Focus Group - Contents Page & Front Cover - Music Magazine

Focus Group Research

To understand what my potential reader would think of my front cover and contents page I decide to arranged a focus group with 10 people from the age range of 15 - 25 which is he age I would intend to aim my music magazine at. The members of the group all fit my readership profile, they all were well into their music and that is one of the most important things in their life and they love indie music which is what type of music magazine mine is.

I began by showing both the front cover and contents page to the group before asking them a range of question.

My first question to the group was:

What do you think of the layout/design of these pages?

I asked each of the 10 people individually to get a good understanding of their opinion. Overall 9 out of the 10 people loved the design and how it was laid out. In particular they said they liked how each of the pages resembled each other in some way and you could clearly see a house style. I also noted them down as saying the colours used were really good and they liked how well presented and clear both of the pages were.

The one person who did not agree with the majority said he thought I could perhaps improve the page by including more text on both front cover and contents page. He felt as though there was not enough on there to stand out to him.

I took his opinion on board very seriously and I did think of ways I could add but in terms of the design I wanted and the majority actually liking what I had produced I decided to keep the same design I showed them.

This led me to my second question to the group.

Does this look like the type of magazine you would buy if you seen it on a magazine stand?

To my surprise everyone in the focus group said it does look like a magazine that they would but typically in the shop. They mentioned how professional it looked and the R definitely stands out to them. This was good news for me as the R was designed in order to create a magazine symbol by which everyone would be able to recognise my magazine.

The focus group all agreed that my music magazine designs for both the front cover and contents page were of a good quality and good images something they said is very important when looking at magazines, they don't want to pay good money for poor quality.

I continued to asked questions to the group in order to gather as much opinion as I could to see if I could improve in anyway to make is a suitable as possible for my target audience.

How does this magazine compare to other similar genre magazines?

This was a vital question for my because my magazine would be competing with similar magazines so to find out what they thought compared to them was very important.

Some comments made were about how similar magazines have more colour but they could see the design I was going for and like it and could ell it was different but in a positive way. One of the teenagers in the group said how is fed up sometimes buying magazines that just look the same all the time so he was excited to see a new design and said he thinks its better because of that.

However 3 of the 10 people within the focus group said they thought they are just the same and not really much difference but would still consider buying my magazine because of the quality and good design within it.

This led me to the final question for the focus group.

If you could change one thing to improve it to suit your needs, what would it be?

I asked this question to find out directly exactly what it was that could be improved if anything.

I let the focus group discuss between themselves what one thing they would change to improve the magazine front cover and contents page.

They came to the conclusion that the one thing they would change is to have more live shots. They said having a live shot of a band or singer definitely makes it stand out more and is more appealing as they all said they love live music. Although they did say they love the image on the contents page it was just the front cover they thing would be better with a live shot.

This is an opinion I am definitely going to consider for my magazine front cover.

Overall from my focus group I am very happy with the feedback I got as most of the comments were positive.

Music Magazine Contents Page

Below is my first version of the contents page, however simply by looking at my contents page against other professional version I realise I still need to make improvements to my contents page.

For my initial design I followed the house style I wanted to have with the same Algerian text for my title 'Respective Contents'. I also followed the planned house style of having the curve at the top and bottom of my page, despite being a different colour I really like what it brings to the page, in my opinion it brings the illusion of your eyes focusing in onto the page which I really like and it a bit different to other contents pages.

 

I created a black background white the white text showing the different stories which I carefully placed under different headings for example as shown above, News, Live and Features, I added this in order for reader to better navigate my magazine to the story they want to read. The page numbers are in red this is also to make it easy for the reader to find out where in the magazine that specific article is. Bigger stories I purposely placed on the feature section or in bigger text with a little bit of information about it such as the bottom right article 'Lunar Hop' for example.

 

However to improve I still think there is too much emptiness for a contents page and I am considering doing something with the background or added more text to the blank areas.

 

 

This brought me on to my second version at producing a contents page.

