighting effects around it, as on my last few drafts in blended into the background and was unclear. I feel that by doing it its more noticeable, eye-catching, readable, effective and clearly divides the sections of the box more predominantly and effectively. I made the 'Manson Mania' at the beginning of the main article description in capitals and bold as I felt this was a key term in the phrase that sums it all up and is catchy and memorable by being a form of alliteration that makes a pun out of the artists name (conventional) and I therefore felt it was most affective to highlight its importance. I then chose to make the bold zebra-like patterned dividing lines bolder to emphasis there uniqueness and make them more attractive as there was make my contents pages stand out from those of a similar genre (like Q, NME, Billboard) for being different. I also felt by making the lines even bolder it complemented my house styles and bold, dominant blocking theme. I changed the pull quote to "Sometimes I feel like I've lost my soul.." in order to link the contents page to the double page spread article/interview for continuity, believability  reliability and professionalism  I also feel this quote is more of an interesting and conventional Kicker, that leaves the audience with a shocking fact that withholds information and therefore makes them feel the need to read on to find out more, it teases them. I placed this pull quote on a slant to make in look more interesting  stand out, noticeable and attractive and  also thought this complemented the edginess and dominant of the magazine, artists and brand style and mainstream indie/modern mainstream pop genre. I also made some small finishing touches to this contents page such as spreading out the list of features and subscribe box neatly and evenly to make my contents page believably look like its from a real music magazine as well as for it to look as perfected, attractive, understandable and effective as possible and I also added various highlighting and shadow effects around the edges of lots of writing to make them look as clear, attractive, dominant, noticeable and stand out as much as possible to create an effective contents page the grabs an audiences attention in wanting to read the rest of my music magazine. I overall tried to perfect this design as much as possible in order to make the most effective and professional contents page I could. I overall feel this is the best contents page draft I have created by far and that it does appear attractive, dominant, bold, stand out, effective, believable  professional, links to house styles/other pages, adds to continuity, attention grabbing, eye-catching and is an all round good contents page Final Draft design.

Images of Front Covers of music magazines- Cite Sources: Google Images, Edited NME Front Covers http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?um=1&hl=en&tbo=d&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbnid=XU9AiVISHLRSYM:&imgrefurl=http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php%3Fblog%3D8%26p%3D8235&docid=BE3WdHKxE2Ky6M&imgurl=http://static.nme.com/images/magazine/nmecoverflorence010410.jpg&w=300&h=400&ei=4PYDUd-IGoXF0QWsoYGgAg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=1061&vpy=103&dur=368&hovh=200&hovw=150&tx=105&ty=158&sig=112195808400837885701&page=1&tbnh=140&tbnw=105&start=0&ndsp=43&ved=1t:429,r:9,s:0,i:106