Magazine cover

Evaluation

My magazine cover which was based around and featured items about college I felt when designing it went very well. The name 'Ink' wasn't a name I'd heard used when research other magazines so thought it would be fresh, new and original. I gave the first impression of quite a relaxed but creative magazine, but like a blotch of ink when painting for example, although not quite as messy. I felt that the front cover was quite sheik and glossy, I wanted to create the feeling of professionalism over it. The blue starting at the top and running down the right hand side is suppose to give off the impression of the sky, I did consider having a sun in the top hand corner to go with the sky look, but decided against it as I felt that it may lower the target age, as I've always thought of the sun been associated with children's drawings. As my target audience was a college i didn't feel it appropriate. Although the gold bar of colour running diagonally across is quite like a ray of light although i think that's more a mature tone and shape.
The image i have got on show is of a college student, i took looks of different pictures of different people male/female in different area's around the college. This shot was my favourite as the girl i used had a nice smile to give it a happy feel and the lighting was good, it was a sunny day and the shot was taken outside of the college. Its a medium close up which was the shot that was asked for. Shes in focus and placing a blue and some what fluffy boarder around it made it in my opinion quite appetising without been to open. It's just a happy vibrant magazine for fresh vibrant people.
The font i thought was very important each word is very important as its the front cover, you want the reader to admire that page, but at the same time turn over and read the content. If i was doing the design for every page, id want it to have the same effect as that. I put 'ink' in a lighter colour/shade of blue to make it stand out i put a black lining outside of each letter to make it that bit more obvious. For the sub heading concerning the buses i choose a black bold news type font, because that was big news at college effecting a lot of student's so wanted to make it quite serious. Whereas the sports news was set in a gold font, gold be the colour of success.
I think that my product is neatly presented and well laid out. I think some of the font colours could have stood out better so its something that with trial and error can be improved. There's a few spots of colour that need touching up and the blue around the main image is a bit unprofessional so with more patience. So those things are something that could be worked on in the future and will be looked at closely next time.
While working on this project I've learnt many different things including improving skills i already had on photoshop been the main one, my ability to look at and talk about magazine covers has improved. I do believe even the way i took a picture improved in the small amount of time i had the camera in my hand. Analysing a questionnaire and picking the right points to put onto a cover because of what they stand for and what meanings are behind them. I also believe that working with other people in the group and learning off each other improves the way that you work and look at things as you gain different perspectives of a text or image, so that's another form of analysis. Overall I enjoyed this task and am looking forward to doing more of the same in the future using what i already know and have recently learnt to my advantages.