The solution I came up with in my second version to make it more full and give it a better look was to change the background to a full image to cover the whole on the page. I used a live shot of a band and related that to one of the main stories on the right hand side, in this case 'Lunar Hop'. This creates a much more interactive contents page and give the feel that you are actually watching the band play.

Because of the background colour change the only other adjustment I made was adding a black stroke to the categories, and the rest of the text on my magazine and this was just to make the text more readable for the reader.

The image I used of the band I edited on Photoshop and instantly made it black and white to match the front cover image and my magazine colour scheme which really has started to bring a house style to my magazine a lot more.

I then wanted the try using another house style feature that I used on my double page spread, this led me onto my third and final version of the contents page.

The small addition I added to this version was to place the faded title of my magazine across the page but underneath the text which also appears on the double page spread. Although it is only a small feature I really like it as it continues the house style.


My third version as above is my final piece and I think it follows conventions of traditional magazines but I like how I have managed to make it look a bit different which again is what my magazine and music genre is all about whilst continuing to keep as much of a professional look as possible.

After Receiving Feedback

 

 

 

After receiving feedback on my contents page there was only one small improvement I had to make. Now this improvement was not a major design flaw, but simply just a wrong choice of text. Under the 'Lunar Hop' section the text does not match the rest of my page or house style.

 

 



Music Magazine Front Cover

Below is my first version of producing my music magazine front cover. For my front cover I tried to emulate real life music magazine front covers as I could using as many conventions as possible.

I followed my favourite sketch plan which was to have the title of my magazine going in a downward position. I did this because I thought it would look nice and a bit different from most other magazines. I made the R in Respective red because if placed on a magazine shelf the reader would be able to see the R amongst other magazine as it is placed on the left hand side. The font I used was Algerian which I thought again gave it a bit of a different look which fits in well with my magazine genre.

The main image I used as I thought the subject was directly looking down the lens of the camera giving the image a very bold viewing in my opinion. I edited the photo on Photoshop in order to cut the background and make the subject look a lot more clean and crisp that what he did without the edit.

I used conventions such as the main headline which I purposely put it a bigger font size, secondary headline to try and sell other articles that are in the magazine and I used a puff at the top of the front cover.

To keep with my planned house style I also continued with the black border around the edge just like on my double page spread, but I like the black border because it makes it look more complete than what it does without the border. Other features I included to try and make my front cover look better were the yellow circular sell lines. They stand out well and indicate what else is in the magazine.

After looking over my front cover design I still thought it could be improved to make it look more professional and perhaps stand out more to the reader.

To do this on my second version which is shown above, I created a black cover to go around the R of Respective in an attempt to be more noticeable and develop that R into a recognisable symbol for my magazine. The other change I made was changed the stroke colour on the main headline, I changed it to green just like the subjects writing on his top to try and create a better link to show that the main image and the main headline are related which I didn't think was clear enough on my first version of the front cover.

After making these changes I still felt I could improve more. Below is my third version of the front cover.

I made a lot more changes to this front cover which is clearly visible. I decided that in order to make my front cover more professional I needed to clean it up a bit because I came to the realisation it was a bit messy and not clear.

Firstly I changed the main image completely to a new subject, I did this because I thought having a subject that look more of a musician with a bit of charisma and striking poses would look a lot better on a front cover.

I also changed the puff background colour to all black with white text to match my original colour scheme for the magazine. I also incorporated a black curve and that curve I plan to use on my contents page to create a kind of house style curve. I also cleaned up my secondary headlines by making them more aligned with underlines to clear separate the different stories. The colour and font have changed again to make it look more neat and the colour because it fits better with the background colours from the main image, it is easier to read.

My main headline has also changed font to the same as the secondary headlines in order for it to keep to the same house style and if I had to many different fonts it does make it a lot harder to read. I made the text clearly bigger than the other headlines as well as using black with a red stroke. This was all done to make it a lot more easy to read and this version does look a lot more professional than other versions I have produced.

I began to try different things with this version to see how much I could improve it which brought me on to my fourth version of a front cover.

