Time Management Update

I have not been the most productive this month as I have completed my products and I am now taking my time completing my evaluation questions in the best way I can think possible. This month I have also compared my products to existing products which is something I had completely forgotten was necessary to my work and my first evaluation question. Although I am now slightly behind where I would like to be I do not think it will take long to complete my evaluation questions from where I am now. 

Front Cover Alterations

Having recently received feedback on my main product during standardisation and some of the things that were highlighted I could improve were:

• that the masthead could be stronger
• try out a 3rd colour to make it 'pop' 
• it was difficult to identify the main sell line (main article)
• unclear what the audience was with combinations of 'omg', doll up' and a sophisticated looking model
• that it is the 'party issue' but doesn't look very partyesque

It was also suggested I link back more to it being a regional magazine

I have taken all of these messages on board but there are some areas I chose not to change, some areas I tried out but did not change and others I changed accordingly.

With my cover I attempted to regionalise it a bit more by adding in the 'Northampton Edition' under the title which can sometimes be seen on newspapers, although uncommon on magazines. I don't think the edition of this disrupts the look too much and I do agree that it could have been more regional originally.

I also tried out a third colour (here you can see that I experimented with blue as it's quite a wintery colour but I also tried several others from my colour scheme plan. However, I didn't feel that any of these colours worked particularly well and so I decided that I would stick with the two font colour for my cover, but I have altered some of the 'internal' pages slightly. 

As for the masthead and sell line, my inspirational texts such as Glamour and Cosmopolitan have fairly flat mastheads and I think by adding a 'deeper' look it makes it look tacky and so I did not incorporate it. As for the comment on not being able to determine the sell line, most magazines do not highlight it in particular but instead just make it in a larger font as I have done with my 'Winter Trends' article. Another thing that was touched upon was the fact my model is hiding part of the masthead and so people may find t hard to read and so not know what it is, however, I am creating this product in the view that it is an already established product (I have labelled it issue 132) and so people will already know about it and know what it is. 

My target audience, as I have previously established, is females aged between 15-25, however, I can see why some may not think this as the model does look quite sophisticated and serious. With this said I am keeping in mind my target audience as members from my target region (the East Midlands) often dress this way themselves around this age and so despite looking as if it is aimed at older women it will actually be hitting my target audience quite well.  

'The Party Issue' article has been removed as I think it is too late to take more pictures to make it look more like a party, instead I have changed it to an article about relationships which I think connects more to my target audience anyway and I think will make it more obvious I am aiming at a younger generation. 

Double Page Spread Alterations

I also received feedback on my double page spread:

• try a 3rd colour
• 'where the items are from' could be more conventional 
• sell line/strap line could maybe have more significance
• there seems to be conflict between what is the main sell (winter trends or cozy country winter)

I agree that the 'where the items are from' label was a bit formal so I made it more colloquial by changing it to 'where's it from?!'. I also added in a third colour to help differentiate between what is the main sell (the trends) and 'cozy country winter' which is what I called the trend. 

The strap/sell line, however, I feel already has significance. In the second image I have screenshotted what the page looks like without it and I think it is quite bare without it. Also, many of my inspirational texts highlight fashion and beauty pages in this way and so can be seen to be a commonly used convention.

Second Page Alterations

One of the suggestions I got to make on my second page was perhaps remove the '.' from the numbers. Here I have tried this to see how it would look (leaving a few with the '.' to compare) and I don't think it is a change that I will be keeping, I think that the '.' makes it look a little more polished and so I will keep it that way.

Another thing that was suggested was to add in reasons the products are on there (i.e. to sell them more). In my original layout of my beauty page this was my intention but the way I had presented it made it look boxy and untidy and so I removed it, with the current layout I don't have room for this description. However, I have linked a few back to the makeup the model is wearing which may sell the products slightly which also gives the image some anchorage. 

Other than that I have just made small changes, having changed the colour of the 'deal alert' font to pink to make it stand out and changing 'where to get' to 'where to buy'.

Suggested Alterations

My work was recently submitted for standardisation by another tutor at the college and from this I have received feedback on areas that could be improved in my main product. Having looked at the feedback I already know there are some things that won't work or that I don't think will look like but I will try all suggestions out to see if they improve my product. 

This Lesson

This lesson I have continued with my evaluation questions and I have also done a comparison between some of my work and existing products. 

As part of my evaluation I am analysing my work and seeing if it is conventional or subversive of typical codes and conventions of the product. I am then going to do a fuller analysis in a Prezi or slideshow to make my work more media rich.

Comparing My Work To Existing Products: Website

My website is also notably more simplistic in design than the existing product. Glamour have very little white space while my home page has just one scrolling gallery of images, along with feature articles further down the page and contact information at the bottom.

Glamour was one of the magazines I took most inspiration from as I think their style (but a more condensed version) would fit perfectly for what I had in mind for my product. 

Other pages resemble the style of Glamour more than my home page, however, I am especially please with how my 'beauty' page turned out, although it has more of a blog layout than Glamour but I think it looks very professional. 

Although I took inspiration from this and other texts I mainly kept to the template that was on Wix when I was making my website, with only really taking inspiration for the content rather than the style.