My Final Magazine Cover

This is my final front cover of my ‘SIXTH FORM’ magazine.

The Name

As I am a student in King Henry’s Sixth Form, I believed that designing a magazine for the new coming sixth form students and the current students would help to give them an insight on our sixth form as well as giving them exclusives within the magazine to keep them interested and keen on reading the magazine. I found using the name ‘SIXTH FORM’ was a suitable name for my magazine because it relates to the content of the magazine but is also simple yet catchy. The masthead of my magazine is simple yet effective; it is typed in all capitals, a black font and a bold effect. I wanted my masthead to stand out more than the rest of the text on the front cover but I also didn’t want it to take over my cover, I feel like I have achieved this as it catches the audience’s eye but doesn’t distract them from the other features shown on the front cover.

Images

The images shown on my front cover were all my own photos except the image under the subtitle “WHAT’S THE GOSSIP?” I got this image off the internet because I found it relevant to the subtitle, as this is a practice I know that when I further develop to create my final music magazine I will use all of my own photos to avoid copyright. All of my own images were taken with a 30 Megapixel camera. I tried to take my photos against a simple background so it would make the editing process a lot simpler. The main image on my front cover is of a sixth form student, Eleanor Binley. The two subsidiary images on my front cover are of the head teacher, Mrs Lewis and the heads of sixth form, Mr Gilson and Mrs Davies, I have used these as subsidiary images to give an idea of the content within the magazine without giving it all away. I have edited all of the images using ‘Photoshop’ and ‘Indesign’ before adding them to my developing front cover.

What I like;

·        Masthead; I like this because I feel like it attracts the reader to further read the rest of the magazine cover.

·        Main Image; It stands out whilst looking smooth around the edges and is big enough to attract the reader but not distract them from the rest of the cover.

·        Subsidiary Images; I find these images help to intrigue the reader as to what is featured in the magazine. 

·        Pull Quotes; I believe my pull quotes give enough information to interest the reader without giving away too much detail.

What I don’t like;

·        House Style; Although the house style works together and looks good on the front cover. I personally find that it looks effective but a little dull and boring, I would improve by using brighter colours. 

·        Pug; I find the pug is too simple and although it may catch the readers attention because of the colour it doesn’t give the reader anything too exciting to read or get involved in. 

·        Footer; I feel like the footer on the front of my magazine could’ve been used as a pug because it’s a short sentence that could’ve possibly attracted the audience more than just repeating the header at the bottom of the cover.

Creating my own front cover has helped me to develop my knowledge on editing, my imaginative thoughts and my creativity. I feel a lot more confident when doing these tasks now that I have used trial and error to create a final design that works. I believe I will go on to develop on my knowledge and ability to produce an even better end product.