Evaluation of Magazine Front Cover

I have made a front cover of a college magazine called Diva @ Wyke College. I called It Diva because it will appeal to my target audience of female college students. I have chosen female college students as my target audience because 65% of the students at Wyke are females. If I was to make another issue I would then alternate and aim it at the male students but I picked females to do first as over half of Wyke Students are female. I think the name will appeal to the target audience because most teenage students like to think they have a side of them that acts like a diva where they can get what they want.
Before I started making my front cover and contents page I did some researched. I looked at three different college magazines which were the East Riding Magazine, Grimbsy Institution and Secondary Teachers magazine. These magazines showed me what worked well on a front cover and what didn't. They also showed me about the conventions of a magazine like a masthead and a house style for my front page. After this is I started to plan what I was going to put onto my front cover. I thought about different house styles that I could use and these would be the same on my front cover and my contents page because it looks more professional and shows it is still the same magazine, I then did a draft of my layout on publisher to give me an image of what the layout of my front cover will look like. After this I thought about what theme my main picture would be based on, I came up with the themes photography and dance. This is because they are female related subjects which relates to my target audience. I then came up with five different names for my magazine and in the end I chose the name Diva. Next I came up with five feature headings to put around my main image, I chose feature headings that had different subjects, I made some with an academic story behind them and some with a fashion theme behind them so that there was a balance between college magazine and 'gossip' magazine. I then did my first attempts at taking a photo for my main image on my front cover, but once I had posted them I realised that they were not medium close up as the brief stated so I had to re take them. I took several different photos related to a dance theme and to a photography theme. The final photo I chose was in the photography theme. This was because it fitted in with my headline that I had chosen. I chose this headline because a lot of girls at this age like to read and watch about models.
When I was making my front cover it took me a while to figure out how to use photoshop. The first thing I did was interpret my house style of purple, green and white into magazine. I decided to use these colours because these are the college colours. I decided I would have a purple background with a green strip along the bottom and white writing.  I made the purple background but it didn't stand out so I added an effect to it to give it a textured look, and I did the same to the green banner at the bottom. I then put a green glow around my writing to that it tied in more with the green part of my house style. Once I had done this I added my masthead which is Diva @ Wyke College. Once I had done this and got the font right and the size right I thought that it looked too plain so I added the diamond on the top of the I to make it look a bit more like a Diva and outlined it in black so that it stood out more, I used the Wyke logo in my title so that students knew it was a magazine for Wyke College. Next I cut out my picture and put it on my magazine. I decided to have the picture in the middle as it is the main story and make it look like she is taking a photo of the audience and look like she is leaning on the headline of the story. I also outlined this main headline in black so that it stood out and grabbed the audiences' attention. I then added the feature headings to fit around the main image. I used Puff on my magazine by putting a headline about the NUS card on the green banner at the bottom of the page. This would run throughout the magazine because a lot of students have or want one of these cards as it helps with financial problems that a lot of students have.

If I was to change anything about my magazine front cover and contents page then I think I would have spaced out my time better so that I had more time on the construction of my front cover and contents page because I feel that it was slightly rushed. Also I think that I could have done my contents page better, this is because I did not understand what was meant by a mock up of a contents page so I did a draft on publisher and then did a more advance draft on photoshop which showed the house style of the contents page, the font and size of the writing and some of the stories and pictures that would be included on it.