Peer Review of my Contents Page 1

A critical foundation of developing a product is to receive constant feedback at regular intervals to ensure you are meeting the guidelines and targets set before you regarding the construction of your task. Ultimately I required a form of peer response to guide me in the creation of each brief I had been instructed to complete (a front cover, contents and double page spread respectively), this method would give me valuable insight from authentic members of the public over their perceptions of what I had produced and what changes I could amend to improve what I essentially had already completed. This was best to conduct during the early construction stages as it would give me vital access to alter any areas of concern with an immediate fashion, as opposed to dealing with them later which could waste valuable time and resources. With my contents page the task I was doing so strongly on, this felt like the ideal opportunity to seek critical appeal to identify what conventions, colour schemes needed to be improved further.

Since there was only two of us currently in the room at the time of my peer review due to my lecturer being absent, I questioned one of my classmates over his perception of what I had created so far for my contents page. His immediate response began with how much he could engage with the images presented on the document, he liked the eye contact he received from the female model and commented how it attracted him to look at my product as she was mimicking an authority like stance, commanding him to gaze upon her, so fundamentally the photograph engaged well with attracting its intended audiences attention. The use of the black and white photo was enough positive point he could pull me on as he described it accurately reflect that that particular article would be a reminiscence or flashback into the past to document past music work, he could clearly distinguish this from the presets as black and white is commonly used as a vintage style sepia method to journey back to events that have already passed. Regarding the text, he felt all of it was large and dominant enough to attract curiosity, he liked the use of the giant '106' for the females feature as it illustrated immediately to him that page is where he would definitely locate the article, therefore would avoid confusuion. He joked about the byline underneath the enlarged 'Subcribe' section situated at the bottom right hand corner, commenting the use of the pun was a clever way of incorporating comedy to create a friendly vibe across to the readers, making them feel relaxed and entranced by the humour, almost as if the magazine was talking to a frien. Considering the negatives he queried why there was a vast blank space accompanying the 'Subcribe' area to which I replied there would be another image included there. He reinforced the notion that I definitely needed something, either an additional photograph or text, because without it, the contents page looked too bare and that undermined the already powerful effect he personified from it. Furthermore he regarded there was a vacant space between the two main feature articles on the left hand column, I had decided I only wanted to include two, however he suggested maybe adding a third as the uncovered area was fairly off putting to him. To him it was almost like I had stretched out the text to try and hide it as best I can, which had unfortunately failed. With this in mind I debated whether it would benefit me more to insert in another smaller article, just to ensure that there was an array of selling points for my audiences to engage with, rather then my page looking lifeless.

When my lecturer returned I asked her solely for the negative conventions regarding this piece as I would prefer to focus upon correcting them to get the standard of my contents up significantly. She highlighted a few concerns my class mate had identified including the spaces between articles, yet her main focus point revolved around the central image of my female artist. To her the photograph could be enlarged more, she knows I'm going for a dramatic effect at the top of the page with the contents title to make it separate from the rest of the piece, yet she felt there was far too much unoccupied space and with that in mind I should consider enlarging the photo even more in an attempt to cover it as much as what I could achieve, otherwise she was concerned my product would come across to the readers as 'boring' if they identified too much empty areas and not enough text for them to engage with. Every response I receive makes me more motivated to amend the weaknesses of my publication as essentially I want it to dominate over all others, the feedback from my lecturer was extremely helpful as I now know what I conceded as a bold, strong central image can be improved further allowing it to be enhanced more so then how it personified itself previously.

With the reviews ending, I am keen to implement all the negatives targeted during this task to be turned against themselves and made ultimately into strengths. To me this feedback was valuable as I now have an understanding of what to improve now that I have entered the final construction stages of making my contents page.