Evaluation: Front Cover and Contents Page

Front Cover: 
I believe my finished front page design has professional elements to it which I was aiming for, however, I would think more about the chosen image and what content is going to be shown on the front.
Overall, I am happy with the main image on the font page. I like the effect of having the background blurred to allow the composition of the person to stand out to the audience. I believe this is effective because it allows people to instantly be attracted to the audience. I believe this is effective because it allows the primary part of the image to stand out more vividly to the viewer. This image also fits the 'College' genre of this magazine. Even though I like the style of the image and the composition, I would have liked to think about how the background effects the front cover when going to edit it.

For the front cover I have used two cover lines and one puff to present some relevant information regarding the genre of the magazine. I like how the white text stands out from the blurriness of the background. I have also used white text for my title masthead, complimented with a black glow around it. I kept to a more simple colour scheme because I was aiming for a more professional tone and style which I feel shows.

Even though my cover lines and puff don't make the front cover crowded, I feel their needed to be more information on the front to give a more 'attracting' effect to this magazine. I felt this wasn't achieved because when I created my flat plans, I didn't put any information about what the main and secondary cover lines were going to say. So when it came to designing my final design, I had problems with what I was actually going to say.

I chose to use 'College Life' as my title masthead because I felt this name had a professional and simple effect which I felt was relevant to this magazine genre. I originally had 'Bodmin Bulletin' for my masthead but I felt this name wasn't professional enough for the style of College magazine I was aiming for.

Contents Page:
For my contents page, I tried to keep the same style and colour scheme to allow the professional feel to carry through the magazine. I kept the contents page lay-out more simple because I didn't want to overcrowd this page with irrelevant information. I decided to place all the images on one side of the page and the text on the other. This allowed me to clearly link certain pieces of information to the matching image so the reader can visually see what the information is showing.

The colour palette of my contents page uses more primary colours compared to my front page. I chose to use more primary colours because I felt the magazine, even though it needed a professional feel, had to show the target audience and the College genre of this magazine. This is why I chose to use a more primary colour palette, so I could link it to the specific 'College student' target audience and I believe using bright colours shows this.

The title masthead of this magazine I also kept simple which also includes a small text print of the magazines masthead. I chose to put the magazine masthead in a smaller font to try and give the magazine that professional feel I was wanting to achieve. Different genres of magazines have used this style of having the title in the contents page and I was hoping that it would add to the magazines professional feel.

Overall, I am happy with the lay-put of the contents page complimented with the images and text shown. Next time however, I would include images which feature different students or settings to give the magazine a more interesting appeal to it.