examples of magazine covers

examples of magazine covers

This image is the unedited cover photograph that I took of two classmates for my student magazine, I thought that it was a bit dull and boring but I was a bit lost when it came to ways of improving the cover photo. From researching other student magazines such as TNS Magazine I noticed that they used bright, contrasting colour schemes to bring the cover photo to life, they also used fairly bright photographs so I planned to edit the quality of my photograph and make it brighter.

TNS Magazine

I decided to make my student magazine a seasonal, Christmas themed, magazine. This meant that initially I would use "Christmassy" colours, e.g. red, gold and green. It also meant that my features and articles would be based around things that were seasonal. I thought that this would be appropriate because the Christmas season is relatable to most people and students would want to know what events were occuring throughout the festive season.

music magazine research

Music Magazine Research

Our next Media task is to create a music magazine based around a chosen genre of music.

I personally listen to a large range of music from rock to witch house and synth pop music, to narrow down what genre of music that I choose to base my magazine around I will try to research a range of different genres so I have quite a few options to choose from.

Rock Magazines

The images of rock magazine covers that I found generally were designed to represent the stereotypical "Rock" community and target audience, the covers of the magazines had a tough, edgy appearance and featured bold yet moody and dark colour schemes. The fonts used were stylised to look worn out and bold.

One thing that I did notice about the magazines was the covers changed with each different cover star, perhaps because they each created a different atmosphere on a cover due to the kind of music that they produced. For example the Kerrang cover above featured Jared Leto from 30 Seconds to Mars, the colour schemes and fonts used on this particular cover were quite clean cut and futuristic, reflecting the attitudes of the band.

Electronic/Dance Magazines

Electronic/synth and dance magazines all have very bright and colourful front covers, often with pictures of people dancing and partying which reinforces the idea that people who listen to synth/electronic music party hard. The fonts that are used are very futuristic and bold, exaggerating the 'electronic' theme.

magazine final drafts

magazine final drafts

This is the final draft of my student magazine cover and contents page.

Overall I didn't really like my magazine at all, I think that the design and colour scheme was perhaps a bit tacky and I should have chosen not to do a Christmas based magazine. I think if I where to do this task again I would definitely take a better cover photograph and experiment with many different colour schemes instead of going straight into one without any other potential options.