MAZINE COVER EVALUATION

For the image on my magazine cover I decided to use an image that mostly fitted the conventions of other magazine covers, through the direct eye contact with the audience and the bold colour of the red that links with the colour of the text. The character is the last girl, as she is the main character along with the villain, but the villain is mainly used on the poster. The expression of the model is quite serious, setting the atmosphere for the genre. I edited the saturation to make her stand out more and enhance the colour. I also edited the background using selective black and white in order to make the model stand out further, as well as being able to keep the background of the road that the film is set on to show the context of the film.

The selective black and white is effective because it takes away attention from the back ground and keeps the colour palette simple, as the only colours that can be seen are red, black and white. While taking the photo, I also used a larger apeture to create a shallow depth of field, so that the background is slightly out of focus which keeps all the audience's focus on the model.

For the masthead, I used a simple sans serif font that is bold and added a drop shadow to make it stand out. I used a red colour and layed it out similar to Empire magazine, making it effective as it looks similar to a real magazine. I used the tagline “the worlds biggest movie magazine”, using a small font and placing it in the left bottom corner of the masthead, which draws in the audience as the phrase implies the popularity of the magazine on a global scale. I also added the price and date in the gap of the “M”, similar to the placing used on Empire magazine. I made the image overlap the masthead in order to keep the image the main focus, and the magazine name is still recognizable. This is often done on magazine front covers to maintain impact.

For the main heading, I used a glow tool for the text to connote the supernatural and psychological themes of our trailer, a technique which is used to these sub-genres for example in the Paranormal Activity poster. My font is also similar to that used by Paranormal Activity, with long thin letters. The white reflects the colours used on the text in our trailer, as we did not use a red, because that is a convention of slasher films that are more focused on the death and violence in the film. I placed my heading along the centre of the page, over where the model is in the centre third. Is it also the largest heading other than the masthead, making it the main focus of the cover. I also added a sub heading which summarizes the article in order to draw in the audience and make them want to see the film and buy the magazine, with the statement that is the most horrifying film of the year which would appeal to the young target audience of horror film fans.

I added a circle shape with only the outline, and a clear centre in order to not use a block colour circle, as this may take away attention and be obtrusive to the main image. I also added a gradient to the sides of the circle to allow it to blend in to the background. In this shape, the heading “horror special” attracts the target audience, and the list of recent films that will create interest and let the audience know some of the content that will be inside. I think this is an effective way of adding information to the page, as it does not take a lot of space but it adds dimension and interest to the cover and follows conventions of current magazines.

Another way of formatting an article I used is a small banner with the heading “classic slasher”, which attracts the audience, especially a slightly older audience that may be fans of older horror films and classics. I added a noticeable drop shadow that makes the heading look more like a poster, which is effective because it adds a old fashioned poster feel to the text, along with the slanted text and banner. The list of films will again draw in the target audience if they are a fan of this genre. The alternating colour between white and grey makes the list look more interesting and allows the audience to easily differentiate between the titles of the films.

I used red bold text in different sized to add impact to this heading, using “TOP 50” in the largest font, and using “of all time” to make the article seem more important and essential, as the audience will be drawn in to find out which horror villains will be including in the list. The “plus” is used in a cursive font to oppose the sans serif bold font, and used a yellow colour to stand out from the red and blacks used in the majority of the cover.

I used a banner at the bottom of the page, as it is a common convention used on magazine covers and is an effective way of adding information to the page. The background I used is yellow, in order to link with the red and black, and add a pop of colour to the page making it more attractive to the audience. I used black text with red slashes to separate the film names, as well as to highlight the “plus!”. The film names attract a particular audience, as fans of these films will be likely to be fans of our film, as these are all psychological and supernatural horror films, which links to the themes of our storyline.

The colour scheme I used is a conventional combination of black, white, red and yellow. The black and white is used to create the bulk of the text, while the red colour is used for more bold headlines and the masthead in order to highlight words which will attract the audience and make them more likely to buy it. The red also links with the colour of the shirt in the image, a technique often done in magazines. The yellow is used in small amounts to add brightness to the cover and create an interesting looking cover. By using limited but effective colours, I feel my colour scheme works well with the image and looks professional overall.

I have mostly followed my initial flat plan, while adding features along the way to make the final product more successful and conventional.

The first draft has been improved by colour, with increased size and zoom and added brightness and saturation to add impact to the image. There have been more drop shadows and design features that create a polished look to the final draft.

While improving my drafts, there were changes I made to make the magazine look more polished and complete. In the first rough draft, I had the masthead overlaying the image which took impact away from the girl where the attention should be focused, and it looked less professional. In the second draft I created another layer to bring infront of the masthead to give more impact to the image and improve the draft, however the hair looked messy and unfinished. In the final draft, I improved this by using a small rubber tool and zooming in to carefully remove the stray hairs, creating a cleaner outline and a better silhouette, making the title and the outline look better and more professional.

I am pleased with the overall effect of my poster and I think it is effective towards my target audience. The image creates a connection with the audience, and the combination of her pose, facial expression, the heading of the title and the subtitle creates enigma, making the audience question who she is and what happens to her, as she is looking at the audience while slightly turned away which looks almost as if she has turned to see what is behind her or is looking to the audience for help. The headings and features on the magazine make it look professional and interesting without cluttering the page and is able to draw the audience in to read and buy the magazine. I feel it follows common conventions of current magazines, by using elements such as banners, the colour scheme and using techniques such as drop shadows to create more impact.