Planning My Magazine CoverBefore planning my magazine cover I examined other school magazines and decided what I liked and disliked about them*. I also decided to take the photo for my main cover image before thinking about the positioning of the masthead, coverlines, etc.Below are some of my other ideas for a main cover. I decided against using them for various reasons (too informal/irrelevant, I wasn’t satisfied with the pose/background, too awkward/posed, bad positioning).

*(see “Comparing School Magazine covers” from the 5th of October)

The Cover Image I Will Use

My model is Shelby Yearwood. I made sure she wore smart clothing which didn’t look constricting and I let her keep her earphones on to relate to my audience (perhaps I should have made them look less messy, but I like the fact that it doesn’t look deliberate).

Since my magazine will be specifically for St. Marylebone, it may seem pointless to have a student on the cover who attends another school. To fix this I will make one of the coverlines say something like “Oxford University student Shelby Yearwood talks about her 6th Form experiences.” so that my choice of model is relevant. An interview with a University student who attended a Sixth Form College would probably be quite valuable to a present 6th Form student as many of their worries and questions can be answered (especially if the previous issue of the magazine had announced this and asked for questions to be sent in by readers specifically for the interview).

Most of the text is in the left-third to interest someone glancing at it. Some magazines use their main cover image to attract an audience, but I will use my coverlines. My bar code will go here just like all conventional magazines.

These coverlines will be various colours and fonts to be relevant to what they say and be visually appealing.

I shot the main cover image outdoors, with a casual and bright setting rather than a photoshopped and perfect one. This helps the reader feel more connected to the magazine because it is like real life. It is shot at eye-level with my model looking into the camera to connect with the reader.

The mast-head should have an interesting, unique font which is readable and can be easily recognised as the magazine’s font. The name of my magazine will by “Marylebone Monthly”

The dateline will say something like “Autumn Term 2009” to relate to the school year.

My Magazine Cover PlanI made this using

Microsoft Publisher as a basic plan for when I’m ready to make the cover properly on Photoshop.

I noticed some problems with my layout on the original image (for example, the use of the ‘left third) so I decided to flip it horizontally so that everything would be positioned how I wanted.