Initial Magazine Designs

Another initial task I was given, was to create mock ups of the front cover, contents page, and double spread I planned in my essay, using simple DTP software and images sourced from the internet. Here are the 3 pieces I produced. 

I was given a grade C for my front cover design, marked down due to the main image not being of a good quality when downloaded from the internet. The advice I received off my teacher on this was to ensure that the images I use in future production tasks are off a high quality so do not appear pixelated as I am now aware this could potentially affect my mark. Despite this I included all of the appropriate conventions and was told by my teacher that I have a good design style developing which can be improved on further when I start to use more advanced software such as Photoshop. 

For my contents page design, I was given a grade B which is because my design work and layout were good here. The advice given to improve my contents page further was to take care when placing text as I have placed it across my models on a few occasions here. As a result of this I will ensure in future tasks I avoid doing this and place text either in the margins or in a different location on the images.

Finally I created a double page spread, following my plan for a main article in my magazine 'Beat'. For this I again received a grade B as overall it was a good design piece, but again I received the same criticism as in my contents page which is to be careful where I place text on an image, because as you can see here I have placed the pull quote obtrusively over one of the faces of the main image. I know now that this makes my design look less professional and will improve this aspect of the layout in future. Another improvement I will make in future is to ensure that my page numbers are placed in the right place, as they should be in the bottom left hand corner of the first page, not the right hand side, and on the second page I have forgotten to include page numbers altogether. This is a necessary convention that I will remember to include in the right position in my work.