Final Cut

Signature Added to Double Page Spread

As mentioned in a recent post, a member of my focus group advised me to add a personal touch to the double page spread, so using the new font I had acquired, I today placed the new signature in the bottom right of the page, replacing the 'Tickets for Ozzie's new album are on sale now' finishing line.

Weekly Review (Timekeeping)

This week was the final full week before the Final Cut, so I spent it making lots of minor changes and improvements to the magazine, including changing font sizes on the cover, altering the transparancy of the social media logo background, adding superimposed frames onto the double page spread to allay concerns of 'emptiness'. I also adjusted the brightness and saturation levels of my double page spread model on photoshop, and also discovered a new font for a planned signature on the double page spread.

This week, I intend to put the final touch on my magazine by creating the signature on Monday for the double page spread. I will then hand in my final cut on Tuesday, before I begin work on my evaluation. For my evaluation, I am doing a video which answers the 7 key questions. I intend to include audience feedback from my focus group (which was established back in February) in order to test the product on it's intended target audience. I will film these interviews on Thursday, and my own segments on Friday. I plan to use some greenscreen in my evaluation video to make it slightly more interesting. Then, at the weekend, I plan edit them at home using Pinnacle Studio 20, in time to upload to my blog and hand in on the deadline of Tuesday 2nd May 2017.

New Font Used

When I consulted with Luke from my focus group on my double page spread, he suggested that the article needed a "personal touch" in order to "make it feel like the interview is with him, not about him'. Therefore, I decided to include a signature from Ozzie O, the artist, at the bottom of the page. However, to create this I needed a calligraphy-style phont, so using Dafont I found this font, Amontilladios to use for this signature.

Photo Editing

When I consulted with Megan from my focus group on the current state of my double page spread, she said "The model is too pale, it makes him stand out from the page and not in a good way, he needs more colour" In order to address this criticism and make my male model on the double-page spread appear less pale, I altered the hue, saturation and lightness levels in order to put more colour and life into the model, and I am much more satisfied with the updated result.

Slight Alterations to Double Page Spread

After consulting my focus group, I was informed that some of the page still appeared to be somewhat 'empty', lacking something small but imperitive to the design of the page. In response to this, I added a horizontal line near the top of the page that breaks up for the headline and Ozzie's overlapping head in order to make the page appear more full and less boring and overly conventional, as I still want my magazine to have it's own identity and have a creative flair as well as following conventions.

Social Media Background Transparancy

When adding the social media logos, I noticed there was some white space around the logo itself, so using the quick selection tool I selected the white areas and deleted them to create a transparent background which I could then place on my Indesign document.

Enlarged Font Sizes

In the bottom right corner of the page, the text was in a rather small font which left a lot of empty space on the page, so I have enlarged the text in the 'plus' section in order to fill the space and leave less gaps between the small photos on the left and the text on the right.

More Shifted to Right

Following my earlier decision to move the majority of text on the page to the right side, it felt odd and out of place to have the 'plus' section remaining in the bottom left, so I have also moved this to the bottom right in order to follow this 'right orientated' layout, as is conventional in a music magazine of my genre.

Weekly Review (Timekeeping)

This week (9-16 April 2017) I have continued with my aim to continue making minor adjustments and alignments to make my magazine the best it can be.

I spent a significant portion of the week working on the front cover, before moving onto the contents and double page spread towards the latter part of the week.

This week coming (16-23 April 2017) I intend to make the final touches to my magazine in preparation for the final cut deadline on Tuesday 25th April.

Overlapping Titles

For the headline and sub-headline of my double page spread, I decided to create a fade effect on both, and then overlap the subheading over the heading to achieve a slightly more dynamic look, rather than a standard headline and sub headline beneath it. The subheading has been moved up quite significantly, as it originally only just overlapped but now fully overlaps. I also made the subheading fade into the clouds to make it seem more natural and less forced.

Chronological Page Numbers

On my contents page, I decided to change the numbering of some of the articles to a chronological sequence to follow music magazine conventions, as my contents page previously had featured articles with non-chronological ordering which did not look very professional or organised.

Contents Page Improvement

On the contents page, I decided to make the word 'Abbie' on the caption bigger than the standard text for captions on that page. This was to subtly point out that this article is the main article of the magazine, as it was on the front cover and therefore has somewhat more importance than the other featured articles.

