Hot desking (my questions, participants' answers)

*  What do you think about my front cover? Masthead and these grey boxes? Are they not too big? Are there not too many cover lines? Is the image appropriate for electronic dance music magazine? What about the colours?

1. I really like the title and colours but maybe move all the headlines up a little on the left side as there is a gap near his head

2. The typeface of your masthead is very good and I think its suits your genre well. The image is also appropriate and I like the colour scheme of the whole thing. Maybe move the left cover lines up a little to fill the gap

3. All of the colours work really well together, I would agree with moving the coverlines up so there isn’t lots of space around his head. The grey box works well as a different visual technique. The barcode doesn’t look like something you’d find on a normal magazine, I’d maybe change that.

4. The title is unique and bold. The genre of electronic is clear and the colour scheme works well. The grey boxes highlight the reader’s attention and there is plenty of cover lines to draw in attention that the magazine has a lot of articles.

5. I like the masthead and the colours used throughout the front cover. I think, the image used is appropriate for and electro magazine. There’s nothing wrong the colours used in fact I think they suit the magazine perfectly! But the grey box in the middle has to go it just doesn’t suit the magazine in anyway what so ever.


* Is there anything missing at my front cover you think? If yes, what?

1. No everything seems okay
2. Nothing seems to be missing the whole thing is very good
3. I can’t think of anything that you’ve missed
4. All seems to be there
5. Nothing is missing on the contrary , it is overflowing with stuff , which I liked!




*What do you think about my contents page? Is it not too dark? What about fonts? Can you read it easily? Is it attractive? Are there not too many images on there? Is it not confusing when the text goes on one side, then folio number and then other way round?

1. Contents page is very good I like how the numbers are larger than the actual text

2. Your contents page is attractive and easy to read and there are a good amount of images on it. I especially like how the colours match those of the front cover.

3. The colours work well and are similar to the front cover which shows you have a consistent style. My only complaint would be the image of your cover star; I would have the focus on his face, not his hand. On your contents page I would have all of the folios on the same side, as it looks a bit random having them at different ends of your article list. I like how you have highlighted important parts of your contents page (such as artists’ names) to make them stand out.

4. There is a lot of information and the folios help the reader to find the pages, however keeping those to one side may make them easier to read in left – right format. The colours are bold and emphasise certain words.

5. For the contents page I have no criticisms what so ever personally I liked it. It challenges the codes and conventions a little I guess but that’s not necessarily a bad thing however , a maybe you require a little bit more structure regard the folios as they seem a little all over the place.




* How could I improve my product?(whole magazine)


1. Its all good

2. No improvements needed

3. All good so far

4. Previously , stated points other than that it’s good for example the grey box on your front cover personally needs to go.

5. I liked everything




* Which font would be better for my double page spread? (it’s the other document opened on indesign)


1. Either the first or the 3rd as I think they look the most electro design

2. The first or the third as they match the rest of your magazine and seem to go with your chosen genre better.

3. I would choose the last one or the third one as they are different to your masthead, showing a bit of variety, and they are big and bold,so matching the genre of your magazine.

4. I think the third matches the text of the whole magazine better and reflects the electronic genre.

5. Personally, the third one like the above point it matches the text of the whole magazine better giving it structure.

Draft 2 (contents and front cover)

I have changed my front cover slightly by fading the big grey box and making it more transparent, which makes it look more real and not fully covering his hands but also makes like a background for the text so it wouldn't just blend in with his shirt or a black background.

I have also changed my contents page making the text size smaller, so this lets me fit more stories and I also fit one more picture in it.
One more thing that I have changed is the folio numbers, it was unreal and not logical whereas now I have looked at it more in depth. 

Draft for contents page

So this is my contents page that I'm currently working on.

And this is how my front cover for my music magazine looks like at the moment.

Question 3. What kind of media institution (publisher) might distribute my media product and why?

Front cover design

I produced my front cover, I do not like couple of things about it, like the big grey box which covers half of the main character's hands and it makes it look bad, but I still haven't figured it out how to make the background behind that particular text one colour so the text would not fade it but at the same time not to cover half of the image. I am currently working on this, hot desking should help with this as well.

