I started my creation by making the cover on Adobe Photoshop, leaving a gap for the photograph.
I began with the background, and trialled a couple of shades of grey before deciding on a light grey as to not draw attention away from my other background feature. I then created my star with 4 chunky blocks, and I also decided that by duplicating it and making it slightly more transparent, it can give a 3D effect which I hope will provide the connotation of the future and contemporary style to the reader, an idea that I've tried to encode in my whole cover. I think that the general design of the background is very abstract as I'd like to leave it unmotivated and open to interpretation, but possibly can be interpreted that our school provides colour to a grey day or that our new school is putting us on the map.
I then moved onto designing the masthead, which I started by browsing downloadable fonts on dafont.com to find the perfect font. I initially had the idea of a large pixel font which is a recognisable code connecting to the future, as this would allow me to instantly position the reader into thinking the magazine is looking into the future of the school. However I found these fonts didn't really stand out, so I opted for a bubble style font. This may suggest more of a retro theme, but I think the way I've warped it and the fact the "Pi" is a filled in bubble font, it does help it bring it up to date. I also think some students may find this font holds some of their personal identity, as a lot of kids use this style as decorative writing.
I then moved on to writing my cover lines. I chose a sans serif clean cut font, which happens to be incredibly similar to the Pepsi font. I think this may evoke a feeling of familiarity, even subconsciously, so that the reader feels as if they recognise the font and will therefore feel very comfortable with the magazine. If they fully notice what font it is, it helps that it's from current popular culture. For the language of my cover line, I mostly kept them the same as I initially planned, with a few slight changes, but it was my intention to use words that the students will be familiar with for the same reason as I chose recognisable fonts. "Colour in", "injection", "a/w 08" and "monky" are all things that might hold relevance to students surrounding both school life and their interests. I also applied cliches such as "An injection of colour", "School's not a fashion show" and "New -something-, new rules", because I hope it will help conform to conventions of other magazines my audience may read. I hope they don't take an oppositional position, where they believe the cliches don't work very well and so they find them cheesy and common. Most of my cover lines are for surveillance when applied to the uses and gratifications theory of Blulmer and Katz, as my own personal value is I believe that is the main reason for a school magazine.
I was then able to start work on my image. I first made the picture that I wanted my model student to hold in the photo. I had planned on making it look like a scientific evolution book or poster, but in order to stick to the deadline I felt I didn't have enough time to make this. Also I'm not sure it would have been very clear on the cover so I just settled for the second best option of a basic image on paper. I then printed this for my model to hold, but edited it later to make it more defined and obvious.
I took my photographs against a blank wall, so it would be easy to cutout later as I just wanted to have her against the background of the cover, hoping that it will be decoded as her not being in reality, but a future world. This is also why I chose to have faded copies of the photo piled up behind her to give it a virtual reality feel and to mimic the effect some video games use when characters move fast.
The expression and body language of my model is quite open, as she appears to be a friendly, normal student with no offensive features which would look hostile on the front cover of a magazine. However, this interpretation would depend hugely on what kind of student read it, as different stereotypes and social groups would receive it differently because of their individual circumstances, as according to the 1990s reception theory. I wanted her expression to intrigue and show confusion, hopefully to invite the readers into the magazine for everything to be explained and put right.
So after combining all these elements together and making some slight nudges to the layout, I finished my new school magazine cover.
I began with the background, and trialled a couple of shades of grey before deciding on a light grey as to not draw attention away from my other background feature. I then created my star with 4 chunky blocks, and I also decided that by duplicating it and making it slightly more transparent, it can give a 3D effect which I hope will provide the connotation of the future and contemporary style to the reader, an idea that I've tried to encode in my whole cover. I think that the general design of the background is very abstract as I'd like to leave it unmotivated and open to interpretation, but possibly can be interpreted that our school provides colour to a grey day or that our new school is putting us on the map.
I then moved onto designing the masthead, which I started by browsing downloadable fonts on dafont.com to find the perfect font. I initially had the idea of a large pixel font which is a recognisable code connecting to the future, as this would allow me to instantly position the reader into thinking the magazine is looking into the future of the school. However I found these fonts didn't really stand out, so I opted for a bubble style font. This may suggest more of a retro theme, but I think the way I've warped it and the fact the "Pi" is a filled in bubble font, it does help it bring it up to date. I also think some students may find this font holds some of their personal identity, as a lot of kids use this style as decorative writing.
I then moved on to writing my cover lines. I chose a sans serif clean cut font, which happens to be incredibly similar to the Pepsi font. I think this may evoke a feeling of familiarity, even subconsciously, so that the reader feels as if they recognise the font and will therefore feel very comfortable with the magazine. If they fully notice what font it is, it helps that it's from current popular culture. For the language of my cover line, I mostly kept them the same as I initially planned, with a few slight changes, but it was my intention to use words that the students will be familiar with for the same reason as I chose recognisable fonts. "Colour in", "injection", "a/w 08" and "monky" are all things that might hold relevance to students surrounding both school life and their interests. I also applied cliches such as "An injection of colour", "School's not a fashion show" and "New -something-, new rules", because I hope it will help conform to conventions of other magazines my audience may read. I hope they don't take an oppositional position, where they believe the cliches don't work very well and so they find them cheesy and common. Most of my cover lines are for surveillance when applied to the uses and gratifications theory of Blulmer and Katz, as my own personal value is I believe that is the main reason for a school magazine.
I was then able to start work on my image. I first made the picture that I wanted my model student to hold in the photo. I had planned on making it look like a scientific evolution book or poster, but in order to stick to the deadline I felt I didn't have enough time to make this. Also I'm not sure it would have been very clear on the cover so I just settled for the second best option of a basic image on paper. I then printed this for my model to hold, but edited it later to make it more defined and obvious.
I took my photographs against a blank wall, so it would be easy to cutout later as I just wanted to have her against the background of the cover, hoping that it will be decoded as her not being in reality, but a future world. This is also why I chose to have faded copies of the photo piled up behind her to give it a virtual reality feel and to mimic the effect some video games use when characters move fast.
The expression and body language of my model is quite open, as she appears to be a friendly, normal student with no offensive features which would look hostile on the front cover of a magazine. However, this interpretation would depend hugely on what kind of student read it, as different stereotypes and social groups would receive it differently because of their individual circumstances, as according to the 1990s reception theory. I wanted her expression to intrigue and show confusion, hopefully to invite the readers into the magazine for everything to be explained and put right.
So after combining all these elements together and making some slight nudges to the layout, I finished my new school magazine cover.
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