Front Cover Minor Improvement

From looking at my genre of magazine and examples of it, it became clear that many used dots/small circles between important information in lists rather than a comma in order to achieve a more stylised effect, so I have employed this technique in the 'Plus' section of my front cover in order to appear very conventional.

Front Cover Symmetry Update

When consulting my focus group, it was pointed out to me that the front cover was perfectly symmetrical which is not a convention of music magazines- they tend to focus most of their info on one side, so I have moved the four featured articles across to the right and alternated the colour of the text between white and blue in order to make it visibly clear which article is which.

Contents Improvement

In order to make it very clear which article was the main one from the magazine (aka the one seen on the front cover), I decided to create a 'Featured' box in order to achieve this prominence. To make it, I created a small frame and coloured it with my magazine's blue colour scheme before adding small white text over the top. I have two fonts primarily used through the magazine, and I used the 'Lemon/Milk' font for the featured box to stand out to the 'Bebas Neue' font used predominantly on the contents page.

Weekly Review (Timekeeping)

This week I have made some large structural changes to both my contents and double-page spread, as well as adding key conventions such as Social Media logos, as well as some minor photo-shopping for small thumbnail photos to be added to the front cover.


This week coming up (9-16 April 2016) I intend to now focus on smaller details and minor changes and adjustments in anticipation of the final cut deadline in two weeks time.

Contents Change

Following feedback from Tommy in my focus group, I have changed the three photos on my contents page into four in order to include the cover artist, Abbie.

Front Cover Improvement

I have decided to use a more conventional photo of a male model in a studio for one of the small photos at the bottom of the page. However, the photo has the studio in the background, so I used the black and white brush tool and the magnetic lasso to remove the background so I can place him on a white background to appear more professional.

Thumbnail Photo

I have decided to include an extra thumbnail photo at the bottom of the page to replace my two suburban female models in the street, as Luke from my focus group today described it as 'meaningless and lacks emotion'. Therefore, I intend to use one of my male model photoshoots from the Rough Cut double page spread as a thumbnail at the bottom of the front cover, as you can see below.

However, I am considering editing out the background on Photoshop and replacing it with a pure white layer.

Focus Group Feedback (Contents)

I asked my focus group for feedback on the current state of my contents page:

Olivia: "It's good but I would suggest to add the social media logos in somewhere to appeal to your young adult target audience."

Luke: "It needs to be made more clear why the Abbie article is bigger; it's not obvious enough that it's the main article, it just seems accidentally bigger"

Tommy: "You should include your cover artist somewhere on the contents page"

Megan: "Ensure the page numbers are always in chronological order or it will look messy and unprofessional"

Focus Group Feedback (Front Cover)

Today, I asked my focus group to give their opinions on the current state of my magazine in order to get audience suggestions for changes to be made, starting with the front cover:

Olivia- 'It is too symmetrical. Magazines of your genre tend to be focused more on one side'

Megan- 'Reformat the 'plus' section, it looks too formulatic and strict.'

Tommy- 'The photos at the bottom take up too much space, they might work better as small thumbnails rather than larger photos.'

Luke- 'It's good but the barcode needs a number and the photos at the bottom should be a lot smaller and the plus section could do with a redesign, maybe a different way of setting it out'

Social Media Logos Added

Today, I added the social media logos for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to my contents page to fit the conventions of a music magazine.

Changes to Double Page Spread

It became clear to me that the background of my double-page spread was just too white, as I was told during my rough cut feedback. So I decided to use another blue coastal photo but without the white transparency effect, as this photo fits the colour scheme of the magazine significantly better.

Weekly Review (Timekeeping)

This week (27 March-2 April) I continued to make major changes, involving introducing a new background to the contents page. I also photo-shopped and edited a new photo for the double-page spread. I added small conventional features such as the page number, and adding a drop capital.

This week coming, I intend to begin making some large structural changes to my contents and double-page spread. I also intend to find a way to fill up some small empty spaces on the contents page, as well as adding some more typical conventions, such as social media logos.

Drop Capital

Today, I added a drop capital to the beginning of my article in order to make it clear where the article starts and also to follow the conventions of typical articles on double page spreads in all genres, especially music magazines,