Contents Page Consturction

When first creating my content magazine I wanted it look as professional as possible. To do this I decided to take the look from one of Q magazine's contents pages. This contents page involved a 'main image' of the artist that was featuring on the front cover of the music magazine. I took this idea as I believed it was good for a music magazine and set to work on deciding and editing an image. The image was chosen by my target audience from the movie before hand with all the images I had taken. The majority agreed that this image was the best for a contents page. When I asked why they gave me reasons such as 'the composition works well with the image' and 'the props used, such as the hat, go well with the genre of the magazine'.

After finding the right image to use I needed to edit this image. Within the Q contents page, the image was cropped so it was a 1:1 image (square). I wanted to create a neat contents page in which all images are the same size. By making them all 1:1 images they can then easily fit onto the magazine without difficulty.

To the left are the photos during the process of editing them. Every time I made an adjustment to the image I would save it as a different file to then see the progress of the photograph.

The first major edit I used on the image was cropping down the the size I needed and liked. The 1:1 size looks neat whilst still being able to keep a composition that works well with the original image. The rule of thirds can be lost in 1:1 photos if you get too close to the subject or person, with this image I made his hand keep within the the sections as well as parts of his face. Within this photo as well I also changed the lighting by adding a layer on Pixlr. The layer came under one of the vintage collections, which kind of goes with the house style and genre of my music.

I then decided to remove the blemishes from the artists face as when you look at photos of other artists and on music magazines they are always smooth skinned and blemish free.

I then played around with different layers in the vintage collection to try and get the right look to the image before placing it onto my contents page.

I finally decided on this look to the photo to the left. The image isn't too blue nor yellow, which is what other layers gave to the photo. It also portrays a vintage feel which is a part, mostly, with the house style of photographs.
 

I then went about placing this image onto a white background and creating a masthead. To create the white background I used an old image from the photo shoot, then made the brightness of the photo as high as it would go. This made the background of my contents page not only white but of a large size, so when I come round to blowing it up to the correct size it wont become distorted or fuzzy. Next I looked back at the Q contents page and used my theme colour and logo instead of theirs. I also decided to place my slogan underneath my title in the theme colour to make it slightly more full. An issue I needed to get past was the thinness of the lines around the title and above the image. On Pixlr it doesn't give you the option to just draw a line so to get around this problem I went to the text box and used a large 'l', then turned it on its side. Because of its size I then needed to make it thinner. To do this I used another 'l', turned it on its side, lined it up underneath and then made it white to match the background. This then created the thin lines I use throughout the contents page.

The font I use throughout the contents page are the same or sections, so for the masthead and the subtitles I used a larger, bolder font. Where as for the smaller writing I used a thinner font as the detailed writing doesn't need to catch the eye, only the title which is what initially draws them in.

I next added a second image. This second image is very conventional as it involves a guitar. The way the photo has been taken as well is also very conventional as it is looking down the guitar whilst the artist is playing it. I used this image as I believed it went with the genres of my music magazine well and that it was an interesting image. I also wanted to try and make it not look like the main artist on the front cover and to the image next to it as I wanted a different image. But because I hadn't taken any more images of anyother people to use as artists for my magazine I had to try and crop the photo to get most of his face out of it. A reminder for next time would be for me to bring more people along to take images of and then I would have more options to chose from.

After I completed this I added a small title underneath and a large title of the band name underneath the image. I also added page numbers on top of the images so the audience know exactly which page to turn to without looking too hard. I got this idea from the Q contents page as I and others found it useful.

 

Next I added more snippets of information about certain pages which I believe would be most interesting. I have kept the colour scheme running through this contents page to give it more colour. Previously, members of my target audience said that they didn't like the fact that there wan't much colour on the front cover, so I took this, applied it to the front cover but also the contents page as well to keep the house style I have chosen.

With the titles in bold next to the numbers, I chose artists that related to the genre of the magazine and also to the artists that were mentions in snippets (sell lines) on the front cover e.g. Coldplay.

Lastly, at this stage I added a mouse cursor. A similar thing was used within the Q contents page. I thought it connected well with the title underneath as music is now usually downloaded and the hand cursor relates to this well. It also makes the contents page slightly more interesting to look at as it goes against the neat and simple layout of the page.

 

I then went about adding images along the bottom of the main image to give it more colour and make the entire page look more interesting. Before hand I had taken these images after I realised I would need different artists for the contents page and not just other images I had taken of my main artist. When editing then I cropped both first so they were 1:1, then went to layers to make them seem more vintage and fit with my theme with the photos more.

The girl standing in the feild was just edited by applying different layers from the vintage collection to give it a more interesting look from the original. The girl leaning against the tree however took a little bit more editing to make it interesting. I first applied a layer which made the image more blue in colour. I then went on to apply different overlays to the image. As I have previously used Pixlr, I knew that within these overlays are some 'light leaks' which you can apply to an image to make it look old, but also add some more colour. I went with a red and white light leak as it is a contrasting colour to green and the red went well with the orange and red leaves in the background of the image.

I added these two images to the contents page, making sure they were both the same sizes.

Finally, I added a few more snippets down the side of the magazine, changes the page numbers and added a page number along the bottom. I had to change the page numbers as I thought it would be better if the snippets down the side would relate to the images, otherwise people don't know who the article is about if they aren't well known. I also added a date and year along the bottom as many magzines, inclding Q, included this. Noticing on the Q contents page that there was a webpage to subscribe to for the magazine, I went about adding a small piece of information along the bottom for people to subscribe to the magazine and be kept up to date with all the latest information. This goes well with audience pleasures and it will make my target audience feel more a part of the magazine community and feel like they are being given to.