Contents construction

The first thing that I need when I began my contents page construction was open an A4 paper size Photoshop document. I then added the two images I was going to use, one that went across the width of the bottom of the page. The second image went up the left hand side of the page. Whilst in Photoshop, I added a brightness filter in order to make the bottom image brighter to draw attention to it.  Now I had positioned the image I was ready to put the stories and masthead on the page.

The next step was to add the mast head. I added the masthead into the top left hand corner. The masthead didn’t need to be as prominent as on the cover page as the consumer will know what the product is, however adding it to the contents page helps to add continuity and is a popular convention. The next thing I added was the word ‘contents’ and the issue number. I added these in the top left hand corner as they are designed to be the first thing that is looked at when looking at the page. These are both conventions that you would expect to see on a contents page. 

The next thing I did was used the box tool to create 4 rectangle boxes, that would back the heading for the different sections of magazine. I then added titles to these, all of the words added have a semantic field of football, “Extra time”, “second half”, “first half” and “features”. I added these suing the text tool. I used a simple font that would connote the target audience. I maintained the yellow and black colour scheme from the cover to give continuity throughout my products. I then added the page numbers in the same gold colour as the mast head, and contents page. Numbers are a key convention as they tell the reader how to navigate the magazine and where what story is. I then added the stories using the text tool; I continued the same theme from the cover of having the title of the stories slightly bigger than the description so that they would stand out. 

The final thing that I added was page numbers and teaser quotes for the stories than accompany the images. The top right image is from the main cover story and it gives another teaser of the interview and there is a quote from the interview on the image, alongside the page number. These teasers are another common convention of contents page as they trying and get readers to read the story.

I was happy with my final product, but if I was to do it again, I would spend more time collecting more quality images and make the contents page busier, so that I could attract my target audience better



Upon reflection of my final product, I decided that it wasn’t as professional and as good as I could make it. As a result of this, I made some changes in order to increase professionalism and make my product look better.   

The first thing that I did was using the move tool was move the masthead to above the word ‘contents’ I reduced the size, which breaks conventions, but I felt it was better for my product and the look. Another reason that I moved the masthead was to allow more space on the main image for page numbers and teasers to take up more room and look more attractive. The second thing I did was to underlay and image of a football in the top left hand corner. This gave a better look to my magazine because it broke up the text and enhanced the genre representation. For my banners behind my feature titles, I created a new layer. I used the rectangle marquee tool to make the rectangle shape, selected the colours yellow, from my masthead, and white and using the gradient fill tool filled them from left to right, to give them a faded texture look. I then copied the layer 4 times and moved the boxes to the place I wanted them and positioning them behind the text.  Another thing I did was to add a subscription box using the rectangle marquee tool with reduced opacity and then added text, using the text tool and a screenshot of my print cover. This was added because it is a common convention and was something that I thought was a necessity after I had revaluated my product. This would enhance the professionalism of my product.  The final thing I did was to add black rectangles and then reduced that opacity so that it would enhance the names in my stories to make the memorable and recognisable.