CRITIQUE

1) Does the front cover represent the aim (to give information about....) and style (genre of music, design) of the intended music magazine?

I do not think that the music magazine does give out a lot of information about the genre of the music in this music magazine. I think the model in the main image could be holding a prop or doing a pose relating to the genre of music. For instance the genre of music is UK Dance, so the model could be posing in front of some mixing decks for example.

2) Can you read the cover line clearly?

Yes, you can read the cover lines clearly and easily. When designing the music magazine the cover lines were very small and a struggle to read, I had to do a lot of editing to the size and to the font to make it larger and easier to read. With the finalisation of the music magazine, I think the cover lines are a lot easier to read when previously designing the magazine. I was not sure what colour to use on the cover lines, I wanted to choose colour that worked well together, ones that did not stand or did not match. I think the gold was not the best of colour to choose, but I did not want the colour of the font to all be in black. I only used gold to highlight

certain words of interest, for example, the word EXCLUSIVE and FREE.

3) Are the cover lines obscuring the photograph/artists face?

The cover lines are not obscuring the artists face, however there is some text over the artists body, which cannot be read that clearly because of the colour. I did not want to put cover lines over the artists face as I did not want to obscure it in the first place. There is some text around the artists face, but none obscuring it.

4) Does the choice of font work?

Yes, I think the choice of font does work when choosing the font I wanted to choose one that was sophisticated and modern, but also stood out and was large. The font for the masthead is the same as cover lines, I just added different colours and made it smaller. The font works well as it bold and large, and the fact the it was all in capitals made it stand out to me when choosing a font. The font could not be editing much in any way, which made it slightly difficult when writing cover lines etc.

5) Is the background too light/too dark?

I think the background is a little bit too light, more light than I hoped it would be. However when designing the background I did not want the background to be too dark and cover lines and the image not to stand out. I used a mixture of colour editing when making the background, mixing white with a very light shade of blue and grey. I wanted to get the colours to match.

6) Is the masthead prominent and easily read?

Yes the masthead is prominent and can easily be read. When designing the masthead I wanted the masthead to be large so that it could be read from a distance. I think I succeeded in the end with the design of this masthead. The colour of the masthead was left black so that it would stand out against the background, as the top half the background is lighter than the rest. If I had chosen a gold colour for example, the masthead might have been a lot harder to read than the black colour.

7) Is there a barcode (with number underneath), date, price, and if appropriate, an issue number?
Yes, there is a barcode, issue and date, however no price, which will have to amended. The position of the barcode is at the bottom of the page, with the issue and date at the top underneath the masthead so that they can easily be read.

8) Is it appropriate for the intended target audience?

Yes, there is nothing on the front cover of my magazine that would be inappropriate for the target audience, for example no bad images or words.

9) Does it look like a music magazine front cover?

I think is some ways it does look like a music magazine front cover, for example the main image and the masthead make it look like a music magazine, along with the coverlines. However some ways it does not, I think one of the reason is the layout of the magazine. Cover lines and the main image are too far apart, it looks slightly spaced out and separate compared to the rest of the magazine, I think it needs to be closer together. I think the Puff looks a bit out of place as well, there is not much detail, and again, a lot of space with in the puff. 10)

Have you realised your design intentions? (Does it look like what

you intended?)
Yes I have realised my design intentions and in some ways it looks like I intended. The layout of the magazine looks how I intended. The main image, masthead and cover lines are where I wanted them to be, however, I left too much space between them, everything should be closer and bunched together. The puff also, again, has lot of space and not enough detail.