Preliminary Task

Cover Page

This magazine cover is effective because it is eye catching and quite professional. This is a good thing because in a work place, you like to give of the image of it being a professional environment. The red masthead links well with the colour of the girls top and this makes it aesthetically pleasing. The bright background makes it look like college is a pleasant environment because everybody loves the sun and green grass, which you can also see in the background. The sell lines are effective because they are a different colour from the anything else on the cover, so this makes them stand out and your eyes are drawn to them. Also, the blue text links with the colour of her shorts. The colour scheme is very simple but also effective. The main colours are black and red, which is a good professional combination. The main image is of an attractive student. This draws attention to the magazine because people will see it and might want to read it and find out more about college life. The whole cover page is worked around the main image. She is the centre of attraction, even the masthead is put behind the main image. This shows the importance of the main image and how much of a selling point it is. Another reason for this cover page being successful is that only 4 different font colours have been used, this is good because it makes it easy on the eye, so it is not over crowded. Also, the main image is in focus, whilst the background is blurred out so that your main focus is on the student.

I find this magazine cover is not effective. My reasoning for this is that I think it is very dull, and does not catch your attention in anyway at all. I think the colour of the background makes this look like a very dark, gloomy magazine and that there is nothing exciting about it. I also think that the layout does not sell the magazine because it is very boring. The sell lines are not interesting and the way they are laid out, they do not draw your eyes towards them, so a lot of people would look straight past them and look at the main image. I think the main image has a big part in this magazine cover. This is because it is the only thing you notice when you look at it. Because of this, it should be something that would sell the magazine, and shows that 'CAMPUS LIFE' is not that bad and a good place to be; but what it actually shows is a very dull looking man who does not sell the magazine. He is the centre of attention but there is nothing that stands out. There are some positives to come out of this magazine cover though. One of these is that the colour scheme is very simple. Although it is very plain and boring to look at; it has not been overdone and it is not hard to look at without getting lost. The colour of the 'dallas green' in red matches the colour of the man’s shirt and this brings the magazine together. One of the main features on a magazine cover is the masthead. On this cover, the mast head is extremely dull and easily overlooked. Personally, this magazine cover has no unique selling points and is not a very good magazine cover.

 Contents Page

This contents page is not very well laid out in my opinion. I think that it is too choppy and the edits are not done very well. It does not look very appealing and it draws your attention, but for the wrong reasons. It is very very basic and does not contain enough content to fill up the page properly. It has used 3 images to fill over half the page. The pictures do not represent education to be a good thing as they are very boring and dull, for example the grey sky. No-one like’s bad weather and it does not sell, so maybe they could have taken the pictures on a brighter day and/or against a colourful background. A few positives about this content page are the font and the colour scheme. The font goes well with the style of the page; chilled out and modern. Also, the colour scheme is successful because the black and the purple go well together, with a bit of green in one of the pictures. The white text colour works well with both the black and the purple as it stands out and it may catch your eye. Overall I think this contents page needs to be brighter and needs to be laid out differently and broken up, instead of all the pictures at the top and all the text at the bottom.

This contents page is a successful one in my opinion. I think that the colour scheme of blue and white works really well as they are easy to take it and are not too bright. A positive of using white is that most colours will work with it, and it is not hard to find a colour that matches, so this was clever by the designer of this contents page. Another good feature is that they have a smaller version of what I think is the cover page on the contents page. I think this is good because it fits in well and also it is simple and it looks good. The layout is not very simple, but it works. The font is a good suitable font to use with this style of magazine. One negative of this contents page is that I think there is too much writing in that little note. This could either be cut down, or put on another page, but I do think that it fills the space quite nicely.

Fonts

I have chosen these 3 fonts because I think that all of them look fairly professional and would work on a student magazine. The first one is called 'Varsity'. This is a good one because it looks really neat and is very suitable. The word 'Varsity' means college in America, so this is quite fitting and works really well. I think the fact that it is squared off at all the edges makes it look sharp and appropriate. The second font is a bit less formal but still looks neat. This font is called 'Top Secret'. I think this is good for the font because it looks like it is boxed in with the lines on top and underneath the text. This font is quite modern, but it might not fit on a student magazine which should be professional, not funky. The last font is called 'Instruction'. This font is probably the most professional font out of all of them but also the most boring out of the lot. It's very formal but may not look right on a student magazine cover. After looking at all of these 3 fonts, I will most probably use 'Varsity' as it is the most fitting.

Layout

This is the plan of what my magazine cover should look like. The masthead is where you would expect a masthead to be and does not break any conventions. I have put the sell lines running down the side because you would usually see sell lines scattered around on the edges of the page, but I am putting them all on one side, so they are all in one place and you will most probably read them all. The main image will be the back ground, but the person in the main image will be in the open space and you will be able to see them. The main story will be big and will be in the bottom right hand corner. I know putting the main story in the bottom corner is a bit risky, but I will make sure it stands out. The sub-stories and the gossip will have a little section in the other bottom corner, while the slogan and logo will be in the top right hand corner.

Images



 These are the six images i have taken to use on my magazine cover. I think that these are all fairly good images because the person in the images is always dressed appropriately for a student magazine and his facial expressions are good. The quality of the pictures are very good! The one in the library, the lighting was not very good, so I will not be using that image. I think that the best two images are the last one and the fourth one, and I will use one of these two pictures on my final product.

Colour Scheme

The three main colours I am going to use are purple, white, and burgundy  I will use these three colours because they will link quite nicely with the colour of the main image. The bricks, the jumper and the white collar. I am only using a colour scheme of 3 colours because if there is more, it will be too crowded and not look nice, so i have decided to keep it simple. This should be affective because it will be aesthetically pleasing.

Magazine Cover

This is my magazine cover. This is not very good because you can see the texts boxs really clearly because i made it on word and could not make them transparent. A positive is that I stuck to the colour scheme that i wrote up about. Aslo, I think that the layout is very simple and clear, and is affective. Overall I do not think that this is an effective and good magazine cover.