Response to Feedback

In order to ensure my magazine was as refined as possible, I collected a lot of feedback from both my target audience and those knowledgeable in design. Below, I have included both the feedback itself, and a demonstration of action taken.

Feedback from Target Audience

Given that the entire purpose of my magazine was to appeal to this audience, it was key to hear what they had to say about how to do this more effectively. I sent out first drafts to a number of people within my target audience via instant messaging services, and have collected their feedback here, as well as my own responses to it.

Feedback from Graphic Designers

I also decided to get some feedback from several graphic designers, as I felt getting a professional opinion on my work was important. I spoke to three designers in total, and their feedback has been collected here, as well as my responses to it.

One designer gave a long list of minor suggested tweaks and alterations:

'My thoughts are:

Be careful with the kerning on the bottom strap on the front page, the 'I's are close to disappearing. A bit of manual intervention can correct this and avoid what could look like a spelling mistake.

I'd avoid hyphens splitting words at the ends of columns where possible.

You may also want to consider justifying all columns to left and right edges to tidy them up slightly... This is particularly noticeable on your editorial on page 2 (they're all currently aligned to the left)

The logo for the magazine draws the eye more on the contents page than on the main cover... This may have been intentional, but you're selling your product as much by the front cover shot as the logo.

'The Band That Stole The Internet'... For me, the capital letters at the beginning of each word devalue its message... I personally prefer mixed case or all capitals... Another design option *could* be to use a larger, lower case letter at the beginning... Then it looks like a very deliberate design choice. (This also is the case for the 'Plus' section on Page 2)

Finally, you have used single apostrophes (') for quotes during your feature article, when it should really be double speech marks ("").'

I had been concerned about this, and following this feedback realised I had to fix it.

I struggled to completely avoid hyphens, but I decided to go back and attempt to fix this as far as possible.

A silly mistake which I needed to correct.

This feedback was given to me by multiple people; I decided to figure out a way to pronounce the masthead more.

Given the nature of this advice as a personal preference I decided to wait for further feedback before changing it.

This was a decision I made for the sake of uniformity and the conservation of space. I decided to attempt to find an alternative solution. However, I found double speech-marks took up too much space.

Another designer had the following to say:

'To me the Free Poster graphic is more eye catching than the masthead. This may be to do with your use of red for that graphic - red draws the eye. You may notice how many magazines / newspapers use it in their own masthead.

With regards to the DPS, don't fear white-space (the empty areas that allow your design to 'breath') have you considered using the large images full bleed? (so they bleed off the page) and let the red strip bleed off the top & bottom too. You may wish to consider not using the page numbers on the pages with the large image, readers only need to know the starting pages for articles.

On your contents page, I'd suggest possibly increasing the left margin a little so the 'Happy New Year…" copy isn't so close to the page edge.

The short descriptive paragraphs in the contents list appear a little 'tight' which does suite the rest of the design, but if you reduced the point size a little and leave the leading (line space) as is, then it may read a little easier.'

I had already decided to attempt to make the masthead more striking, as I had recieved overwhelming feedback to do so.

It was nice to be reassured about the white space in my DPS, as this was one of my own major concerns regarding my design. I also elected to experiment with full bleed images.

This was another personal concern and I was glad to have confirmation that a change was needed.

This is a suggestion that I would never have thought of myself, but having seen the outcome I thoroughly understand. More space between the letters made my paragraphs easier to read on the whole.

Finally, a third designer said:

Minor comment: magazine name could be more prominent -- maybe a solid white panel behind? Don't forget, there's no right or wrong with design, it's all completely subjective. You could also try running the pull quotes over the large images to tie the pages together.

Once again, I was advised to make my masthead more prominent, justifying my decision to do so. I struggled to find an attractive way of employing the pull-quote idea, however, so I did not act on this.

Given the overwhelming feedback I recieved about my masthead not being prominent enough, I decided to make significant changes. I drew a red box behind the masthead and made the main masthead white, changing the strapline to black. Now, there was vastly more colour, and as the designer below points out, red is a very eye-grabbing colur popular on mastheads for many magazines and newspapers. Finally, I gave the red box a drop-shadow to make it extra prominent on the page.

--TO--

With regards to my DPS, I went through the article and corrected hyphenated line endings. However, I could not find an aesthetic way to change the speech mark issue, so I left the pull-quotes untouched for the time being.

For my contents page, I justified all my columns to the right or left dependent on where the dividing line was in relation to them.

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Deciding to change the images to full-bleed made my DPS feel far less empty, and therefore more professional as a result.

As suggested, I moved the left column inwards slightly, making it easier to read. I also fixed a small issue with a missing rating, and added a subscription advertisement to fill the empty space below the editorial as suggested by Aaron.

