Evaluation of Magazine Cover and Contents Page (Prelim task)

 Evaluation of Magazine Cover and Contents Page (Prelim task)

My Magazine cover is in a conventional layout with the Masthead at the top, one background image as the focal point of the cover and a few small sections of text detailing some of the contents. The sections of text are well laid out as they’re to the bottom and side of the main image; therefore they aren’t taking away the focal point of the main image. The main image I chose is good but I had to edit a few things to make it fit into the page, for example I though that the image was slightly too cold due to the female in the picture having blue jeans, so I edited her jeans to a black/brown colour to give the image a warmer look and help the composition of the page. I edited the jeans by simply using a lasso tool to select the section I need, then I went to image and played with the hue/saturation and lightness/darkness until I got the colour I wanted. I also edited out a plug socket that was to the left of the male in the image as it looked very out of place. I did this by using the smudge tool and clicking to the right of the plug socket, and dragging over the plug socket to smudge white over the top.

I think my magazine may look like its aimed more at females due to the colour I have used behind the small sections of text, but I tried to use a warm colour that would appeal to both genders. I think my cover’s simplicity compliments the picture. The picture I used shows two smiling sixth form students, whom are studying which is quite appealing to many students as they can relate to what they’re doing. I think the cover appeals to most social groups because it is so simplistic; this makes it appropriate for everyone to read, as it isn’t aimed at specific groups of people. The simplicity gives the cover a more professional look but it may be a bit too mature for the target audience’s age, so this might have needed changing.

My contents page is also very conventional; it has some pictures giving sneak peeks as to what the readers may see. The masthead is very bold and allows the reader to clearly see what the page is. The list of contents is not for all pages, but the main stories that may be more interesting to the students reading the magazine, this makes the page seem less cluttered and gets straight to the point. Over the pictures I put small sections of text that relate to them and the contents for example, one of the pictures is a model looking scared and stressed, so I put the question “Exams getting you stressed?” and the page number. I think the use of pictures will make the audience more interested, as it makes the page a lot nicer to look at and gives a reality to the page. The column of pictures and contents give the page a very regimented and aligned look giving a sophisticated and smart look and allows the reader’s eye to follow down the page. The pictures make the page more attractive to younger readers as they may find pictures a lot more interesting than lots of writing.

The cover and contents pages both have the same theme incorporated throughout, with the same fonts and colours so the pages compliment each other well, the pages show consistency throughout and which keeps the readers more interested in the content and not the format as they are more distracted if there are lots of different fonts. I think that the page would be attractive to both genders, although the pictures I used only have females in them due to my group having only females. The background is the same colour as the small text boxes on the cover, but this colour may be seen as more of a feminine colour, giving the whole page a more feminine look. If I redid this page, I would try and find a warm but more masculine colour and get some male models in the pictures as well as females.  The composition of the page is not the best due to the images being on one side of the page, this makes the left side of the page seem heavier due to the darkness/colour of the images.

I don’t think that any media institutions would like to distribute this magazine because it is for students and parents from my school and not the general public, this means that they would not earn any revenue from the magazine as strictly the target audience of students and parents.

To conclude, I think I did a good job of making the cover and contents pages of my magazine attractive to the target audience. I think this because when I look at the results that my Survey Monkey came back with, the pages tick a lot of the boxes. There are a few things that I would correct if I was to redo the pages but that just allows me to learn from my mistakes. I feel the pages look professional for a school magazine due to the layouts and fonts, and the fact that I kept to the conventions of magazines.