Front Cover

For my front cover i began by designing two mastheads, i made two so that i would have a choice.

After looking at both and their pros and cons, i went with the second masthead. I made this choice because I believe that the second one showed more imagination, I designed it in the style of a London road sign, and although i realise that the paper is not local for london I thought that it was a good idea as it showed that in my magazine I would not be unimaginative. I then created a rough guide for my layout by looking at a newspaper which i though was set out well, i then traced over it so i had guidelines.

I then proceeded to add my masthead to an a4 page.

I then added boxes and a headline so to set my layout so that i would not keep referring back to the guidelines i had made. I put a rectangle under the masthead and broke it up into three sections where i would put information about articles inside the paper. I put a grey box to he left of the page where i would put one small article and an advert, i used a grey background so that the page would not look boring and there would be an obvious space between that article and the main one. I also put another box where there will be an advert.

I now built around this template, adding an image to go with the main headline, along with text.

The picture was one taken on holiday, it is large and bright, so to draw attention to the newspaper. The font of the text was different to that of the masthead and the headline, this is because it would add some variety and make it less boring. I then added an advert at the bottom of the page with a picture of a friend at a nightclub. I also added another advert for a local hair salon with a picture of a friend of mine. I also filled the grey box with an article and a picture of my friends in a nightclub.

I then added text to the three boxes underneath the masthead.

I chose to use red lettering so it would match the red part of the masthead, it would also make the page a little more interesting. I felt that the text on its own in the boxes seemed a bit unimaginative so i added pictures to add colour and fill up the white spaces which looked quite unprofessional. For the picture in the box on the right i decided to put a picture that was too big for the box so it would fill the space in the top right hand corner, the picture is effectively a silhouette which i made using the polygonal lasso tool, i took this photo at a fashion and art exhibition that i attended. I also added a barcode to the bottom right hand of the page.

My front cover was now completed, i believe that it looks professional and readable. This is because of the use of colours, font, and the simple layout.