College Magazine Front Cover and Contents Page and Evaluation

Pre Lim Task Evaluation:

Importance of Research and Planning
When I started this project I did not do any particular forms of planning. I did not draw a first plan or mark out what I thought would be good on the front cover of a college magazine. I did not bullet point any idea’s that I thought would include on the front cover or on the contents page. However, I did research past music magazine front covers to see what they included when presenting the various articles inside. I also looked at Rock based magazines that the school provided for us to see. I looked at the colours used and the different house styles that the magazines had. They were all different in their own individual way. I also looked how they were set out differently and how the colours were suited to their main images on the cover. I also looked at how their contents pages were set out for the reader to see. They were all made easy to read and look through, so that I (the audience) could easily figure out what article is on what page. I also saw that their contents pages were similar in the sense that they had the same house style as the front cover. This shows the reader the connection between the front cover and the contents and the various articles within the magazine. This research helped me to understand the importance of keeping a house style the same when designing a front cover and contents page of a college magazine. It also showed me that the use of pictures and snappy slogans were useful for an understanding of what the reader could read in the magazine.

Technology used
For my college magazine front cover and contents page, I used he Serif Applications to make them. This application allowed me to move everything on the pages to where I wanted them, and also allowed me to use whatever colours I wanted. This application also had a lot of tools on it that were useful when making the front cover. For example, the crop studio was useful because I could crop out everything on the photo that I did not want and use only the parts that I did want. This made the front cover neater and more precise, because it had the specific images on it that made in individual to everyone else’s. I used this application on a normal computer that is only available in the media classroom. This was a useful application to use when making the cover and contents, because it was easy to use and only took a couple of hours to complete the task.

Difficulties of doing the task
During the process of making my college magazine, there were some difficulties that I had to face and work through. For example one difficulty was actually making the magazine front cover to start with. The Serif application was very difficult and confusing to begin with, because I had never used it before, nor have I made a magazine front cover and contents page before. This made it extra hard because I generally didn’t know how to do it. However, once I started using the various tools on the application I was able to edit my cover and contents swiftly and easily. However, even though I found it easier to use the tools after a while, I still struggled to make the front cover and contents page look presentable and creative. This is because generally, I am not an artistic or creative person. I found it hard to make the perfect house style suit the colours of the clothing on the person in my main image on the front cover. I also found it hard to place the different captions of the “articles” inside the magazine in the right place to make it look good. It was also difficult making the colours of these captions suit the images colours, because I had to avoid colours clashing and fading into each other, not being able to see the words.

Successes:
During the process of making my college magazine, I had many successes. Once I got the hang of the serif application it was easier to make the front cover and the contents page. For example, the separate texts and areas in the contents page were well set out, because I knew where to place them and how to represent the page. Also, when I was photo shopping the pictures that I was using, they looked better on the page than they did before they were photo shopped. This made the front cover look better and cleaner, because the main image was more specifically cut to fit the page. The pictures in the contents also fitted well, making the overall appearance look clearer and cleaner for the reader.