The Process I Went Through To Complete A Front Cover.

At the beginning we were set a brief which said we had to produce a new school/college magazine featuring a photograph of a student in medium close up plus some appropriately laid out text and masthead.  I also had to produce a mock up of the contents page. We began by creating an account on "blogger" where we would post all of out ideas, research and drafts. 


I began to research different college and school magazines. I realised that college magazines have got to look happy and positive, with the picture of the front representing this.Then, with some inspiration I began to have some ideas of my own. I photographed some of my friends, and did some headshots of my friend Zoey. I uploaded some of these pictures onto my blog and decided on the one I wanted to use.


Once I had finished doing my research I began making my own drafts. Whilst creating the front cover for my college magazine I knew what I wanted to be done I just had to work out how I would be able to achieve this. I started with a flat plan design of the layout I wanted, however this quickly changed when I started fiddling around with colours and shapes.

We were told to use the software "InDesign" which I had never used before. Whilst using this I came across some difficulties such as how to send the photo to the back of the page, how to make sure the photo isn't blurry and how to make the title stand out more than anything on the page. All of these issues I had may seem simple to someone else but I had never done something like this before.

However, after working out how to use things in the correct way, I found I began to enjoy the process of making my magazine cover. I researched different magazine's and looked at their covers for inspiration and realised it's a difficult task trying to pick the few but vital things to place on your front cover. You have to take many things into consideration such as, trying to make sure your cover isn't too busy, making sure the colours you have chosen compliment the photo background and the other things you have put on and the size of your font. All of these things are important to making sure your cover is at a high standard and looks professional.

One of the pictures I was going to use was of my friend Sam doing a ballet pose. I wanted to use this picture because I was going to link it with with a cover story, and also because it represented a course at the college. However, due to how I took the photograph there was far too much going on in the background, so I asked Dick if there was any way of getting around this and he explained to me that I could cut out the background of the image and have it as white. I experimented with photoshop, and tried this process. Unfortunately, because of the awkward angle of the photo, this proved far too difficult and I didn't have the time. Eventually I had completed my first cover for my magazine, but I wasn't happy with the final outcome as it wasn't to a high enough standard. I then re-drafted this and ended up with something I was very proud of and thought it was too a high standard and looked professional. 


With my second draft I decided to change the photo, and use one I had taken of Zoey. It was a medium close up, with her looking extremely happy and smiling. When I placed this photo onto my design I realised it worked a lot better than my previous photo. It gave off a positive vibe and feel to my magazine, and showed happiness at college which is the way the college magazines I researched appeared to seem.