Final design!

This is my final design which I will now analyse and discuss like with the previous covers. Firstly, I decided to use a bright yellow background as it obviously makes it very eye catching and would attract the audience's attention in a shop or around the college or wherever else it may be sold.

I used Word Art to create the masthead, which is written in a bold, slanted font and coloured red so that it stands out on the yellow background. I placed the strapline, 'Written by students for students', just beneath this which reflects the ideology behind the magazine and also the institution. This text is written in an orange font which harmonises with the yellow and matches the orange text of the price. The price is placed in the centre of a yellow star shape which attracts attention. The star has thick black edges so that it stands out against the yellow background and it overlaps onto the image.

The image is the main feature of the cover as it takes up most of the space. I enlarged it further on this design. Its purpose is to intrigue and involve the target audience to get them to buy the magazine, therefore it is the most important aspect of the cover.

The plugs are also used to intrigue the audience. Like on the Secondary Teachers magazine, I used a question, "Finding college hard?", to interest the reader. The font I used is called 'Palatino Linotype'. I chose this font because it is clear and easy to read. I had to alter the font colours of the two plugs to ensure they would be readable over the image. I also coloured the bar code white so that it would stand out.

Designing the cover.

This is the first design that I produced for the magazine cover. The masthead is the largest piece of text and underneath it I have included the strapline 'written by students for students'. The price is included to the right of this using an eye catching star shape to make it stand out to the audience. Moving down the page, you can see the headline which is also in quite a large text to make it stand out, but not so much as the masthead. The image takes up the bottom left quarter of the page so that it becomes the main focus of the page. Then, down the right hand side I have positioned three plugs that would be used to intrigue the audience and persuade them to buy the magazine. The bar code is included below these, as most existing magazines would have one on their front page.

After looking at the first design I made, I decided to make a few changes. I thought that everything looked too spaced out. Firstly, I enlarged the image since I thought that on the first design it was way too small. Now it takes up almost the full page, becoming completely the central focus of the cover. I re-organised the positioning of the plugs and bar code, mainly because I had to ensure that they would be readable when placed on top of the image. I also decided against including a headline as the other magazines I have looked at don't actually have this convention. I kept the masthead, strapline and price the same as I thought they looked eye catching and worked well on the cover. I used a font called 'Palatino Linotype' because it is clear and easy to read. However, I will probably make a few more changes before printing the finished design. Then I will scan it to my blog and discuss it in detail in the same way as I have with both of these designs. I will also explain the reasons for the colours I have used, as I couldn't do this with these two screenshots as they would only appear in grey-scale on the screenshots. Also, I am aware that the text in these images appear small, so I will discuss my choices in that area of the cover in more detail aswell, once I have scanned my final piece of work.

Contents page mock up.

This is an example of a layout that could be used for the contents page of the magazine. By looking at other magazines I have seen that this is quite a simple but common design used.

The images would be of other students taken from stories and articles inside the magazine, complete with captions and page numbers so the reader would know where to look to find the full story. The plug would be of the most interesting story in the magazine.

The title of 'contents' is the largest piece of text like the masthead on the front cover. This is so the audience can clearly see what the purpose of the page is - to inform them of what they will find in the magazine. The list of contents is positioned on the left hand side as it is in most other existing magazines that I have seen.

Image.

This is my student model, Nathan Madsen. This was the best picture of the several that I took and I think that this image will work well on my magazine cover, as Nathan is looking straight at the camera, like on the other covers that I have looked at, which is a common convention to involve the audience. He is smiling in this picture which shows that he is having fun at college. The 'thumbs up' pose is used to show that college is good and even if the reader is having a hard time, things will get better for them.

The background of the picture is quite plain, and there is only a pile of books on a cabinet in the mise-en-scene. I chose to take the picture like this because I wanted to use the figure as the main feature to attract the audience.

Magazine cover design.

Here, I have produced a basic design of what my magazine cover could possibly look like, using the same conventions as the three magazines that I have looked at. A large masthead at the top of the page, plugs down the right hand side and the image and headline on the left, taking up a majority of the splash. I also included a bar code at the bottom of the page on the right hand side.

For the next stage of the project I will take a picture of a student to place on the cover. I will then start to design my cover using Microsoft Publisher. I'll produce a few more design ideas and then print the best one. I will also produce a mock up of a contents page using Publisher.