College Magazine Step By Step Front Cover

Steve Staff

This was my first stage of design for my front cover. I cropped the picture down so it wasnt the entire background, I did this because the question mark in the photo was getting in the way of the masthead. The photo has been partially spot healed so it looks more professional and the bottom of the page has been filled with a simple black block. The font has come from www.1001freefonts.com and hasnt been modified in any way yet, it has just been cut out and positioned at the top of the page.

In this screen grab you can see that I have re-sized the photograph to make it full page, also I have stretched it so the black wall on the left hand side in the previous slide can no longer be seen. The font has been completely changed although this new font has come from the same website as before. I have placed a line running underneath the masthead to make it appear a little more separate from the rest of the page. Also I have added a tagline which needs to be edited because at the moment it is hard to read. To get the pink shadow on the text I just duplicated the layer, changed the colour and moved the new layer slightly to the right of the old one.

I have gone for another complete change here, the title is different, the font is different and the colour of the top of the page is different. I changed the title because I thought this one was more appropriate and easier to remember, also I didnt like the way the other title looked in this font and I really wanted to use this font for my magazine. The tagline is gone for now so it doesnt look so busy and I changed the colour to white because it makes the cover brighter and gives it more tone variation.

As you can see for this slide I have changed the background colour again because white didnt seem very professional. Also I have re-sized the picture again to give me some room at the bottom of the page because I plan to use this space for some more text, possibly adverts or an issue number. At the top of the page I have added a barcode that I got from Google images, a price and I have put the tagline back underneath the masthead. I simplified the text for the tagline so it is easier to read and goes better with the other fonts on the page.

The only change on this page is the text in the middle of the page, the word University has been done in a new font again taken from www.1001freefonts.com although I have manipulated it so that it is smaller and slightly off centre so It doesnt look to simplistic. As well as this the colour has been changed to give the page more brightness and colour. The text underneath has been done in a font taken from Photoshop itself, I have changed the angle of this also as well as the colour and I have placed a simple red box behind it to make it stand out more and it gives the whole section more colour and tone.

Here I have simply added more text regarding what else is going to be included in the magazine. This has all been done with the same font but the colour of each sentence is different to show that they are about different subjects.

All I have done here is made use of the free space at the bottom of the page by putting some large text along the bottom (which is also used as an extra incentive to buy the magazine) and I have put an issue number in the corner, to make the magazine seem more real. Both of the fonts used have come from the list in Photoshop and I have made use of the bottom left third by putting the word Free there which would hopefully interest people whore just glancing through magazines.