I also have chosen to use different colours on my front cover than I said I am going to. I was supposed to use either black blue and red, black blue and orange or black blue and yellow, but I have chosen white blue and grey. I have chosen this because my main image is quite dark, has lots of blue shades in it which makes it look better and makes it to stand out when the text is bright. Dark blue is used for catching the eye (using this just for anchorage text and for the main story)

These colours connotes about seriousness, dark, maybe even underground music. Festivals always are are associated with dark atmosphere, alcohol and drugs. 

My main character is a Dj, you can understand this through the use of headphones which is a big connotation of dance and club music. 

My masthead is not an actual 'colour' one,  I have used a white masthead with fading out which makes it look greyish, because it looks like it is made from small white dots put together.

Masthead connotes about my genre as well, it says EDM united, which stands for electronic dance music. (my target audience would understand it straight away, as this shortage is widely used between these people.

I also put the character in front of my masthead which means that the character is much more important that the masthead and it also catches attention.

All of my cover stories are related with my genre, all the names used are well known in electronic dance music world, such as 'Hardwell' or  'Oliver Heldens' which means it would attract my T.A attention, I also have a 'free gift' feature which usually comes with the electronic dance music magazines (like the magazine called 'mixmag' usually has a free gift).

The price was chosen based on my T.A research as the major responses I've got was that the reasonable price for this kind of magazine would be between 3 and 4 pounds per issue (having a monthly issue)

Also using such  thing like 'elections' makes my T.A feel very important and just as if they would be very close to their beloved Dj's. 

Second photo shot in studio!

This is my new photo shot as I noticed the first one I did was not good enough for a real connotation of my magazine. This time photos were shot in TV studio directing light, changing outfits and etc. I took about 350 pictures, these ones are the best ones in my opinion. Some of them may not make any sense now, but I have some ideas how to fade two pictures together for double page spread and etc.

Now these images connotes about electronic dance music as you can clearly see the headphones and the whole music dj thingy in pictures.

Always used the serious face expressions as it represent edm magazine.

Front cover journey...

I did my first photo shot for my music magazine front cover, dps and contents page like couple of weeks ago.

(Image used for the front cover)

All of these images represent my target audience and the genre of the magazine. Most of the electronic dance music magazines have just a guy (or a girl) on the front cover with no musical props or anything, more looking like a model. That is why I have chosen the man (attracting females audience, also much more Dj's are males which is a connotation of my genre as well). 

This photo shot was made in pretty bad lightning, home environment and it does not look as professional as I want it to look. Always tried to used mid close-up or a close-up for my images. 

I have decided that these images are not suitable for my real magazine front cover, but it is a good lesson for me. I also will use some of them on my double page spread and my contents page. Especially images where the character is smoking is a connotation of the electronic dance music. 

The best example of this is the article about well known electronic music dj written on 'Mixmag' online site : 

The image they used is a very strong connotation of the dark side of the music, as the image is dark and the smokes in the background, you can see that the character is wearing headphones to connote about the music (that is why I used headphones in my photo shot) but it is clear that an image like that cannot be used on the front cover. 

I wanted my front cover to be pretty dark but have like a fading effect from black(or dark blue) to white. (Just like an image on the website above). So I cut my character out of the original image and put him on the background. 

It looked like this : 

Then I designed the masthead myself (drew it) and tried to put it on the image. My original masthead looked like this :

It should not be black and white, and the lines are not perfectly straight but I just wanted a rough idea how it would look. It will be corrected for sure. The line underneath has to be much longer to go through the whole image as well. I have chosen to make the masthead myself because I had my own idea and online sites are quite limited when I know exactly what I want.

So even though my image was not perfectly corrected at the time, I put the masthead on it, to have a rough idea how does it look. 

Now when I see how it looks, I know I do not like the way image looks so unreal and not 'in depth'. You can clearly see that it is just put on the image, it does not look real, also the arm which goes in inside the image looks like it is not cut properly. The blue shirt and the blue background is not the best idea either. The character blends in and the only thing that catches our eyes is the red lead which goes from the earphones. Also we cannot see character's hands, it looks unreal. 

So I decided to re-do my photo shot. This time using the studio to create the real fading background working with lights and constantly changing my character's pose to find the best one and the most applicable for my type of music magazine. 

I will try to experiment with my background making two different ones : very dark one with model wearing something very light and then the opposite, white background bleaching to light grey and model wearing black clothes.

Serious face is a 'MUST' thing for my magazine front cover as well. The only one 'prop' will be used is headphones or a computer (computer will not be seen on the front cover).