Finished Contents page

Her we have the completed Whistling Dawg contents page which include my photographs I mentioned in the previous post.
I also used that good old font, 'Earths Greatest' (also mentioned in the previous post) as it is clear and effective for the list of pages and descriptions of pages, as seen on the left hand side.
I also managed to sneak in The Whislting Dawg logo on the background wall in the main picture, I thought this looked very proffesional and cheery.
Im decided to put the list of pages and number of those pages in alternate colours of blue and black, so it is easy to follow and read. I chose these colours as they fit nicely with the page as a whole, and my whistling dawg logo is also black. With the blue theme in mind, I thought as a background for this section something other than a solid colour would work nicely. I scanned in this tea stained paper, and changed the colour of it to blue, bingbangboom we have a lovely pattern for the background.

Contents Page Photographs

These are the two main pictures I wish to pop on to my contents page. Although they are both of the same person (my cousin) that is a bit tricky to tell, so I can easily name them as different artists and so on.  I thought the picture with the milk van would go nicely with the heading 'Highlights of Sheep wash Festival' as, after all, I did take the picture at a festival and it shows wellies and mud - typical festival conditions. Obviously the picture will have to be rotated so we don't have to tilt our heads to look at it and it will also have to be cropped because of that inconvenient arm sneaking in on the left hand side, but these problems can be easily fixed, get in!
Moving on to the picture on the right, I didn't realise how good looking this one was at the time, but it has come out really nicely. The colours should contrast splendidly with the not so bright 'Milk picture', and it should fit nicely with a heading such as 'Mae's Guide To The Top Ten Events This Summer'. By giving my cousin a name in the magazine, the amount of people in it is broadened, making the Whistling Dawg magazine look more professional by the minute! Also, just before I go, I thought this font would be nice to use for the headings, and any other text used on the contents page:

All of you with hawk eyes may have noticed I have indeed used this very same font before, just here on the double page spread(circled in red). I think reusing the fonts on different pages is a good move- it's always a good idea to keep running similarities and themes going throughout I reckon it just makes the whole thing far more professional looking.

I also have a plan for my contents page to  be:

Double Page spread - So far

So, like the title says, this is my double page spread so far, without the text.

I think the 'desktop items' around the right hand side are working tremendously, and I am rather pleased with the text and colour schemes, especially the alternate colours of  the subheading.  However, I do worry it looks a bit cluttered, but I shall see what my double page spread focus group says about the matter, it can easily be changed after all.

Update On The Double Page Spread

 I am currently working on the design of the double page spread. Paper clips have been   added to the pictures, which I thought looked really effective. For these, actually, for everything I scanned in I set the white background transparent so it looks like it is happily sitting on the background behind. It's a good, professional looking technique that works most of the time when the picture is of a good quality and the background isn't too busy. 





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Double Page Spread Plan

Here we have a cheeky drawing of how I wish to lay my double page spread out.  It includes two pictures of my artist, as well as scanned in items, which I hope to add around the sides of my main text to create a desk top effect. Below are some pictures of the items I wish to use. You may notice, they all have a yellow/orange colour theme, which fits splendidly with my artist, Ginger as well as my yellow and orange Whistling Dawg  front cover. 

Focus Group Results

So it is the moment we have all been waiting for, below you will see a strapping video of my focus group. I found everything that they said in the session really rather helpful and I am already pleased with the changes I have made in which the focus group suggested and something even better is that the feedback seemed to be generally positive - now that's what we like to hear.

Feedback Time

I am rather proud of my magazine cover so far, I think it's time to show it to a focus group and get some feedback. With other people's (in the target age group) comments, I will be able to shuffle and edit my magazine cover to the exact (or close enough) taste of the age group. To kick things off, I wrote out an individual invitation to my members of my focus group.. It went a little like this:


Dear Ann Example,

I would love for you to be a part of my focus group and give me feedback on a Music Magazine front cover I produced for AS Media Studies. The focus group will take place on Wednesday the 29th of February in Mrs Lovett’s classroom at break time.

Thank you for your co-operation,

Amy Thompson



At the focus group meeting, I hope to give each member a copy of my 'Whistling Dawg' front cover in which they can analyse and either praise, but most probably degrade. Well, whatever they say, the feedback will be helpful, so I am going to film the focus
group session- then there will be no forgetting what they have said.

Typography of Whistling Dawg

I came across the typography of my subheadings ( 'Buttons The Bear') on the internet. I think it is rather jolly and a simple font and I love the way it looks a bit like handwriting, (although not at all like mine) as you can easily tell the difference from an F to an A. I thought it fit very nicely on my magazine cover, adding to the childlike style.

However, when the text is required to be smaller, Buttons The Bear font didn't look so clear and not to easy to read, so I thought a much clearer text, such as Georgia would work well. The text seems a little bit boring and plain compared to the rest of the front cover however, but hopefully my focus group will give me some ideas on how to improve that bit.

Another quick thing to mention, is that what I thought would be really beautiful is to change the font when typing the names of the different artists, almost making there own logo. For both my main artist, Ginger, and for Whippet Skip, the two fonts are clearly unique, as you can see in the picture  of my magazine cover so far on the previous blog post. 

Whistling Dawg Magazine Cover

So this is the magazine front cover which I showed my focus group, feedback is on it's way, hurrah:

Double Page Spread Photographs

The headline that accompanies my artist (who I have decided to call 'Ginger'- Creative) is going to be something about her new Winter album is going to be realeased.  So some pictures of Ginger frolicking in the snow should fit perfectly. Here I have chosen 3 of what I believe to be the best pictures of the bunch I took of Ginger, as well as a beautiful picture of  icicles which I hope to squeeze in somewhere, perhaps as a background.