TOC Mockups, Process, and Final Choice

 In this blog, two mockups for the TOC will be constructed with documentation on every step of the process. When this process is over, one of them will be chosen to be implemented in the final TOC. Both of these TOCs will be used with Canva as the editor of choice.

Mockup #1 -

This mockup will be based of layout #3 from the previous post that contains research for TOCs. The idea for this layout is that there will be very many images and that it will be simple enough that the reader will be guided by the page from top to bottom on both pages. The design looks like this:

The first thing that has to be done in Canva is to add a second page, as this design features two pages instead of one. This is done by clicking the "add page" button on the bottom of the screen when editing. Now that this is done, I will do the work of each page at a time, beginning with the left page.

For the masthead, I put the title "TECHLIGHT" in the top left in red just like how it was on the masthead, but instead of adding the shadow effect, I added the splice effect which makes the letters look very different by making them look like the insides of them "pop" out with a lighter shaded color. The font was set to Mont Bold since this is what was used on the cover and the size was set to 68 in order to make it large but not too large as it will not be the main focus of the TOC. Once that was done I added a small red bar on the right of the masthead that will go all the way to the end of the other page in order for added details for a more appealing affect.

The next task is to add the actual images and text. The images that were added for the left pages are of a PC and a keyboard that is not fully built. This is because the main story will be about powerful computers that are at an affordable price. Underneath each image there is an article and descriptor for each one. The article titles are all in red Mont Bold and the descriptors are in white Mont. The size for these are the same at 18. The article title for the PC image is "How to Build a POWERFUL PC" and the article title for the keyboard image is "Keyboard Building made Affordable". These titles were made because they are supposed to be interesting for the reader, but are still subject to change. The descriptors of the articles are simply filler text for now as this is just a preliminary mockup.

There is one last article that has been added to the bottom of the first page that is not tied to an image. The title of this article is "Steelseries Apex Pro Keyboard" as it will be about a keyboard that is different in many ways from the one in the article above it. 

Lastly for this left page there were page numbers added for each article. Each page number was put in the Mont font and was sized at 24. All of these page numbers are put in order so that each article that appears in the TOC will be later than the one before it. The page numbers were made larger than the actual article text for added style and so that readers will surely see the page number.

After this, the left page has been finished.

Now it is time to begin the right page. This page has a different layout with the articles put in three rows with each image directly above the other. Originally, there were supposed do be four rows, however the large amount of words made the page look cluttered and overwhelming.

All that was done for this page was there were images of an audio adapter, an iPhone, and a laptop going down in that exact order. For each image there was a page number added to the top right of it in the same font and color as the ones used in page 1. After that, there were articles with simple titles and filler text for descriptors added.

Lastly, I added the same light blue gradient image that was used on the cover for both pages of the TOC.

Once that was done, the first mockup for the TOC has been finished.

Mockup #2 -

This mockup will be based of layout #1 from the previous post that contains research for TOCs. For this design, the idea was that it will be a very generic and conventional TOC that has less images than the previous layout. An image of the sketch can be seen below:

Like the previous mockup, the first thing that needed to be done is to add a second page to the mockup by pressing the "add page" button.

Beginning with the left page, I added the masthead in the top left. The masthead had the same exact font and splice effect, however the font was bumped up to 114. This is because the objective with this masthead was for it to be larger and to bleed slightly on to the next page. This allowed for a break from conventions as tech magazines do not often feature a masthead that is very large or even bleeds on to the next page. Instead, most tech magazines keep their masthead small and confined.

For the actual images and text, I begun with adding one large image of a monitor on the left page. The reason why this image is able to be by itself and very large is because it is not a very vibrant picture. Pictures like the computer picture in mockup #1 would not be able to be large because of its very bright red color. It would take too much attention on the TOC to the point where the other images seem extremely insignificant.

The format of the text was kept completely the same as mockup #1 with the same colors, sizes, and fonts, except the format of the page numbers is different and the article titles will be in all caps. For this mockup, the page number will be included on the top right of the article titles instead of the images as there are going to be less images than words. There is an article underneath the image of the monitor that is titled "ALIENWARE 24" MONITOR" with its page number being 34. This is because this is one of the coverlines that was made on the cover so I decided to keep its title and page number, but change the body text which is just filler text for now. For the second article on the first page I simply copied the first article completely and changed the title to "HOW TO OVERCLOCK YOUR PC" since this is a topic that is relevant for computers, but is not talked about often, so readers may be interested in this article. Additionally, the page number was made 32 to signify that there are only two pages between this article and the next one on page 34, so readers can know that there will not be too many pages and that it will be simple.

Once that was done, the first page is finished:

Moving on to the second page, the first thing that was done is to add two images next to each other on the top of the page. The image on the left is the red computer from mockup #1 and the image on the right is the iPhone 13.

Underneath each image, three articles were added in a column shape as can be seen in the sketch that was show prior. The first article for the computer image is the exact same computer article that was shown in mockup #1, except the title was put in all caps. Then, underneath that there is an article that says "Steelseries Apex Pro Keyboard". This is the same article that was put into mockup #1. On the right column of articles, the top one will say "What's New in the iPhone 13", as it will be related to the iPhone image directly above it. Underneath this article, there will be one that says "Keyboard Building made Affordable". All of these articles on the right page are the exact same as the ones on the left page, just reused. Once that was done, the page numbers were made the same as the ones in mockup #1 as they are the same exact articles.

Since a lot of changes were made, here is an image to give an update on how the appearance is so far:

Now there is just one addition to be made, and that is just to add one more article to the bottom. This article was made wide enough so that it takes up all of the white space. The title of this article is "Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Audio Adapter" and the page number was set to 27, which was already used in the previous mockup. The reason this article was added is because audio is an important aspect of technology, yet many tech magazines do not include audio in their articles very often. Lastly, all of the article titles on the second page were not all capitalized, so that had to be edited in order to match with the first page of the TOC.

Now the second mockup is complete: 

Conclusion - 

Both TOC mockups turned out very well, however there are still many flaws. To begin with on the first mockup, the red bar on the top does not fit in with the rest of the TOC. This is likely because the shade of red is too bright and it extends too far to the right. Additionally, the second mockup is too wordy. There are a total of seven articles on it with only three images. A possible solution for this is to make the bottom article on the second page an image instead. This can prevent readers from feeling overwhelmed when seeing all of the words on the TOC.