final design of college magazine

This is my finished front cover for a student/college magazine. I opted for the colour as I feel it draws they eye slightly better that the non colour magazine and non colour does not fit the feel of the magazine. I added some more splashes of colour within the lines of text to give some more colour variation and to slightly draw the eye of the potential buyer. I have also added the tag line at the bottom to give the magazine a slogan and give a slightly more professional feel and border the bottom of the front cover. 

Drafts of magazine

These are my draft front covers. I have chosen to experiment with the use of a colored main image and a black and white main image to see how it would effect the professional appearance of my magazine. I feel both have their merits but the colour does seem to draw the eye slightly more which would allow it to stand out slightly more on the magazine and normally the front cover and its main image is the thing that will draw a potential buyer to that specific magazine, so colour seems to be the way forward with this particular product.

Color Scheme

Here is a selection of the colour pallet which i will use on the front cover of my college magazine. Due to previous research i have seen that a limited colour pallet can create effective front covers, thta do not look overcrowded or ghastly. Due to this I plan on only using the strong red to cut though the black and white which will be used to contrast against each other to allow for an effective, professional, magazine cover. 

College magazine conventions

Mass Head - This is the name of the magazine. It usually takes up 20% of the magazines front cover. This is placed at the top to allow the magazine to rack with others.

Main Story -  Main story would relate to The main image. Normally the text would be larger or bold to draw the attention to the reader and to show that this is the main article within the magazine. 

Main image - The main image is the most important part of any front cover of a magazine. This is used to draw attention to the reader/potential buyer. The main image usually dictates what the colour scheme of the magazine will be as clashing colours 

URL - Shows the users where they can get more information online and can contact the company via Email. 

Barcode - Allows cashier to scan when purchasing. This is more of a general magazine convention as college magazines are normally free. 

Feature Stories - these are other stories within the magazine which have small tag lines to give the reader/potential buyer a view into the contents of the magazine. 

Breif

To design a College magazine front cover and mock up contents page. Any images used on the front cover must be original images.

Initial ideas

Looking at other magazine's front covers it had lead to me to decide on having a very strong color scheme, but with quite a minimal use of color variation. This allows the main image of the magazine to stand out. Looking at magazines such as vogue, Rolling Stone and TIME; A red, white and black color scheme would seem to be the the most popular color scheme to use. Red would be used for the magazines title/name to stand out against the white and black colors and draw attention to the magazine with its bold contrasting colors.  Any sub headings and information on the magazines content would variate from black and white text. I feel a use of only a couple of images would by the most beneficial for my front cover as they can cause the cover to look cluttered and draw away attention from the main image on the cover.

Below are some examples of magazine covers which i have used to formulate my initial ideas.