Design

I'm a litte stuck on which cover to choose. One I think is quite cluttered whist the other is a bit bare. I am planning to put text into the white spaces of the second one. Which one do you think?

Magazine Design In Progress and Weekly Review

I have spent last week designing my student magazine cover and have come up with something that I think is attractive and suits my specifications. I organsised a photoshoot and carried it out to produce my main image and am planning on taking several more for the smaller images at the bottom. I have stuck to my weekly action plan and am ahead of schedule. I would appreciate some feedback about my design and for the following questions to be answered:

What is your favorite feature of my magazine?

What would you change?

Would you read this magazine if you saw it?

Thankyou x

Magazine Designs

I designed the basic outline of my student magazine without colour so I could decide on the best layout. I have decided to go with the second design as it looks the most interesting though I might make some minor changes.

Weekly Review

This week I have managed to stick to my action plan and surpass it. I created a questionnaire and received some feedback, completed a textual analysis for an existing student magazine and decided on the name and colour scheme. I have decided to call my magazine Inside College. I have also managed to start some computer designs for the front cover of Inside College which means that I am ahead of schedule.

Questionnaire

1. What attracts you to a magazine?

2. What sort of colour scheme of a magazine would have the greatest impact?

3. Do you prefer images to text?

4. What type of magazine do you prefer?

5. How much would you be prepared to pay for a student magazine?

Would be a great help if I could get several responses.

I began by looking a several existing student magazines to get an idea of what to include on my front cover. I decided to look at an edition of the magazine First Car, a magazine for young drivers. The most noticeable thing about the magazine cover is the contrast of the black, yellow and white text. This makes it stand out and catch the eye of the potential reader. The masthead is bold and eye catching, being the main white text on the page and the banner of 'Inbetweeners' is spread across the entire page, drawing the eye. All of the text is in capitals which make is stand out. The colour scheme is also similar to that of crime scene or accident scene tape which relates to the field of cars and drivers. The image of the actors from The Inbetweeners is eye catching as the characters are recognisable to a youth audience. The mid shot of the central character is one of the first things you see on the cover and the red of the car door in the long shot of the other characters draws secondary attention to them. High impact words such as 'Killer' are surrounded by a black background. This word is a trigger stimulus and is instantly a focus point due to the danger associated with the word. The strap line at the top of the magazine gives the reader the general outline of the contents of the magazine.

Action Plan

We have been given 4 weeks to produce the
cover page of a new student magazine. It needs to be eye catching and appealing to my target audience. It also must include a medium close up photo of a student. I must also create a mock up of the layout of the contents page of my magazine. I have drawn up an action plan that covers my 4 weeks deadline.

Week 1:
-Questionnaire to target audience
-Textual analysis of existing magazines.
-Consider colour, style, name etc.

Week 2:
-Organise and carry out photo shoot(organise props, models, scenery etc.)
-Begin designing on computer

Week 3:
-Finish design and insert photos
-Audience feedback- questionnaire

Week 4:
-Tweak magazine design
-Evaluation of magazine
-Evaluation questions

My action plan may change depending on how quickly I work or any ideas I have along the way.