practical / crit and feedback

8th December crit: 
The preliminary magazine was taken into the CoP practical crit. The magazine features 44 pages of content for the children which is shown below:

The feedback was largely positive with just a few notes on the general design. It could feature a barcode on the back with a price. It was also noted that the back of the magazine should have the same border/background colour as the front page, and the illustration of Pear waving should be on the inside. I asked whether page numbers should be included but everyone decided they weren't needed overall.

I also asked opinions on the final stock choices as this version was printed on regular printer paper. Suggestions were thin, quite shiny stock that is used in most children's magazines, though I am unsure about this as it wouldn't be very hardy or suitable for the colouring pages. The feedback on the staple bind was positive as it's the most suitable for this type of publication. Some people had issues with the blank page before the "letter of the month" page, which had been included to separate and introduce the feature as it will be appearing in all of the issues, and to ensure a double page spread was there afterwards to make room for the illustrations. Suggestions to fill in this page could be a pattern or other illustration which links to the letter.

Feedback from children and teachers: 
The booklet was also taken into the school and given to teachers and students to look through and give feedback on the content and suitability of the design. As the teachers and students are not normally concerned with graphic design, their feedback was quite limited but still extremely valuable.

Teacher feedback: 
Lovely, bold neutral colours. Fab activities for children to complete. Children would be able to complete activities with parents. I really like the names of the fruit and the catchy names of the activities such as 'pear necessitates'. I like how it covers a range of skills, such as lit, num & topic. Really well done, I'm well impressed with this, I cannot believe you have made it, its fabulous! I would love to do this with my class.

Children feedback: 

Girl Aged 5 - Liked the pictures and the colours.

Boy Aged 5 - Liked the puzzle.

Girl Aged 5 - Can colour in.
Boy Aged 6 - Can colour in the picture.
Girl Aged 5 - Can colour in the watermelon.

Girl Aged 6 - Liked the picture and can cut out.

Girl Aged 5 - Like doing numbers and it has favourite fruit - strawberry and watermelon.
Boy Aged 5 - Has numbers and can colour the worm.

Overall both sets of feedback was very useful. The feedback from the school was all very positive, with little criticism to build on. This in itself is quite positive as it means the content of the magazine is suitable for the audience. A lot of the children commented on the activities in the magazine rather than the actual design, but it was not expected of them to be critical or offer constructive feedback. The next stage for the project is to make revisions to the magazine, then test it alongside existing publications to see whether it is successful when gendered publications are available.