I had a one-to-one with my teacher on the text in my double-page spread article and she has given me some constructive criticism which I am going to take on board and improve. Listed below are the aspects of my magazine I can possibly improve on or change.
1. Spelling - On some words, I have misspelled, or missed a few letters out. Improving this will improve the overall mark of my magazine.
2. Layout - The teacher noticed I haven't put my columns in a conventional vertical way. Instead I have put them horizontal. That would all be well and find, however, I haven't included a clear bold banner which separates the two sides of text so the reader will automatically read vertically instead of horizontally. I understand this doesn't follow the conventions of a regional magazine, so I will change my columns so they can be read vertically so that it follows those conventions. If I follow this, it will be more easier to understand and have a similar resemblance to a typical regional magazine which is what I'm aiming for.
3. Wording - For some words I have used international terms instead of Regional terms e.g. 'Drugstore', instead of using this word, Helen has suggested I use 'Pharmacies' to make it sound more Northern.
4. Centre - The centre of my magazine isn't strong enough to withhold a higher mark. Helen suggested I make it bolder or move it to the top of the double page spread. I will take this constructive criticism on board and play around with my magazine to make the improved suggestions she recommended to give me a higher mark.
A few previous posts ago I said that I would be making changes to my magazine front cover to improve marks. As you can see, a whole lot of changes have been made which I will name below and state why I made those changes.
1. Masthead - With some constructive criticism from Helen and my classmates, I learned that my masthead wasn't strong enough, and didn't stand out very much. I added a banner to make it stand out more. I took inspiration from InStyle magazine as they have a banner highlighting their masthead and I thought this was a really effective way to show emphasis on the masthead. I then changed the masthead text colour to white so that it would stand out. I'm happy with the way it turned out as it makes my magazine look more professional and stronger.
2. Background - Helen pointed out that I should see what my front cover looked like with a white background, and it turned out much better than the grey background in the beginning. It just makes all of the cover lines on the page stand out, and again makes my front cover appear stronger and more professional.
3. Cover lines - I changed some cover lines to match with my contents page, and I also added more cover lines in and changed it around a little. I did this to add more variety and to take up empty space which make my magazine look unprofessional. I looked at other regional magazines and international magazines and saw that they used all the space they had on their front cover, and had a variety of cover lines so I thought it would make my magazine look professional doing this.
