Table of contents revisions

 Feedback

After designing my first draft of my table of contents (seen to the right) I showed it to my peers and got feedback.

There were some mirror tweaks (Kirby is misspelled as "Kerby" and I need to retake the pictures because the background-remove looks bad), but also some major changes that I was recommended that I wanted to test before committing to them.

Recommended changes

From the feedback I got, four major changes have been distilled:

• Align dashes in article titles
• Align article titles to header (ie. left align the headers)
• Recolor headers (Green -> purple)
• resize pictures
• change background color to blue

I will implement each change separately, and then choose whether or not it is better than the original.

Aligning articles

A lot of my articles were not aligned with each other. In most magazines, the starts of all the article names are lined up, and the end of each page number is aligned on the other side. Before, I just moved the text boxes left or right in Canva to try and line up the articles. However, Canva does not allow me to move the text to the precision I needed in order to align the articles up. So, I separated the article names from the page numbers, so I could line up each article name's text box exactly (since Canva snaps the edges of textboxes together) and have the page numbers as separate text boxes that were right-aligned. This gave the desired effect, so I implemented it for all the articles.

This is what the table of contents looks like now:

Align headers

As one may notice, the headings for articles are offset from the list of articles, one piece of feedback I got was to move them more to the left. Here is what that looks like:

I think that this does look better, as it strengthens the line that all of the article titles are aligned with which is present in most other magazines' TOCs.

Recolor headers

I got feedback to get rid of the green colors and make them bluer, so I made these changes:

"Contents" header:     #41910D -> #415484

article headers:           #224B07 -> #070F64

This is what that looks like compared to the green text:

I personally think that the green text looks better, as it matches the color scheme of my magazine's cover, but either one would look good in a magazine.

Final TOC design

After all of the revisions and retaken images, here is my final draft of the table of contents. I think it turned out well and will look good in my magazine.

Table of contents elements

 Ideas for articles

Here is a list of potential articles that I might include in my magazine:

• Headphones Hurting Our Ears?
• Cost of Tech for Households
• 21st Century an Era of Innovation
• Convergent technologies
• Tech in the Workplace
• Manufacturing Tech
• 10 Tech Buying Tips
• 5G internet Worth it?
• Internet Pricing
• The Creation of the WWW
• The Business of Big Wireless
• Getting a Good Setup
• New Kerby Game a Hit!
• PC v.s Console
• The History of Gaming and Tech

Ideas for images

Here are some images that I might put on my TOC:

^ These images were previous cover images

(note: the headphones would be isolated)

Ideas for formatting

I'm using the title of the magazine and the "Contents" header. I also split the stories into three sections similar to some of the other tech magazines and gave each section a picture. The page numbers are also colored red so they stand out more and because it looks good, similar to the other magazines. The same color palette from the front cover is used.

Final TOC design

Table of contents

 What is a table of contents?

In a magazine, there are a lot of articles to read, and flipping through the dozens of pages in the magazine to find a specific one can be a pain. Luckily, most magazines have two or three pages at the beginning that tell you where all the articles are. These pages are collectively called the table of contents (also 'contents' or 'TOC' for short)

This is an example of a table of contents from Wired magazine:

The page is headed with the name of the magazine, and the word "contents" so that readers can identify this section as the table of contents. There is also an image on the second page to set the theme. Each article is then listed with its page number and author next to it. This is a zoom-in on one of the articles:

As you can see, this makes it quite clear that the story "The Other Side of Indifference" is on page 20 and was written by Clive Thompson. So, if someone were looking for that article, the article sounded interesting to them, or they liked that author, they know exactly where to find it: page 20.

Here are some other examples of TOCs in tech magazines:

    

    (note: PC magazine also has descriptions of the                 articles)

All the tech magazine TOCs share some key elements such as the stylized name of the magazine at the top and some images to front the articles. Additionally, the article/page number/author sections are still there. And finally, some information about the magazine like publication date and volume number is tucked away near the edge.

