Evaluation of research and of finished two page layout
In this evaluation I will evaluate both the research that I did into self portrait photography, magazines using the same style as our final design and the final finished two page layout. I will start by evaluating the research that I completed. Whilst trying to think of different design ideas that I could use for the final design I came across a magazine style that worked with the design that I had been hoping for, the name of the magazine is "Metal Hammer" and this magazine style interested me because of the style of text used and the layout of both the images and the text on the page which I noticed suited the style I wanted to use in the two page layout. The style of the text interested me because it is simple but yet when put with the images on the page it stands out and it's also easy to read which means the reader won't have trouble working out what the text says. I also like the layout of the images as they aren't all put together in a pile, they are spread out and they also leave enough room for the text, which is the design layout I had chosen to use. The research into self portrait photography also helped me to plan my final design as the style of pictures were the same style that I wanted to use because the lighting was the right level of brightness and the subject stood out from the picture and although there wasn't any text in the picture I did experiment to see how effective adding text would be and the text worked which meant that my idea would be possible.
I' am pleased with how the final layout looks as it refers to my research and it uses the aspects that I wanted to use from the research. I feel that the images that I used in the final design do suite the style of the layout as they all have the same look also the background's are all similar and so they all link to each other on the page. I decided to use these images because they show the band members all in a different light this makes each picture look different even though they are all base around the same subject. Although at first finding the right images was hard it came down to the pictures that not only had the right style but also the ones that would suite the layout, which is exactly what the final images do. I’ am also happy with the text layout we decided to use as it suites the style I wanted to achieve and the text also works well with the images that are on the page, this was the main factor that I wanted to achieve because I have found that in some cases the text doesn't always suite the images and that is not what I wanted for the final layout.
If I were to do this project again I would perhaps try a different style of magazine layout as I think that there are some other magazine designs that would also work with the images I used in the final layout because they use the same style of text and imagery. I would also plan the photo shoot that I used to get the images better as we only did the shoot in a photography studio and I feel that if we had tried some location shots then I perhaps could have got a range of images rather than basic studio shots.
Overall I' am pleased with the final layout because it is in the style of the magazine I chose to base it around, and the images and text I chose to use work really well together to build up the layout, also the images and the text are both clear and they relate to each other which was the style I wanted to originally create for the layout.
