Preliminary Evaluation

Preliminary Evaluation -

The brief of the preliminary task was to produce the front cover and contents page of a new school/college magazine, featuring a photo of a student in a medium close up, also featuring some appropriately laid out text and a masthead.

I feel like I have fulfilled this brief well, and I am happy with the final outcome I have produced.

As you can see I have made quite a lot of changes throughout the process of creating both aspects of the magazine.

Original Plan

Front Cover -

At first I intended to have the model pose to the right of the cover, however when editing the images, I found it looked more pleasing to have the model on the right, and then the text on the left, as it flowed better, and my eye fell more naturally to that area of the magazine.

I used the blue and yellow colour scheme as planned, as I found a very good palette on the Colour Lovers website. I think this works really well, and the blue and yellows subtly complement each other nicely.

I did change the masthead; in the beginning I thought the name would look best in a simple font; however on reflection the cover seemed quite simple, and not very fun and striking. So I decided to create my own title font in Photoshop, and I think this looks a lot nicer than the previous edition.

I also intended to use badges on the cover, however when I placed them in, the cover looked too busy, and they didn’t blend well with the theme of the magazine, and looked tacky.

Overall I am very pleased with how the cover of the magazine has turned out; and although it didn't follow my original plans, I think making the revisions helped it look more professional.

Contents Page -

As you can see my contents page worked well, and I barely had to make any changes.

I laid all of the contents page numbers and taglines out in one box, next to a section with images.

I think having all of the images in a collage worked really well, as it looks interesting and they flow well together. I then placed the page number on the images, to link specific images to the articles they relate too.

I chose to round the corners of the images as I think in the collage it looked softer with them having the rounded edges, it looked too sharp when the images has straight edge corners.

I followed the same house style by using the same blue and yellow colour scheme; I also used the same fonts from the front cover.

I also decided to insert the name of the magazine at the top right hand corner of the contents page, like a logo, so that there is continuity between the pages.

Conclusion -

Overall I am very happy with how the front cover and contents page has turned out. Even though the original front cover design didn't work as well as I had hoped, I think the new revised edition looks much more professional and neater.

Doing this task has helped me greatly in preparing to produce my main task; as before this I had little knowledge about the layout rules and general styles that magazines follow to create their covers and contents pages. But now I feel more confident creating more professional looking layouts, and I understand the basic rules regarding magazine front covers (only the main cover line can overlap the main image etc.)

I also feel more confident using InDesign  as I have a little bit of experience with the software before; however I was still quite vague when I started producing the magazine. I now feel more comfortable finding my way around the programme to create different effects and outcomes.