I re-edited the photo of my subject on Photoshop to make him black and white to see what effect that would have on the look of my front cover. I think it makes it look more in depth and is very different to other magazines that usually have a lot of colour on their subject on the front cover.

I also changed the position of the main headline to try and show that the story is about my main subject and I think where it is placed on this version is a lot more clear especially with the bigger text and stroke that I have continued to use as I did with the previous version. My secondary headlines have stayed in the same place but because the colour of the background changed to black and white I wanted to test to see if it was more clear with a red stroke around the white text.

Finally I changed the positioning of the black strokes to cover the puff and bottom of my magazine instead of at the side. I did this because it looks better than a curve cutting into my main image which didn't really look very good in my opinion after testing this version. As well as moving the curve I also moved the position of the magazine title to the top of the page going across the top. Although I did not plan this first of all after experimenting to try and make things fit on whilst looking nice, this was the best way and does look professional.

I came up with one final piece for my front cover.

This is my final version for the front cover and have only made one change from the previous version, although it is only a same change I do think it brings the front cover together a lot more and is still clear to read. All did was take the red stroke off the white secondary headlines and placed a thinner black stroke which is still clear to the reader as it defines the letter a lot better. I maintained the red R of respective as well to try and make that a symbol of my magazine and I continue to make sure it is as far left and to the top as possible without making it go into the border so on the shelf reader could easily identify my magazine. I also shortened my main headline to be more catchy to the reader

Overall as I produced different versions I made it less cluttered each time which is why I think this is the best version, its not cluttered it nice and clean, easy to read with a good main image. It also uses traditional conventions.

 

 

 

After Receiving Feedback

After receiving feedback on my final version of my front cover, to improve I needed to add one more convention. The convention I decided to add was a strapline. To do this as you can see below I removed the top line of my magazine which says 'all rights reserved' and in its place included a strapline related to my music magazine.

In my opinion the strapline makes the front cover actually stand out more and appeal more to the reader. I realise now that what I had before that was unnecessary and with this added convention it improves my work to a better more professional standard.  

 

 



 



Contents Page Images Used

This is the main image for my contents page. I took the image when I went to see Peace live and plan to edit this to make it look more professional.

 

On the first two versions of editing this image first of all I decided to crop around the image so you couldn't see the heads of the crowd and the cameras at the top. I did this by using the rectangular marquee tool on Photoshop. I just selected the part of the image I wanted and then copied it, once I had done that I then created a new layer to paste it onto. Finally to finish the cropping process of I then deleted the first uncropped layer which left me with the part of the image I wanted to keep.

 

The first of the two I wanted to change the brightness and contrast settings. I did this by going onto Image - Adjustments - Brightness/Contrast. I then made it darker using that tool on Photoshop and afterwards slightly adjusted the levels of the image which are found on the same tab on Photoshop.

 

The second of the two images above I wanted to experiment trying black and white to see what it would look like and if it was good how would it fit in my magazine contents page. But first to make it black and white again using Photoshop I went to Image - Adjustments - Black & White. This created a really rough looking picture and when you look at it the lights in the background make it really stand out even though it has no colour which makes it very powerful. The black and white fits well into my magazine because it matches my colour scheme for the whole magazine.

 

I have decided to try and see what each of these images look like actually on my page and the decide from there which one to use if any.

 

 

 

 

One of my secondary images used was from a previous photo-shoot that I did not use. This is the image.

 

 

I plan to use this image as a secondary image next to an article that will be related to the image to make it look professional and make it more reader friendly than just all words. I am not going to edited this image because when I took the image I purposely got the bottom sort of blurry part of the piano in the shot that adds a real mysterious effect to the image.

The image also matches the colour scheme really well for my magazine which I like.



 

 



Contents Page Design Ideas

These are the four contents pages I wish to emulate in my own design for my music magazines contents page.

The first thing I would like to point out is both the NME magazine designs, I like how they have each section clearly labelled, for example they have news, radar, reviews ,live and features. I plan to have the same secondary headings to show the different types of stories in my magazine.