However, despite these TOCs sharing many features, they are still very different in a lot of ways. Since there isn't any page content like an article taking up most of the page on a TOC it has the most opportunity to be stylized and is often one of the most defining parts of a magazine past the cover.

Fonts and colors

Most of the table of contents' text is black and written in a sans-serif font which is what you would expect from a tech magazine. There are some exceptions to this though. Wired uses a dark blue for the page numbers and author names to keep them separate from the names of the articles.

The Video Issue and PC Magazine both have some of their articles written in red text instead of black. However, they each do this for different reasons. The video issue just colors some of the text red for stylistic reasons and to separate the page numbers/author names from the article titles similar to Wired. PC Magazine, on the other hand, uses red text for the article names and page numbers to make them into headings for the description of the articles below them.

Sources

Behance. “WIRED Magazine TOC Redesign.” Behance, Wired, 11 Aug. 2019, www.behance.net/gallery/84053437/WIRED-Magazine-TOC-Redesign.

David. “Table of Contents: Research.” David Ogunyemi, 14 Apr. 2012, dav31d.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/table-of-contents-research.

“Table of Contents Magazine, Yearbook Layouts, Magazine Design.” Pinterest, The Video Issue, www.pinterest.com/pin/130674826660169803. Accessed 4 Apr. 2022.

Trying out different images for magazine cover

Covers

First designed cover with one image:

My original image was subject to the most change and was generally the template for the other ideas, meaning it had the most work put into it.

The main image consists of an actor looking irritated and holding their hands up while red "sound-wave-looking" shapes come out from the headphones. VU bars can be seen at the bottom, denoting the music's loud volume.

Second designed cover with another image:

This actor is farther back and is side-on facing left. The text on this cover is more eyecatching and easy to read but is also somewhat isolated from the main image. The "sound-wave-looking" shapes still emanate from the headphones but are now smaller yet more numerous. The VU bars are much bigger now to fill the empty space left under the coverlines.

Third designed cover with a third image:

This cover revolves around a completely different main coverline about 5G internet. The main image is of a wifi router, however, the object it was sitting on had to be removed since it didn't fit into the image. This does, however, make a floating router, which doesn't work very well. The main coverline had to be made vertical, which also doesn't look very good, and the VU bars don't make that much sense when relating to wifi. The "sound-wave-looking" shapes now emanate from the router, looking like wifi signals.

Final cover design

I ultimately decided on the first cover image design. This one works well because the cover image takes up most of the space on the cover, while still allowing room for text. This one was the first cover, so most of the assets were reused from this image, but they still fit this image the best. The other images just have too much empty space, and that makes them look like their missing something.

After adjusting a few things based on some feedback from my peers, I ended up adding a short selling line: "a look into modern technologies" as well as adding another coverline and moving a few elements around subtlely.

All in all, I think that the cover of the magazine turned out well. if there is anything that I would have different, I would have made a more professional background, but I couldn't find any easy solutions that looked good other than a solid color background, and it doesn't look that bad.

Editing cover of tech magazine

Canva

The editing software I decided to use for the magazine cover is canva.com. Canva is a powerful tool with many helpful features, and best of all, it's completely online! This is a necessity since I only have access to a Chromebook at school. I also have access to the education edition with many additional features, making Canva the obvious choice for this project.

Elements

The elements that I've chosen to use out of the selection made previously, is this image, and these coverlines that fit with it:

Are headphones damaging our ears?

5G internet - the price you pay to stay connected

Convergent technologies - playing Fortnite on your fridge?!

As for the masthead, the only mastheads from my selection list in the last post that would fit were Tech World and Tech Test. Out of the two, I disliked Tech Test since it makes the magazine sound like it's "testing" technology (like Mythbusters maybe), which it is not really. I therefore went with Tech World as the masthead.

First draft of the cover

The first draft of the cover underwent some changes (described under the color section) but remained mostly the same.

The masthead: "Tech World" uses the font SK Cuber, which I thought looked very techno with its bitmap style. It also has an effect applied called echo, which adds multiple faint copies of the text behind the original text. This makes the text look even more techno and makes it pop out more.

