Preliminary Task - Print part 2

Final Magazine Cover
After creating a practice magazine cover and learning about what is included in a magazine cover, it was time to create a official version of our magazine. We could change the subject of the magazine or keep it the same. We were encouraged to experiment with other things.


After quickly labelling our test magazine cover, I was now able to create a final version of the magazine. I've decided to change many of the coverlines, the main image and most of the other aspects to the magazine cover also.

Inspiration/Final Cover
A lot of my inspiration came from the Vogue magazines, especial the one to the left. My goal for this magazine was to show high fashion within a college campus and I felt like taking inspiration from Vogue was the way to do this.

For this magazine cover I will use a female model as opposed to the male model last time. the reason for this is because stereotypically, females seem to have an eye for fashion over men. The style of the magazine will be very simplistic as I feel like to promote high fashion you need to be professional and I feel that conventions like puffs will take away from the professionalism of the cover.

The colour scheme will be dependant on what the model will be wearing, which will be Autumn colours as the magazine is about Autumn fashion. The texts will be mainly Sans Serif fonts to keep with the professionalism and simplism. The background of the cover will replicate the inspiration and therefore will be mainly grey. I believe that this colour allows for almost anything to stand out when contrasted with it. The coverlines will mainly be about fashion for both within and outside of the college. Finally, the classic conventions, like a barcode and an issue number, will also be added.

To create this magazine cover I used Photoshop and also images taken during a Photoshoot.

This is the final magazine cover. This cover's theme is fashion which is shown with many of the conventions.
The main cover lines have a semantic field of fashion as they use many words such as: 'Collection', 'Looks' and 'Autumn'. All of these words link to the fashion industry and therefore, the theme of the magazine is set from the coverlines.

I have used a range of literary techniques to make certain words or phrases stand out to the audience. For example: The word 'Celebrity' has been made bold and bigger than the text below it which makes it stand out and grabs the readers attention. The word celebrity itself is a word that makes the readers want to read the cover and maybe also the magazine as celebrities are a popular thing in the media. Certain words such as 'All' have also been altered to stand out. This word has been made both Bold and Italic which makes this word stand out even further to the audience. Other words such as 'Improve' and 'Your' also grab the audience's attention because they're addressing the audience directly by using personal pronouns. Furthermore, the cover lines also include a student of Harlow College which will draw in the target audience to read it as one of their fellow peers are featured in a magazine. As the main image is also of the student, the other students will be even more intrigued and will then pick up the magazine to find out why the student is in the magazine. Finally, the coverlines also used a number which is one of the largest pieces of text on the cover. Using a number draws in readers and makes them question what the number is about.

The title of the magazine itself 'Harlow College' is the biggest text on the cover. This draws in the target audience, which is college students, as they may be intrigued to know what is happening around them in their own college. Furthermore, there may be other people who see the title of 'Harlow' and would then be inclined to purchase the magazine as it's about their own town and not just the college.

The Main Coverline also adds to the semantic field of fashion with the word 'Runway'. The Main Coverline draws in the reader and also challenges them by using a question - 'Got what it takes?'. This would make the readers intrigued yet again and then would therefore make more people read the magazine for more information about the 'Runway Week'.

Most of the text is very simplistic which makes for a larger audience as everybody would be able to make sense of the writing would therefore read more of the magazine. The reason that I have used a simple font for most of the text is to add to the verisimilitude of the magazine and it's theme. I feel like the fashion industry uses simple fonts to make the magazine easy to read, to be visually appealing and to give the impression of professionalism. Despite this, there are a few different fonts on the page. These fonts can be found in the Main Coverline, the Name of the model and also on the Masthead of the magazine. These fonts are very similar to my inspiration and because of this I feel like my magazine succeeds as a fashion magazine.

The background of the image is also very similar to my inspiration as both my magazine cover and Vogue's use the colours grey and white formed together to create a gradient. This gradient makes the magazine more visually appealing and easier on the eye. Furthermore, I finished off the magazine by adding a couple of other small conventions like the Barcode, the Date and the Issue Number. The reason as to why I didn't add a Puff is as follows. I believe that if I added a Puff to the cover, it would take away some of the verisimilitude of a magazine cover and would therefore make the cover look unprofessional and awkward.

Overall, I feel like I have created a successful magazine cover that hits the theme of fashion and is also about Harlow College through the conventions, colour scheme and through other literary techniques.