Nadeem Taysun - AICE Media Studies

 Cover - Table of Contents - Two-page spread -

Since the two-page spread was made, it is time to receive peer feedback, then revise the spread based on the feedback. Below is how the spread was prior to any edits.   Revision #1 The first peer recommendation was to increase the size of the font. Before even attempting to implement this, it was obvious that this would not work. Firstly, the font would be too large not all fit on the page, which means that some of the text would have to be completely removed, thus making the quality of the article worse. Revision #2 The next recommendation was to add a byline. At first, this did not seem like a useful change, but when it was put into the spread, it appeared much more professional as well as following the conventions of tech magazines, as many tech magazine articles include bylines. This edit was made by simply decreasing the size of the title by two points, then inserting the byline on the bottom right of it in Roboto Condensed, just like the body text, but bold. Revision #3 Anoth...

 In this post, the mockup for the two-page spread will be made. The mockup will be based on the third layout from the previous post. For this process, Canva will be used as the medium of choice. For reference, an image of the original layout can be seen below: Production - Title - The title of the article is labeled "Steps For Overclocking a PC", as it is short, allowing for space for the images and it still gets the point across to the reader. The font for this is a serif font, Bree Serif. The reason why a serif font was chosen for this title but not any other part of the magazine is because it helps break from the conventions of tech magazines, as serif fonts are typically know for inducing an "old" feeling. As for the color of the title, it was red. This is because red was used for every other title and the masthead of the magazine, so it is best to keep the color scheme consistent. The size was put to 38pt, as it is large enough to distinguish it as the title, b...

 Now that the research on what the content of the articles in the tech genre of magazines is like, it is time to make the draft for the two-page spread's layout. There will be three drafts in total with all of them being drawn by hand. Sketch #1 - The idea for this sketch was to emulate the design of these two pages: The reason for this is because the article will be in steps and is a tutorial for getting something done, just like this article, so if a similar layout is used but with just different content, it would be perfect. The title of this article will be "Steps for Overclocking a PC", as it is short, simple, and tells the reader exactly what they should be expecting. There will be headings for each step with a number and text for each step, just like in the example article above. The color scheme of this spread will break from the blue, red, and white combination of the TOC and cover and will instead feature white, red, and black, with white being the background, b...

 Now that the TOC is completely finished, it is time to move on to the production of the two-page spread. To begin this process, it is important to understand what type of voice and target audience the written content has, however, this can be different for each genre, but in this post, there will only be research on the tech genre. For this research, multiple different articles from major tech magazines distributors will be analyzed. Article #1: The voice of this article is quite informal. This can be seen in the article that is titled "TechPowerUp GPU-Z" where there is a sentence towards the end that says "Who wouldn’t want this data for free and always just a few clicks away". The use of "wouldn't" is typically something that is avoided in formal writing as contractions are usually used for speaking. Additionally, there are some technical terms that are used in this article, including GPU, CPU, SSD, etc. These terms have to be used as they are basic...

 In this blog, the previous TOC mockups will be revised into the final TOC. The revisions that will be made to the TOC will be based off of recommendations that have come from peers. There were many ideas that were received, so there will be categories for them. Additionally, these changes will be made to the first page of the TOC first, then there will be more categories for the second page to keep everything organized. Page One: Before all of these changes start to be made, here is the original mockup that will altered: Masthead - Originally, the masthead name was put as the title of the pages, but there was some feedback that said instead of "Techlight" the title should simply be changed to "Contents". This was implemented into the TOC, and this turned out to be a very excellent change. This is because it is too repetitive to have the large masthead name in both the cover and the TOC, so it is better to take the more simplistic approach and use "Contents...