Hot Seating Feedback

For the hot seating exercise I presented this front cover 

The main points raised were:

What do you think of the colour of the cover lines and the overall colour scheme?

• "I like how the colours match the image colour but I don’t think the cover lines stand out as much as they could." 
• "I like how it all fits together. Thanks to the small colour scheme"
• "The colour of the cover lines are good they match the red in the t-shirt and on the lips. It goes well."
• "Black and red is simple and effective, but perhaps the blue of the jeans could be incorporated somehow? This would further aid the consistency of the magazine."
• "Make the reds the same but otherwise, I like it a lot."

What do you like about my front cover?

• "I like the opaque images behind the main image"
• "I like the opaque effect of  the front cover but I do think it’s a bit in your face."
• "I like the other low opacity images behind the main one."
• "It would definitely stand out on the shop floor. The busyness really suits the type of magazine"
• It isn’t my style of music but I know people who do like this genre and I could definitely see them buying this.

What don't you like about my front cover and how could I improve it?

• "Whilst it would stand out at a news stand and the colour/font use doesn’t really draw my eye to a particular cover line"
• "I don’t like the Poppy Scarlet font and I think it could be bigger"

Overall I gained positive feedback from hot seating but here is a list of points that I feel that I will need to address:

• Work on making my cover lines standing out. Feedback said that they liked the colour of my cover lines but they didn't stand out enough, I could work on this by looking at size and spacing to enhance the cover lines. It is vital I address this as the cover lines are one of the core things I will rely on to draw the viewer in to the content and to make them become a consumer. If the cover lines aren't being eye catching enough then it could affect the sales of my magazine.
• I could add one more colour to the scheme by adding blue but this contradicts other information of liking a simple colour scheme so I will have to experiment and decide or possibly hold another way to collect data such as another hot seating or possibly a focus group to see what they, my demographic, prefer. Another part of the colour scheme that seemed to bring comments is the different tone of red which implies that me trying to implicate a 'top secret' stamp wasn't received so therefore I will need to make it more obvious and add a line around it or change the colour altogether.
• There was also a point raised about the 'Poppy Scarlet' font being too small and them disliking it, although I can make type bigger I doubt I will change the font altogether as this was only one opinion and no one shared the  same, I understand that there will be a minority that will take a dislike to certain elements of my design so I should investigate whether there is a strong dislike to the typography or whether it is just a lone opinion.