Overall Changes

Throughout creating this magazine I have made several decisions, and then gone back and revised those decisions at a later date. Probably the biggest changes that I have made are with the positioning of the pictures on the front cover, contents page and the double page spread. I kept moving them around and swapping them and changing the angles to try and make them look more dynamic and create more impact in order to grab the audience's attention. It took me several weeks to finally settle on the arrangement that I have today, which I think works, although I was a little nervous that the pictures on the double page spread would crowd the article too much.
I also went through several different background colours, such as greens, blues and reds, before finally settling on black for all three pieces to help to keep continuity and link the three pieces together as different parts of one magazine, and maintain a house style.

Changes to my Final Contents Page

I have now altered the layout of my contents page as I think it looked too much like a list the first time around. I have now slightly staggered the list of contents and broken up the text with pictures from the various features in the magazine. I think that this new layout looks more dynamic and helps to create more of an impact on the reader.

Final Contents Page

I have now finished my contents page. This is what it looks like:

Final Double Page Spread

I have now finished my double page spread, 'Guitar Heroes or Zeroes?', which is a review of the well known game on the Xbox 360. This is the final piece:

Double Page Spread Changes

I decided to put the image of the logo in the top left hand corner of both pages of my double page spread to keep continuity throughout the magazine. I played around with the title of the article, adding flames to the letters to add more drama and create more of an impact

and to grab the readers attention. I then decided that this was not such a good idea, and changed it back to the original font and colour to keep continuity.

Processes of my final Front Cover

After I had taken all of the pictures, I decided to use this one because the people in it are at a jaunted angle to the camera, and one is standing just behind the other. This helps to add a sense of depth to the image, and to create a stronger connotation of verisimilitude, in that people in real life are not 2D. Although the subjects of the image do not have eye contact with the camera and the audience, this is because they are playing on the game 'Guitar Heroes', which is what the double page spread article is about, so this helps to create a link between the pages and maintain a level of continuity. Despite this lack of eye contact between the audience and the people in the image, the audience's gaze is drawn along the line of the man's lead guitar and onto the woman's bass because of the angle they are standing at to the camera. I put the image into 'Photoshop', where I rotated it, erased the original background and superimposed the characters onto the background of a stage lit with green light.

Final Front Cover

I have now completed my front cover. This is my polished piece:

Front Cover Changes

I have decide to change the colours of the strips and the little plectrum symbols at the top and the bottom of the page. They were originally white and blue, but i have now changed it to purple reverse out on a blue background, as i think that this looks more professional and links with the colours of the masthead and the logo to provide more continuity.

House Style

I have now created a house style which is the logo featured behind my masthead:

Masthead

I designed several different versions of a masthead, as are pictured, and asked my piers which one they preferred. Originally i used a different font on the computers, but i changed it to 'Delta', because i think that it looks more stylistic. This was the final result: