Analysing my college magazine front cover

My college magazine front cover uses the forms and conventions of real life magazines because of several techniques. Firstly, my main image. My main image challenges the normal forms of magazines, because the photo is not a medium close up of my model. I edited my main I image in Photoshop. I firstly added a blue around the model, which matches her jeans, therefore attracting attention on to the model. Secondly, I added the orange in one corner of the magazine. I decided to do this because the colour orange is in the college logo. Also, as this college magazine is monthly, it has a seasonal feel as the orange ties in with Halloween. I started off adding orange to each corner of the magazine, however, I thought it looked too clashy.

I got the masthead font from DaFont.com, and chose this one because I think it’s effective in attracting an audience. It’s bold and is the first thing my eye is drawn to. The masthead also goes in front of the model, therefore adding to the eye-catching effect. The slogan underneath sums up what the magazine is about, and explains the magazine’s main aim. I decided to do the slogan in the same font and size as the cover lines, however, used a different colour that matches the blue of the image background.

Next, for the front cover, I created my cover lines. To do so, I simply used the Text tool and chose a font that I kept with for the rest of my front cover design; used the same colour and font size. This makes the magazine much easier to read. The cover line subheadings are in the same font, however are bold, so make each category easily identifiable.

Taking into account the overall magazine look, the cover lines were put in the right-hand side because I think it makes the magazine look more balanced. With the orange in the left-hand corner of the page, I thought, although normal conventions mean that cover lines are put on the left-hand side, would make the overall look of the cover looked more balanced.

None of the text on my front cover have serifs therefore are sans serifs.

The next thing I created was the puff with buzz words. I created the orange puff with the words ‘FREE’ in block capitals. I thought this would attract a wider audience, considering this magazine is for college students on a low income. I also added the barcode here, simply by finding an example image on Google Images and saving it into my files. I then placed it on the bottom-right hand side. I think the placement of the barcode for this particular magazine is not important, as it is only for college students, and is also most convenient.

My college magazine represents the social group of young students. This is because its contents relates to all things that a student enjoys, or should be doing now that they’re college students. However, it particularly represents City College Norwich students. This is mainly because of the colour scheme. I chose the logo of City College Norwich, therefore only applies to students of this college. This magazine does not exclude certain types of people however, as it is for everyone in education and I have tried to make the cover lines fit to everyone’s preferences (as found out from the questionnaire and the audience profile). The age range for the magazine is 16-18 year olds and people with a low or no income.

My magazine attracted and addressed my audience due to the colours used in the background, the masthead, and the cover lines.

From doing this college magazine, I’ve learnt the process of Photoshop. As I went along making my front cover, I further developed my understandings of the software and how to use it, especially when making and editing a magazine front cover. I have also learnt about what has to be done before the construction of the actual magazine begins. The processes of research on what was to be put into my magazine was simple, however, definitely needed, otherwise I wouldn’t have known what information to put on my cover.