Evaluation of magazine and target audience feedback

The brief I was given was to create part of a document to promote a cultural activity in Manchester. I was asked to create a front cover of a promotional booklet and a double page spread.

Review of final product:

 

When creating my promotional magazine for Manchester one of my strengths is I made the magazine appropriate to my target market, with the use of such imagery as the Print works which is a place which appeals to students and my target audience. And my font which was used was also suitably chosen due to the stylistic approach of the font and and the hipster aesthetic which occupies it. Along with the cover lines using the same font which stands out well and contrasts well with the images with its white and red colour scheme.

And then through to the double page spread of the magazine as it appeals to the upper band of my target market with Shambles Square. Which in turn allowed for me to promote the culture of Manchester easily due to Shambles Square featuring some of the oldest pubs in Manchester and that has a lot of history in itself. And I also colours which connotes with Manchester United with the red, black and white used heavily on the front cover.And i also used a QR inside to allow for cross media promotion and to allow the reader to carry on finding out more information of the topic.

And with the magazine I used a number of magazine genre codes & conventions.This is shown throughout the magazine through the use of colours, which include that of yellow and red which connotes the Manchester bee and Manchester United. Also all the text used throughout the design is related to street art within Manchester. The cultural aspect I have chosen, together with these connotations help my design appeal to my target audience which is students and young adults. Other ways in which I have helped the design appeal to them is through the language used throughout the main body of text and also the images shown throughout.  Also the design of the magazine is effective in that it is shown to be consistent in the transition between the front page and double page spread. This consistency is created by using similar colours and images in both parts of the design. However I did find issues when creating this magazine as with the  actual images on the front cover due to when I took it, the image is overall a slightly dark image due to the weather. However I did try to improve this by improve the brightness and contrast after the fact, which worked but left a very very subtle grain look to the finished image.

Target audience review:

When I showed the final product to my target audience as final trial before fully releasing my product. The initial impressions was that the magazine was an eye catching product and appealed to them with the front cover and the fonts used on the front cover and withing the actual magazine. Some criticism that was said about the magazine front cover is that it looks slightly cluttered with the covers being spread straight across the magazine from taking up a lot of room withing the actual page. With this feedback if I revisit it I will try to shrink down the font altogether, and get the page cover lines smaller and less cluttered or less find a similar font which will work well but can be read as well but smaller. And one thing they mentioned about the double page spread is that I could add more images of the inside the pubs to show what it looks like. And have more information to the pubs for example use QR codes which link to menus of the pubs themselves down at the bottom near the Facebook QR code.

Implementation report.

Page mock-up of magazine

Front page mock-up:

overall the front page of the mock up works really well with the simplistic nature of the magazine and the bold title in the dope style font which is instantly eye catching and is clear to read,Therefore, when making my final design I will keep this text.  however in my hand drawn page mock up it shows the Manchester eye on the front cover which i could not use in my final design due to the Manchester eye not being in Manchester anymore after its deconstruction in 2015. therefore i had to change it to another very recognizable image in Manchester so i chose the print works due to its well known statues and eye catching imagery.  And with the inclusion of the Cask Marque symbol in the bottom right hand corner also shows what this magazine will also feature so it will go with my market research and to show that i have included feed back on what i should include. The only problem with the mock-up i have is the bare page which doesn’t really have much on it or saying what is being shown inside of the magazine.Therefore in my final product i will add more images to show what you will see inside and add more cover lines into the front cover to explain what you can also see inside.

 

Double page spread mock-up:

Some of the aspects of this design have worked, such as the title font across the double spread, the font used and the colour of the font which stands out well.  However, other aspects such as the layout of the image and text may need to be changed. The way that they need to be changes is with the image of the two pubs need a touch op to remove all background images such as the crane in the top right corner and the bottom of the image is not straight and messy so i will have to clean that up to get nice and sharp edges. And along with the title is that there are two images of both pubs and this double page spread doesn’t just focus on one pub therefore the name with be changed to “Shambles Square”. And i will also include images from inside of the pub itself so you can see what to expect inside of the pubs. and with the font i would like to add a natural slant onto the words so it flows with the image and looks natural and professional.

 

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