Contents page construction

My Contents Pages Constructions

My contents was eventually the hardest part of my final pieces as it took lots of different ideas to be put together to let the contents fit in with the house style and still look organized as a conventional contents page. I also had to have two contents pages as they 

My first idea was to make the background colour Grey so that it could allow the colours black and white, which are both part of my colour scheme. But when it came to adding the different texts it different come out clear and looked slightly cheap. Firstly I decided to clear up the pictures by adding brightness to them, making them look more professional.

The brightness tool was also to add colour to the dull looking background. The contrast was not used as much as it was for the front cover image because i needed them to be crisp and without the highlight pigments on their skin. I then used two images to create a box to put subscription information in.

The lineament was where i wanted to look different but in the end just looked boring and didn't fit in with my colour pop house style.  

As you can see i didn't get very far with the first idea as I could see
 that it wasn't going to be successful. The problems were mainly
occurred when the house couldn't be used a well was it was in the front cover
and the background colour became odd because of the colour of the texts and images.

After the first idea didn't work as well as i wanted i decided to make a new contents from scratch.

I started with new background colour to a lighter Grey so I could have a larger variety of colours.

Firstly I decided to add the same pictures, leaving them edited but them cropped the main image so that it would have a more landscape approach. I then added a new layer so that I could create an elliptical rectangle which later tilted, This was to make a bold page marker on my contents and add a conventional contents page feature. This was later was joined by another piece of text, which was a quote highlighting a bold statement made by the protagonist which the reader would find inside the feature.

"I'm grateful for what I've got, but I knew I would get it"

 Following this I decided to add the text at either side which would create two smaller columns to the largest column in the middle which would be used for the images such as the main image of my second protagonist.

For my text I decided to use font that would make certain highlighted areas known as well as sticking to the house style used on the front cover and the first contents page.

I then added some more layer and more elliptical rectangle that are tinted black, these are used to make the structure lines which are conventionally used in common music magazines. However this made my work look sloppy and unkempt so I decide later to reduce the size.

The feature of the album I created was made through layers of text onto the smaller cropped image and was tilted clockwise to create a realism. This was later added before making a separate J Peg image and adding it on the contents.

The REMIX magazine logo was used by having different colours for each letter in the font. The logo was also used to make the contents sign which was split up into groups for three lines. Remix was placed in between two of the line was to create a structural design which contributed to the identity of my product. 

This cover too was unsuccessful as it didn't look professional at all and it stood out  for all the wrong reason such as being too different from the house style.  

As the second design didn't turn out so well I decided to make a third attempt by adding more layer which had the rectangular shapes but in black and were enlarged to make a bolder platform for the text. I then added different text such as the "And the Grammy & Brit nomination are in!". The colour scheme was becoming more important as I had to fit the house style as well as maintaining a level of professionalism and displaying the conventions of a typical music magazine contents page.
Using the monochrome text and its contrasting background allowed us to bring the hip edge to the page but the Grey original background often clashed with the colours.The added images such as the Grammy award and the Brit were added using layers but these were too fake and disbelieving.
The third design didn't show much progress from the second and I felt like I needed to start from scratch if I was to get the successful contents page.

This is an image of a typical scan code,
placed on the far top right of the page.

Then came up with the common idea of adding the scanner which allowed people to interact with their magazine as well as bringing in the latest technology such as scanning with the iPod and iPhone.
These scans can give the readers insight into the magazines and the interaction that they might not get, even on the website. So I decided to use on my contents by adding synergy between the offer on the drake tickets with the scanning opportunity provided. This also allowed me to add a very modern convention of music magazine and showing the link to technology and the stereotypes of a Hip Hop music magazine. 


My final contents page turned out well due to the adjustment made from a new start.
First I started by getting rid of the old Grey background and getting a darker Grey colour which allowed me to do what I wanted with the monochrome and block, bright colours as well as give it the professional polish.
 I then added the extra layers and the elliptical rectangles to create the boxes, which were larger in contrast to the previous attempts. this allowed me to have more space to work with and having less room to contrast colours with both the text and the background.

The colour scheme came directly from the
front page and was used as a
 beacon by the dark colours. These colours were the fuchsia,
 lime sea foam green and burnt orange.
This is my FINAL edit.

This was followed by the texts in big and bold "This Week". This was a general convention shown in popular music magazines such as Q. I then decided to get rid of the broken down contents page title and put it in vertically and repeated. I thought that this would make great reference to my preliminary task as I used that technique for both the the title and contents.
The joint offer on Drake was then placed beside it to create three columns that may or may not be used.
The largest image was given its own background layer rectangle and took two of the three columns but later shortened to create room. I kept the image developed as it was but I got rid of the extra layer and box shape that it created for a neater, bolder page number, which jumped from the page. Another example of this is where I used the same technique for the page number of the Amber Rose story.
The artists index was given a smaller space besides the main image and a small but intense image.
I then used celebrity endorsement, often a convention of music magazines to create a album rating on the contents.

 In the first contents page I started by desaturating the image so that I could add the pop colour scheme. This was done by the brightness and saturation.
I then added the text by creting dfferent layers and synchornising the colours ith the previous page.
I then added an elliptical rectangle to join the house style of the previous page and added text, which on previous efforts I put on one page.
I think spreading it out over two pages was the best thing as I could out all designs forward without it looking rushed are less professional.
The fonts I used were:
CHI Town NF
Cooper Std
Base 02
Drive Thu NF