Preliminary Task - Print

In my Preliminary task I had to create a front cover for a new School/College magazine, which would feature a photograph in medium close-up shot of a student including appropriately laid-out text and a masthead.

What worked well

- It was my intention to make the magazine cover bright as this brings interest and entices the audience towards the magazine. This also added to the theme of the magazine as it brought out a sense of college spirit.

- I co-ordinated the colours into and blue and white colour scheme, this was because I thought it best reflected my target audience as it looked fresh and clear to read. This also represented my genre as it was edging towards the theme of winter and snow and so made the magazine cover crisp and bold.      

- I believe my title helps create a brand image as it will look easily recognizable to the student audience as it looks academic in that it looks hand written in neat italics. I also included a slogan underneath my title which brings back the theme that this is a college magazine that is made just for students. 

- My image of the model photographed was a clear medium shot which included the models upper torso. This gives direct address to the audience as it is clear he is a student and can relate to the audience.        

What went wrong

- I had a very small variety of fonts, the only difference in font was my title and subheadings. This made my magazine less visually interesting and eye-catching as the font was plain and all identical. However I did keep to the 'house style' as I had stuck to the same fonts. 

- My subheadings were quite poor and I don't think they advertised the magazine well as they are not interesting enough to appeal to the student audience. 

- I had also not included a date and barcode onto my front cover which would have helped in the realistic appeal on the college magazine.     

- As I only used InDesign to create my prelim task the image used on the cover  does not look professional as the model has red-eye and unwanted shadows around him, this may be because of the flash on the camera. However when I am creating my final project I will use Photoshop to edit the image.