Preliminary Task

This is the front cover for my magazine. I went around taking photos, of aspect of the sixth formers even though my magazine can be aimed at the whole school. On this magazine, I have put on there straplines, a kicker, a main image, the date and four secondary images.

I used black, pink and green as the main colours on my front page whereas on the contents page black and red are the only colours that have been used there. I chose to use these colours because I felt that they went well together and they are also colours that I like - personally. Looking at it now I have realised that using these colours seems a bit too much because if you look at the main image you can see a range of different colours and they clash quite a bit the colours especially the lime green.

If you look at the masthead of the magazine then you should be able to see that I layered the main image over the logo and the title then I used the black paintbrush and dabbed it around to shows sections of the masthead and the school logo. The same was also done for the bottom of the magazine but it was done with the white paintbrush. Personally, I don’t think that it makes the magazine come across as suitable. It does make it look quite childish and when it comes to me making my music magazine I think that I should consider this as something that I would be able to change.

I used Nelson (right) and Jordan (left) as the main image on my magazine because being sixth formers, they were representing the image that I wanted to put across and that is that life at Lordswood is not always hard work. In this image you will be able to see that the rule of thirds has not been used and that there is a lot of headroom in this image. In order to improve this next time, I should make sure that I consider the positioning of the models in the photographs and I should also think about the background of the image. Even though the background does quite go with the image as whole, it is quite distracting when the main focus is meant to be on Jordan and Nelson.

The secondary images are a range of different things that do and don't relate to the years 7-11. All of these four secondary relate to the rest of the school in different ways but because my main audience is the sixth formers I just decided to use the images of the sixth formers.

I also did a contents page for the magazine to show what features would be in the magazine if I was going to continue with this magazine. The main image on the contents page is actually the secondary image with the heading of 'Clubs' (which is on the front cover of the magazine). On the main image of the contents page, I used the photocopy filter from Photoshop to change the style of the original image. Similarly, to the main image, I also layered the text beneath the main image and then I used the black paintbrush to show it. It does look quite effective, however, it does not really look suitable for the front cover of a magazine so next time this should also be a factor that I consider when my music magazine is being made.

Overall, I think that there are some aspects of my magazine and front cover that are good, however there are other aspects that I need to take into consideration such as the colour usage when it comes to making my music magazine to ensure that I do not make the same mistakes.