This morning we presented the work we had undertaken last Friday afternoon, where we had to research our given headline, my groups being the ban on term-time holidays, and produce a layout for a publication that fitted with the theme of our topic.
To recap, this was our final page layout design:
We got some interesting feedback from our peers and one of our tutors. Someone said that it was aligned to the right, however people naturally read left to right, so it would make more sense if it was aligned to the left, making it easier for people to read. They also pointed out that everything was aligned to the right, except for the body text, which is a mistake my group must of missed when putting this layout together. It would of looked a lot more effective if the body text was also aligned to the right.
One of my peers also questioned why the image annotation was to the left of the image, and said that it looked kind of out of place and like it shouldn't be there, yet had no suggestion as to where it would look better placed. I think it would work a lot better if the image annotation was directly below the image, spanning the width of the image, then the white space would be left undisturbed.
Another of my peers asked why there was so much white blank space. They said they felt like something was missing, it just didn't look right, it didn't flow well. We however intended for there to be so much white blank space, to achieve the modernist and minimalist appearance we were aiming for, however maybe this was a bad decision, or perhaps we could of ensured the blank space was in an appealing place on the page, so it didn't look like something was missing form the page.
Someone said that they thought that the image overpowers the headline, that the headline should of been in a bolder font, so that it stands out more, instead of the image being the first thing you see. I think this is a positive suggestion, as although the image is supposed to be bold and stand out on the page, the headline also has to spike the readers attention. They also suggested that if we were aiming for a newspaper article layout, we perhaps should of used a serif font for the headline as well as for the body text, as you find most compact newspapers, such as The Independent, use serif fonts for their headlines, as these are more gripping and easy to read due to the serif's. This perhaps would have increased the similarities of it looking like a newspaper article, however wouldn't of matched the minimalist appearance we were aiming for, but we should have experimented with this nevertheless.
Another peer said that the page didn't have a "nice flow", and that they didn't know which column of body text to read first, due to it aligning to the right. This is a great problem for us, as the whole point of a newspaper article is that you can find your way about the page in the correct order with ease, you shouldn't have to find yourself considering which column goes before another, you should be able to tell by the page layout, and if you can't then the designer has done a bad job. They also said that they liked the empty space, however it didn't aid legibility and needed to be moved someplace else where it contributed more effectively to the page.
My tutor suggested that we produce a questionnaire on the old layout vs. the new layout, and what things people thought worked, and what didn't, to help us come up a more effective layout at a previous stage. They also commented on how they liked how simple it was, how there was no nonsense, but went straight to the point.
This feedback has been really useful to me, and I will use it in future tasks and briefs to ensure I produce a higher quality publication next time, and make suitable improvements to this project following the feedback at a later date.
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