Another task to help me in my research and planning was the practise designs of a front cover, contents page and double page spread. The images in this post are my work which I created on Microsoft word. I openly admit that it is not my strongest work, and from my feedback and knowledge I know what I'd do to make it better. The masthead of my magazine was R&R (referring to my chosen genre, rock and roll,) I decided to have to masthead in white to match the sell line and strap line. I could have added more sell-lines, but my main purpose for just having one was to exaggerate the main article in the magazine. The image I used was also stretched which lowered the quality, but I now know what to do in order to prevent this when create my own product. The strap-line was 'your weekly fix to your music addiction.' I thought this was a good line to inform that it is a weekly magazine for music lovers who love to know the recent news in music. If I was to create this front cover again, I would certainly add more sell-lines to give the reader a sneak peak as to what else would be in the magazine. The front cover doesn't stand out as much as it could, so I would certainly add effects such as 'outer glow' to the title to make it more visable and eye catching. Another feature I would change would be the size of the barcode, I would make it smaller and maybe change the position.
My contents page design - My contents page was quite plain in terms of text, which I would definitely change. I liked the way it was laid out and thought it was quit sophisticated and an easy navigation for people reading it. However, I didn't caption my images. From looking at other contents pages I like the way some of them add in the page number of the article in the images, so us as readers know that it is going to be about that certain band/artist. I used Q magazines idea of putting the 'contents' text in a different font to differenciate the magazine name and that title. It also hints that the magazine is different and individual. The lines were also quite plain and simple, I would add puns and quirky language to make the articles sound more appetising to the eyes of the person picking up the magazine and reading it. Personally I think that language on the contents page is key, because it gives the whole magazine an expectation. 
Double Page Spread- There are two seperate parts of my DPS because I could not print them in a booklet. I set the article out in columns just like it would look in a proper magazine. I could have written more so that my text didn't look too spaced out and also looked as though it was balanced with my images. The text size is also quite large which does not look very professional. The reason the images are in black and white is to reflect the era I am writing about, I like the way the red title stands out against the introducing image. I could have added a drop cap for guidance, and also should have added captions to my images to make the article more informative.
If I was to do all of this again, I would improve lots of different things. First of all I would write a lot more so the article didnt look spaced out or empty in some places. Secondly, I would add drop caps and captions to all of my images, as well as making sure the image quality was up to standards and the text size, colour and font looked interesting but still readable.
Pull quotes are essential in double page spreads and you very rarely come across an article that doesn't include them. Therefore I would make sure that I would pull out important and interesting quotes from the writing and emphasise them by making them noticable within the text.
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