Peer Feedback & Revisions

 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" for the title.

Images -

The first thing that was said about the images of the TOC was that the images on the left page need to be spaced out more. Because of this advice, the total layout of the left page was reconsidered. The image of the keyboard got completely removed, and instead the computer image was made large enough to take up that whole area. Here is an image of how it looks after the change:

The articles had to be reordered in order to fit on the page with the new image and will be changed later, but for now, the main focus is the image. Having this image alone makes the design look much cleaner as there is a lot less going on with the images.

Another recommendation related to the images is that the colors inside the computer should be turned off in order to have the focus on the actual parts inside of it. After trying this out, it did not work out. The reason for this is because the red is there to create contrast with the blue background, and it does not work to focus on the parts as they are very hard to identify and will not help readers understand what they are reading at all.

Articles -

After changing the size of the image and removing one, the articles now need to be fixed.

To begin with, since the keyboard image was removed, the articles related to it need to be changed. The titles about keyboards were changed to "How to overclock a PC" and "How to pick a Graphics Card".

There was another recommendation to make the page numbers a different color, remove the "PG.", and to change the format of the page numbers so that instead of being above each article, it will be directly to the left of it. To begin with, the page numbers were changed from white to dark gray. Then, the "PG" was removed for each page number and they were moved besides to articles instead of on top of them.

Once that was done, there was a recommendation to add categories for the articles such as "Cover Story" and "Features". These category titles were put into white and put in the same size as the article titles.

After that was added, it was time to consider changing the font since that is another idea that was given by a peer. After browsing many popular sans serif fonts, Roboto Condensed and Open Sans caught my eye. The page numbers and category titles were changed to Open Sans while the article titles and body text were made Roboto Condensed, with the article titles being bolded.

Another change that was recommended by a peer was to change the layout of the page numbers and articles as it looked too inconsistent. The way that this was achieved is by making the page numbers smaller and moving the article titles to the right, then moving the page numbers to the left of the article title.

Lastly, the filler text for each article must be replaced by the final text. For each article, general information about the topic will be put into the text boxes. All of these article descriptors were written so that they are able to get general information about what the topic is about while avoiding having too formal of a voice. For example, in the article about overclocking, it simply states what is overclocking, then finishes with "but how can this be accomplished?". This clearly sets the reader up to know that the article will teach them how to overclock a PC all while not seeming too formal as this is a goal that is pursued in many another tech magazines.

Color Scheme -

The only advice given that has to do with the color scheme is to change the red in the TOC for green. This is not a change that will be implemented as this completely strays from the idea that the color scheme must be consistent throughout the magazine, and the cover follows the blue, red, and white color scheme. Additionally, as researched previously in the color theory post, green is not a popular color for the tech genre of magazines as it does not evoke the modernistic emotion that tech magazine designers look for in colors such as blue and red.

After all of these different recommendations from peers have been taken into account when designing the final TOC, the first page of it is done:    

Page Two -

Before any changes are made to this page of the TOC, here is the original mockup:

For this page of the TOC, the revisions will not be documented in the same format as the previous page as this page will have a lot less changes to make.

Firstly, it has been recommended that another article and image be added in order to reduce the amount of unoccupied space. This was accomplished by reducing the size of the images and moving everything up. Then I added another article titled "Logitech G Pro Wireless" with a picture with a mouse besides it. This change was very needed as before, there was too much white space, which causes a very unprofessional appearance since there is not much going on.

After this was done, it was time to make the articles and page numbers go into the same format, color, font, and size as the articles on the first page. To make this process easy, all that had to be done is to copy and paste the articles on page one, put them in the correct place, then change the title and page numbers.

Once that was done, all that needs to be done is to fill the article descriptors following the same guidelines as the ones on the previous page. Once that was done, the TOC is completely finished, with a picture of the second page below:

Conclusion -

The process of having peer feedback helped greatly when revising the mockups of the TOC, however, that is not to say that some of the feedback did not help at all, but instead worsened the overall design of the TOC. This is obviously because not everybody is following the same conventions in their magazines, so when looking at what to change on a design they may treat it as if it is a completely different genre. Moving forward, the next goal is to move on from the TOC and start the production of the two-page spread.