Contents Page Production

My contents page was the last page that I had to create. Like with my previous pages, I used the program Quark to create the contents page. I decided to use a certain magazine front cover that was from a real magazine and was very professional and from the same genre to use as inspiration and as a guide of how I wanted my contents page to look. Here is that contents page:

The first thing I decided to do was create boxes and picture boxes on where I plan to place everything that I want on my contents page in. I didn't want the boxes to be all white as I felt it would look boring. Therefore, I decided to make my boxes pink to fit in with the colour scheme I have chosen for my magazine: pink, white, and orange. I also added the title of the contents page and the headline for a small section of the page where the contents of the front cover will be talked about. Here is the first look at my contents page:

When looking at all this again, I decided I didn't really like it. In response to this I decided to get rid of all of the boxes on my contents page- bar the top one with the writing in- and decided to start again. I decided to add new boxes to make it look more similar to the real contents page above as it is effective and professional: 



The next thing I had to do was add a screenshot of my front cover to the contents page. I wanted to do a similar thing to the real contents page. I wanted to attach numbers to the articles and advertisements mentioned on the front cover. This is how it looked:



The next step was to add the numbers. I decided to make the colour of the text pink so it matched the banner at the top of the page. I attached straight pink lines to the articles and advertisements and used my flat planning to find some numbers for my pages. Here is how it looked:

When looking at it again I felt that there is too much pink. I decided that I wanted to change the colour of the numbers and lines and in order to keep in line with the colour scheme I decided to change the colour to orange. This is how the orange looked:

I then decided to do a "message from the editor" which is a common convention of contents pages. This meant that I had to move the front cover section around to allow space for my message. I moved everything to do with the front cover to the left hand side of the page to clear space for the message. This consequently meant that the lines from the numbers to the articles had to be smaller to give more room for this message. This is how it first looked:

The next thing I did was add a photo that I had previously Photoshopped of my model Alex. I decided to add it under the message from the team. Here is how it looked:

After a close review of the progress I had made so far, I realised that my message from the team was much too long and wordy for my young target audience who would find it boring and would not read it. I found some unnecessary parts of the passage and took them out to make it smaller and then made the text larger to fill the extra space. This is how it looked:

I then had to add the number and description of the article that anchored the image. I drew a textbox on the photo and wrote in white text the information needed. I decided to make the number larger than the rest of the text in order to stand out more and bring the readers attention to the page number. This is how it looked:

The next step were to add page numbers and the content of the magazine. I decided to keep with the orange for the numbers and wrote the article title in black (as seen with the "message from the team" section). I included all the content (using my flat planning as guidance) and put it underneath the screenshot of my front cover. This is how it looked:

After looking at the progress I had made I decided that I had put too writing on my contents page. It looked too wordy and too boring for my target audience. This was a problem as it may make my magazine look less professional and people would be less inclined to read it. In response to this I decided that I had to take some of the contents out. I did this and made the text bigger so my contents page looked like this:

I looked again at all my work and thought that the contents page looked empty and boring and that it was not up to the same standard as my other pages. I decided that I wanted to rearrange my contents page and add more to it. In response to this I held another photo shoot and began to rearrange my contents page. I made all my text smaller, I made my images smaller and I split my contents page into thirds. I also decided that the page title was too plain and simple. Therefore, I changed the font of it and added the issue number of the magazine to seem more interesting and so it stood out more. I also changed the font f my message from the editor to look more handwritten to create a more personal relationship between audience and editor. This is a screenshot of how my contents page looked after all the rearranging:

I decided to move the photograph into the middle column and make the end column pink. This allowed more space to be filled and it allowed me to make some things stand out more and have more authority than other parts of the page. At this point I hadn't yet done my new photo shoot so went to the internet to find similar photos of what I wanted on the page to be in place of these new photos until I had my own original photography. I used these internet photos as a basis of the article title and information. I put all of the photos into the middle column and wrote in white text over the pink column the page numbers and the information about the article. This is how it looked:

I only managed to get one of the photos that I wanted at my photo shoot so I decided to get rid of the bottom photo and piece of text. I replaced the internet photo of Ed Sheeran with a photo of my own that I had taken and edited and replaced the photo and text for the bottom of the page with a pink box. I decided to write up a competition that my readers can get involved in that would allow them to win free subscription to my magazine. I wrote it in white text. This is how it looked:

I then noticed the small gap under my editors message so decided to add contact details for the magazine and the page number. I used the colours orange and pink to do this:

Finally, I realised that these things looked wrong in this position so had to change the page number and contact details round. I left the contact details where they were in that corner and moved the page number to the other side of the page and put it in a white colour. I also shortened the competition piece as it was too wordy for my target audience (This screenshot does not have the correct fonts due to an issue with the computer):