evaluation of front cover

Evaluation of Front cover

During the production of the final front cover I made created multiple drafts of the front cover changing fonts and the background images.

My magazine follows the conventions of placement of the title and also the placement of pull quotes, this is to allow it to be easily recognised and to show what is inside the magazine, it also creates a more traditional look to the magazine. My magazine cover does not show the conventions of multiple images detailing what is inside I decided not to do this as it would have made the image too cluttered.

My magazine shows stereotypical college students and shows them enjoying themselves inn a location that is not clear or focused on. The magazine is targeting the age group of 16-18 due to the magazine been about people in the age range and the fact that college is for 16-18 year olds typically and so I fitted my image into this. My audience for the magazine is young college attendees who will get the most from the magazine and the magazine is designed to keep them informed about the college, although the college magazine could appeal to people in college who do not attend but are still in the correct age range.

To attract the target audience the magazine looks quite plain and basic but still colourful and attractive to draw people in, this helps to show people that the magazine is not targeting a particular genre and is instead appealing to a wider target audience it does this by not giving away much about its overall context and instead appealing to the masses. My magazine contains a plug to appeal to people especially the target audience of students to win a competition this is to draw them in to buying the magazine because there is then a chance of winning something they would not otherwise get. The image its self  is placed in a way that the models are wearing current styles to appeal to the new audience members and also look more attractive, it also helps to make the magazine break down barriers of age and social class because everything is simple and not high priced, the price of the magazine its self is also reflected in this because it is not something that is cheap but it is not overly expensive.

By creating multiple drafts it has become handy to show what I have done correct and what I have done wrong it also helps me to pick out selected styles and selected fonts it also allows me to evaluate how something looks when compared to other products. The use of the drafts also helps me to be able to use them as a starting point and not have to start completely from scratch. I also kept the draft copies open on Photoshop so that if I wanted to I could select good parts from one part and leave the bad parts this helped to bring together the front cover a lot faster because it was already composed and just had to be positioned cropped and edited.

When I used Photoshop I made sure to edit the image to make it look richer and bolder, I also adjusted the contrast of the image to make it look brighter and sharper as well as correcting any lighting mistakes of the image.