For the coverlines, I used a modern-looking sans-serif font called tomorrow. This font's sleekness and modernness fit the look of a tech magazine really well.

Other elements were added too. The background of the image was removed and replaced with a solid color and auto-enhance was applied (cause I can't be bothered to mess with sliders if Canva can do it for me). To imply that the headphones were hurting the actor's ears, red sound-wave-looking shapes were added next to the headphones to imply that loud sound is coming out of them. The volume bars at the bottom also are there to imply that the sound is loud (there are actually 2 images next to each other to make the UV bars since the single image could not be scaled).

Original Colors                         New colors

Color

Of all the elements on the cover, the colors underwent the most change. Above can be seen the cover with original colors and the cover with edited colors. The red color (#EC412D) is actually taken from the original image (the red flowers on the actor's shirt) and was the only color to stay consistent across the two drafts. In the first draw, the other colors were chosen custom and just eyeballed.

The yellow background was picked to express energy, excitement, and maybe even the painfulness of the loud music. The masthead was made purple so it would stand out from the yellow background (purple is complementary to yellow) the brightness of the purple color was played around with too to make sure the text stood out from the hair of the actor. The UV bar at the bottom of the cover was colored green since UV bars are usually green, and the secondary color was just a lighter tint of the same green.

However, something didn't seem right about those colors, and my peers also thought something was off, especially with the yellow background. So, I put my colors into Canva's color wheel (canva.com/colors/color-wheel). I started with the red color, since I thought that was the most solid of the colors I had so far and it was the only non-eyeballed color. And, since the cover had 4 main colors, I went with a tetradic relationship. Then the color wheel showed me the 4 colors that I should use:

• #EC412D - my original red color
• #79EC2D - a cool techno green
• #2DD8EC - a sky blue
• #A12DEC - a rich purple

The green and purple subsequently got replaced, and the weird yellow background was replaced with the sky blue color. This makes sense as most pictures have the sky as a background, so a light blue background looks much more natural. I also used a darker shade of green for the base of the UV bars and a darker shade of purple for the masthead echo.

Overall, I think the new colors look a lot brighter and better than the old ones, as well as selling the whole technological look and standing out more.

Sources

Canva. (n.d.). Color wheel - color theory and calculator | Canva colors. Color Wheel. Retrieved April 4, 2022, from https://www.canva.com/colors/color-wheel/ 

Cover image ideas for my tech magazine

 Ideas for Masthead

The masthead is the name of a magazine, it fully encompasses one's brand and what kind of magazine it is. For my magazine's masthead, here are some ideas I was thinking of for the final masthead:

• encompassing technology
• tech world
• tech information
• connected
• conTECHted
• a bit of tech
• a byte of tech
• examine tech (tech examiner)
• investigate tech (tech investigator)
• innovate tech (tech innovator)
• tech test

The selling line will probably come after I chose the masthead.

(example of masthead with selling line:

Encompassing technology

A complete look into modern technology)

Ideas for Cover Lines

The cover lines on a magazine cover give little teasers into the articles that are in the magazine. They give a stand-out reason to buy that specific magazine as opposed to just buying it because it's another installment of TECH magazine. Here are some ideas I had for coverings:

• Headphones: a useful piece of equipment, or an ear-killer!
• 10 things your phone provider is hiding from you!
• Is 5G internet worth it, or is it a SCAM?
• The price you pay to stay connected
• Tech giving us information or MISINFORMATION!
• 21st century - an era of technological innovation
• Convergent technologies - playing Fortnite on your smart fridge?!
• Are your devices listening to you?

Cover Images

The cover image of a magazine is the main eye-grabbing image on the front cover. This is the first thing that people will see, and it is one of the deciding factors for whether people will have a look at your magazine, or just walk past it. Here are some of my ideas for a cover image (without text/edits):

Desktop computer

Wifi router

People wearing headphones

I will probably go with the top left headphones image as the expression in that image is very eye-catching and exciting, while the other images have more dull and boring expressions. The static objects aren't very good either because they wouldn't give any expression to the cover at all.