Contents Page Progress

1) Certain magazines that come under my genre have a large picture of the cover story on the contents page and therefore I adopted this technique. I also thought it would be effective to present the picture of the cover story in black and white (Black and White are the two main colours associated with my genre (rock) so it seemed appropriate) I did this by going to 'Image' > 'Adjustments' > 'Black & White'

2) By doing this I was presented with a colour scale that allowed my to increase or decrease the percentage of particular colours in use.

3) I lowered the red to around 17% which, I feel, made the guitar darker and therefore stand out more. I also moved the yellow up slightly so the face would still look healthy and colourful and not unnaturally/unrealistically dark.

4) I also decided to clean up the subject's face by using the "Spot Healing Brush Tool" which is a clever and effective tool that allows you to dispose of any imperfections on people's faces (spots, pimples, etc.)

5) I decided the colour of the page heading ("CONTENTS") made the whole page appear quite dull. This was largely because I changed the photo of the cover story to black and white. I decided to change the page heading to red as I feel it's eye-catching and also a colour relevant to my genre. On the entirety of the contents page I'm going to have a theme of four colours (red/yellow/black/white)

6) To replicate the grungey looking font on my front cover I simply selected the eraser and put it on a setting that I believe was quite patchy. Slowly and carefully I began to remove small parts of the words "CONTENTS" until it matched my front cover headline.

7) Below the finished heading can be seen.

8) I also decided to add two smaller pictures (of the cover story star) to the upper half of my contents page. I did this because I felt just one picture was too plain and not busy enough. To decrease to the plainness I left them in colour and feel they tie the upper half together very nicely. I cropped and re-sized both photos to make sure they were the same which adds to continuity. I also added a white border to each photo which almost creates a 'snapshot' idea which, again, I like.

After writing my letter from the editor I needed to write a signature. I decided to choose a font that looked scribbly and had a convincing hand-written style. I settled for a font called "Pristina" an decided to call my editor "David"

Letter from the Editor 


Here are three 'Letters from the Editor' from past contents pages of Kerrang. They are all from different time periods and therefore each has a different editor which gives me a range of examples. I like second one (Editor James) because he lists what he thinks is good about the issue in question. I may adopt a similar technique. The last image is my attempt at a letter from the editor.

How to achieve an A*/A/B

1) Be critical - rework the designs, retake photos, use photo manipulation.

2) Show your development of your work. Accompany screenshots and images with comments.

3) Frequent Posts! Sometimes short and snappy is netter than an extended essay.

4) Use a broad range of media - Prezi, Goanimate, Slideshare, YouTube, Mobile video interviews and production shots.

Contents Page Analysis (Kerrang!)

Contents Page

1) Your front cover and contents page must match! (same style, same artists)

2) Fortnightly Magazines should be 90 - 130 pages

3) The first few pages are advertisement pages. Start contents page on page 15.

4) Panel subscription, letter from the editor.

5) Lots of pictures. (Different pictures)