I started off my preliminary work by deciding what type of school magazine I wanted to create. For this I looked at what subjects I did first and what would work best as a subject to base the magazine on; my final decision was Textiles because that is a very creative subject that requires motivation and determination to achieve in and my idea for doing a magazine based on this would to be inspire and motivate the students taking that subject at both GCSE and A-Level.
This is the photo I have taken for the front cover of my magazine. I wanted it to be quite simple and the idea of having a smiling student on the front would be to motivate and spark an interest in the subject for students that are either taking the subject or are thinking of taking it.
After that I started to build my front cover, I wanted this to look quite different yet still fairly professional. To add something different to my cover I decided to put a muted white colour around the edge of the page just to centre the picture and also to create a slightly more professional look because if I had left the picture by itself it looks as though I haven't really thought too much about it whereas I wanted to create something that looked as though it would possibly have been made professionally for a school.
As you can see on this example of the next stage in my work, the border behind the photo is there as well as the name of the magazine and also the barcode which I placed on the corner of the photo because I wanted it to be on the same line as the masthead but also not be too far in the corner for it to look unrealistic in a real magazine context. I have also put the masthead on both the corner of the picture and part of the border. This is because I wanted the border and the picture to combine together and look as one, so my idea was to use this as the glue essentially to bring both ideas and concepts together.
Next in my magazine design, I chose to complete my main headline on the front cover. I wanted this magazine to look fairly original but still inspired by many magazines on the market today. The font I used for the headline was 'Letter Gothic Std'. I thought this really gave an interesting look to my magazine as it doesn't stand out too much and sits perfectly in the middle of the bottom half of the page. I also really like the contrast between the fur on the coat and the lettering because it sits nicely on top of that. Now I have used this I am thinking of continuing using this font all throughout the front cover and contents pages now.
As you can see on my nearly finished front cover that i have incorporated the font nearly all over the front, seeing this used elsewhere as well gives me confidence because I really like the font and I think it is in keeping with the style of the magazine.
This is my finished front cover, I think the one thing I would probably reconsider when I do the actual coursework is to rethink the colour palette because I feel as though it is quite dull and boring. However apart from that I am very pleased with how this looks; I'm very proud of the picture quality of the main image and the simplicity of it really appeals to me. The one last change I made to the cover was the addition of 'THE TEXTILES MAGAZINE' underneath the main title, I put this in because I felt the cover was lacking something else, and so I created this sub heading and put an arch effect on it because I wanted it to stand out on the cover.
This is the start of my contents page and as you can see it is a very simple layout that I have used. I wanted this to be a fairly classic design and I think that sometimes simplicity is best because it's not best to overcrowd the space. I used the same font for the heading as I had done on the front cover and I think that it helps to connect both designs together.
Next I added another text box to the page and made it the same colour as the top one, this is because I wanted the whole page to fit together and not look disjointed, this would be a box to show the special features of that issue.
I have finished the general design of the contents page now however I would like to put a similar background colour to the one on the front of the magazine, this again is the tie the two designs to one another. Also I think that the design looks a bit too plain for my liking without the addition of something subtle like a background colour. Also I have added the text for the big text box and I have also incorporated into that the magazine logo and sub-heading. I also added another image, a longer one down the side, because I thought that if pictures were actually there that it would be an interesting design to see.
This is my finished contents page and the last addition I made to it was the colour of the background which now matches the front cover.
This is my Preliminary Coursework Task completed and generally I am quite proud of my efforts. I think I do still have a lot to learn however I am starting to understand more and more how photoshop works and hopefully by the time I am creating my actual magazine that I will be able to create something incredibly professional.
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