--TO--

Finally, as suggested I decreased the point size of my contents paragraphs, without adjusting the leading. This made the paragraphs easier to read.

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Overall, my feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with a few small issues to resolve. I dealt with these issues below following my feedback from designers.

Feedback from Year 13

To round off my feedback section, I gathered feedback from three separate Year 13 students. They had the following to say:

Student 1:

Front Page:

I don't like the hair, but the image on the front page is good.

There is too much red.

The text looks too organised for the genre.

The artist name looks good.

Contents Page:

The text is way too small.

The images are good.

DPS

Do not like the first image.

Too much red again.

Don't like the speech marks.

Without a valid reason as to why they did not like this; and therefore a suggestion for action to take, I found this difficult to rectify.

I decided to attempt to find a way to slightly reduce the amount of red in my magazine.

This was an interesting point, and I exprimented with moving my cover lines around to a degree following this; however given the symmetrical format of my page I found that this simply looked unprofessional.

A good piece of positive feedback.

I did not exactly know how to act on this; a professional designer gave me contradictory advice, and I decided that he was a more reliable source overall, especially given that the image of my page on my Wix site was smaller than the actual product would be.

Some more self-explanatory positive feedback.

No reason was given as to why, and therefore I felt changing the image was risky with nothing to go on. I did not act on this.

This was an interesting point, but again no reasoning was provided, and given the subjective nature of design I did not act on this.

Student 2:

Front Page:

Very good model. Good use of space.

Title font is excellent.

Contents Page:

Excellent contents page. Good use of red + black.

DPS: Change images.

There was not negative feedback from this person for anything but my DPS, and some of the things they said, such as good use of space, contradicted suggested layout changes from student 1. Regarding the DPS, I was advised to change my photographs, but without any justification. As such, for the meantime I decided to wait for more feedback before acting.

Student 3:

Front Page:

Love front page.

Hair colour too soft at root.

Like how bleahced out the image is.

Contents Page:

Can't read writing under 'Happy New Year.'

Move things down so there is less space at the bottom.

Great Photos.

Align 'Muse' to the left.

DPS:

Don't like the plain background.

Really like the effect on the DPS title.

Quotes are appropriate.

Unsure about first photo; increase contrast, or change photo. Looks too set up.

Mostly positive feedback in regard to the front page. I decided to attempt to fix the hair colour issue, with little success.

I decided to change the font for my editorial to make the text easier to read.

This was a helpful decision which helped me to maximise space, so I acted on it.

Upon re-evaluating, the 'Muse' title seemed like an odd one out in terms of positioning. Following feedback, I moved it over to the left a small amount.

Given that all three professional designers whom I consulted seemed satisfied with my DPS, I did not feel that changing this was a good idea, especially given the formatting issues it would cause, as many graphics I used had white backgrounds. I attempted to implement a gradient, but the text became hard to read on other colours.

This comment finally gave a suggestion to improve the DPS photo. Given that I encountered personal difficulties taking a new photo with the same model, I took the suggestion of nicreasing the contrast.

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As suggested, I increased the contrast of both my DPS images, which made them far more striking and less bland, as well as carrying over some of the black from my house style.

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I also lowered my contents page features, as suggested, and inserted a red bar to neaten up the page and fill space.

Then, I changed the font of my editorial. I also changed the font of the title upon vocal reccomendation from Mrs McLuckie.

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I then justified 'Muse' to the left as advised, to maintain consistency of formatting across my contents page.

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Following feedback that I had too much red in my magazine, as well as dislike for the speech marks of my oull-quotes, I redesigned these.

I also received feedback from Mrs McLuckie about some potential changes I could make to my work. Suggestions were as follows:

Increase the size of some of your cover lines, to vary up the sizes and to maximise your use of space.

See how your DPS images look in colour. Maybe try replacing these altogether.

Try using a watermark.

Feedback from Teacher

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Increasing the size of my cover lines made my front page feel much less bare.

This was the biggest set of edits I made throughout my feedback process. I began by adding watermarks to each white DPS page, to make them feel less bare. There watermarks were pirate-themed to match the band's theme. Following this, I increased the brightness on my first iamge to make it clearer, and replaced my second image entirely. The jukebox continues the musical focus, and the desaturated colours make the image feel dated, gothic and grimy. However, the artist's relaxed stance resembles her attitude in the article. The biggest reason for the inclusion of this image was the fact that it was not too similr to my other images, continuing the general aesthetic whislt adding variety. Finally, I changed my pull-quotes to match the font from my title.

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Something I had simply overlooked and immediately rectified.

II decided to try and greatly imrove my DPS by implementing these suggestions in a complimentary manner.