My finished college magazine cover

For most of my front cover I have used black, white and shades of gray. I did this because I think it contrasts well with the main image of the girl which is the only bit in colour. Also I think it makes the cover a bit different because most covers are in full colour. The gesture the girl is doing connotes rock music which was found to be one of the most popular genres when I did the audience questionnaire. The girl has a fairly blank expression but it clear she is looking at her arm, which draws the audiences attention to it. And as the arm also says ENORF on it it makes it clear who the magazine is for. Not much of the girls clothing can be seen, only the purple arm of her cardigan but I think this colour goes with the colours of the rest of the cover. The class of this girl is unclear and while she is clearly white this was not done with a purpose. However the gender of the person was choosen for a reason. Rock music is generally more linked with men than woman so by having a girl on the front it made the cover appeal to both sexes. The amp is behind the girl because whilst I wanted it on the cover to make it appear more musical I didn't want it as the main image. The two images above this are to do with the sell line 'Local Gig Reviews' as they are a local band. I dimmed the edges of these pictures so they would look better against the background. Apart from the amp the location of this shot is unclear as the rest of the background is just solid black. This creates mystery and could mean this girl was anywhere when this photograph was taken. The center of the frame is just the corner of the amp however this is not where my eyes go first. Mine are first drawn by the title, then work their way down the sell lines to the main image before travelling up her arm to the smaller images.

The shot distance for the main image is a medium close up. I used this shot because it makes it feel more personal whilst still showing everything that needs to be seen. I think this shot is slightly low but mostly just straight on. I did this because I wanted the auidence to feel they were on the same level as this person. The focal depth of the main image changes from left to right. The face is less in focus than the arm. I did this because the arm was supposed to be more significant than the face because it had the name of the college on it and as this is what the girl is looking at it's what the audience are meant to be looking at. The lightning on the image is coming from above to the left and I think it lookes like natural lighting as it is quite low key. The largest writing on the cover is the masthead 'Micawber'. The sell lines are smaller and alternate in size and smaller still is the price and the issue number etc. All of the writing is in white to contrast with the background, with the exception of ENORF which is in black so it stands out against the girls arm. The font style for the masthead, the words under this, the price and the issue number is all the same and is a serif font. The sell lines are in a different font so that all the words on the cover didn't start to blend together.

The thing I think that is most successful about my cover is the part at the bottom of the page. I think the main image looks good against the amp and that the ENORF gives the image more of a purpose which is important. I would say the least succesful element of the cover is the top part of the page. I think the writing at the top looks a little crowded and so it splits the audiences attention.

A new skill I acquired whilst doing this task was to use Photoshop. I've used it briefly before but by using it more extensively for this task I was to able to improve and learn new things such as how to layer images and put in a back light for writing. I also leanrt more about the best way to take photographs and the best background to stand models infront of if I'm going to cut it out.