Pre-Production Plans / Ideas

Before producing my magazine, I thought it would be useful to create some designs. I decided to do 2 diferent layouts for each page I would be creating. This would be cover, contents and centrefold.

This was my first design idea for a front. It contains a large MCU that would be of a band. Also, it contains an unsual layout for the masthead. I believe this will attract audience members as it is unusual and interesting. Also, the band name is listed below the photo and is being used as a mainsell.

My Second Cover idea has a smaller picture of the whole band. In my drawing the photo is smaller then I intended but still portrays what will be on the cover of this design. Also, the photo's seen on the right have a Poaroid design.

Of These 2 designs, the feedback that I got was that The Title of the first design was more appealing, also that the photo used was far more conventional of my genre and would connote the message I am trying to create better then the 2nd design.

My first contents page design got more positive feedback then the second. In my opinion I thought the 2nd would be more appealing, but after audience research I found out that this design had more appeal. After my research I found that the 2nd design had too much going on and was seen to be "too busy". My final Design may includ festures of both designs as both have Pro's and Con's. For example, whilst the 1st design seemed to convey more features that a typical Indie magazine would include, the 2nd design idea was seen to be more interesting as the photos could create a lot of appeal if the right ones were taken.

These Next 2 design were for my centrefold. The first design contained less photos and more information, similar to the of NME. This could be a successful design if the text used was split up more then the design i have created. After Audience research, i discovered that the design was seen to be boring, and too informative.

The second idea contained a lot more photography. This means that the article is being spread out far more and many people who saw this design said that it seemed far more interesting and was more suited towards my genre. One criticism I received was that if the wrong photos are taken then the colour scheme won't be effective. A reccomendation was to take the photos with a pale background, i.e. an overcast day, so that this would create the correct colour scheme on a page with a white background.