AS G321: Sophie Packer

I asked the appropriate audience what they thought of my magazine and these were the responses.

1) “I like the colours. They’re bright and eye-catching. The pictures relate to the style of the magazine; the band look trendy, and look like proper indie musicians playing in a garage or something. The only bad thing is that there is a bit too much writing, and some of it is hard to read – the introduction in blue, especially. I feel the price is reasonable and would even be prepared to pay a little more.”

2) “The magazine establishes the character of the band really well. The Q&A article emphasises their persona as a lads band and compliments the images of them – the setting is suitably shabby and they look genuine. The contents page is refreshingly unpretentious and straight-forward compared to real magazines of the same genre. One criticism is that it’s somewhat lacking in colour – the double page spread has a bolder colour scheme, and looks altogether more confident. The large, single image establishes who you are reading about and because they look appealing it draws you into the article and makes the text less intimidating. It also creates a sense of intimacy with the band, and as a result you are more likely to persevere with the article. The second double-page spread is more wordy, but is supported with appropriate pictures and an eye-catching quote.”

3) “I think that the lay out of the double page spread looks very professional and as if I could find it in any well established magazine. The contents page lacks imagination with the layout, using too much text to fill the page. I like how the font remains the same throughout, as it maintains a sense of continuity. My favourite part of the magazine is the first page of the double page spread, as it uses a large photo to attract the readers’ attention, and also a quote giving insight to the contents of the article. Overall the magazine looks well presented and authentic.”

I am pleased with the feedback, which has confirmed the need to work on my contents page. I was happy that the target audience found it “professional” and met their requirements of a music magazine. I wouldn’t change the colour scheme as it was well received by the audience. In future I would include more images and less text in the double page spreads as it was mentioned that it was a little too “wordy”.