As all of these examples the image on the contents page is fairly big and I want to have a shot either of the subject mid action live shot or a very close up shot.

I like how Mojo magazine have placed their title and I was thinking of having my title big at the top like that and then have the words contents written in big at the bottom.

All the colour schemes also fit my planned colour scheme which I really like in all of these contents page examples.

Edited Photos For Front Cover

For my main image on my front cover I wanted to have one sing person as the subject. I took this image when I did the photo-shoot for my double page spread but did not use it and I thought I could put it to use for my front cover.

I like this image because it is different to my images that I have used for my double page spread and the subject gives a good facial expression in this image.

The first piece of editing I did for my front cover image was to remove the blue background from the photo shoot. I used the quick selection tool initially to remove as much as the background as I could without cutting the subject. To get around him in more detail to make it look more professional I decided to use the polygonal selection tool and I went around the subject getting as close as I could.

After I did that the image looked like it did on the second image down, however I was not finished there and I wanted to play around and experiment using different contrasts and brightness levels. I thought making the image a little bit darker it does add more detail and looks more professional.






After trying the image on my front cover I realised that this image did not work well with the rest of my design. I decided to take some more pictures with a different subject. From this photo-shoot I gathered multiple images.

 During this photo-shoot I asked the subject to act more like a musician rather than have him just stood there blank. I took all the images as medium close ups just getting the head and shoulders in the image.

On one of the images I tried to add lighting effect during the photo-shoot but you could see the flash very clearly on the subjects glasses. I decided to just edit the photo in full on Photoshop in order to make it look a lot more professional and clean.

This is the image that I decided to go for and below is the edited version using Photoshop.

 

 

 

I took the main image and first cropped the edges of the images I did not want in my image. I then went to Image - Adjustments - Brightness/contrast to make the image look more professional and clean. I also like the image how it is edited because on a front cover it will stand out well when blown up. The subject is also looking directly at the camera which makes you really think he is looking at you which may make people pick the magazine up.

Although it is simple editing I think it didn't really need much, especially because of the colour of the background during the photo shoot really fits well with the subject and when placed onto the front cover it matches the colour I wanted to have behind my subject anyway.

This subject also has the appearance that matches what my target audience would look like.

I also experimented by editing the image using a different technique.

For this version after trying the previous edited one as shown above, it did not really fit well with my other pages. In order to continue my house style I decided to see what it would look like in black and white. This was on Photoshop Image - Adjustments - Black & White. The image fit well onto my front cover and it matches my planned main image for the contents page which will be black and white.

In my opinion not only does it just match my house style but compared to the other versions I prefer it better because it gives more detail and sharpness to the image all in all making a more professional look which is very important to me and my magazine design.

Sketch Plan For Front Cover

 

 

Here are my two sketch plans of what my magazine will look like in terms of where things are placed and the layout of the different conventions on my front cover. Personally I am more leaning to the first idea because I like how the title is on the side going downwards on the page.

 

 

I am also going to make sure my main image is as big as I can make it right in the centre of the front cover. My puff will be at the top of the front cover and sub heading along the side of the page.

 

 

I want my magazine to follow most of the normal conventions used by magazines but I really want to try and make it look a bit different to make it stand out to the reader and make them look twice

Front cover magazine ideas

These are the music magazine front covers I am going to try and emulate in my own front cover. The reason for this is because I like the styles and conventions they have used. In particular NME magazine, I like that the use text fonts and colours that stand out on the page. I also like the use of the yellow circles that show what else is in the magazine.

On the cover with Jay Z on I like how the text saying his name is going downwards and I will try and use that idea when placing my title on my front cover, to have it going downwards rather than the traditional across the top. That idea will fit my magazine well because I am going for a different indie genre of music.

I also plan to have my main subject as the centre of the front cover, to make it as big as possible. Puffs will be used like in these examples as well as sub headings especially.

I also like all of these examples because they match the colour scheme I am intending to go for.