The font I used for my masthead was the‘Brannboll Ny’ font, taken from a website called, ‘Dafont.com’. I chose this font because it looked very elegant and caught my eye immediately. I initially decided to use the colour blue as my masthead as it would resemble the colour of my models’ jeans and student pass. However, when I applied the colour on my masthead, it looked quite dull and not at all professional. I thereafter experimented with colours and finally came to a conclusion of using 3 main colours which I know will look good together when incorporated; black, white and red. These colours, in my opinion, will make my magazine cover stand out and grab attention of the reader, as well as making my magazine name look vibrant. To make my masthead seem more striking, I chose to add effects . I added a ‘drop shadow’ and an ‘inner shadow’, which resulted in my masthead looking more effective, as well as giving it a more 3D look.

The main theme for my magazine is to make sixth form students aim to get themselves settled and organised, and aspire to get the best grades they possibly can. As my magazine cover also includes ways of balancing out social life with college life, I decided to include this on my front cover as well, just below the masthead. For this, I used the font, ‘Napa Heavy SP’. I also experimented with what colours I should use for these 3 subtitles. I started off with the colour black, as I thought it would look classy and would intrigue the reader, however, it did not result in the way I was hoping for and made my front cover seem like it was aimed at the lower years. Taking this into consideration, I decided to change the font colour to white which I felt worked well with the main image. It stood out and was clear to see and read. I also included straight lines in between the texts, in order to separate them. This was effective as it made my magazine front cover look more professional and appealing. However, the text looked like it was lacking something, in order to make it more prominent. Therefore, I included effects, such as ‘drop shadow’ and ‘bevel and emboss’. By doing this, the text seemed to pop out and look effective.

To make my magazine cover look more realistic, I intended to include a graphic. I used a star shape which I copied and pasted from Microsoft PowerPoint. I edited the star shape before pasting it onto my front cover, by making the shape outline red, to match the colour of my masthead. However, when I pasted this graphic on the magazine, it did not look as apparent as I would have liked it to be and also, it did not seem attention-grabbing. I then planned to edit the graphic on PowerPoint, by making the outline thicker and bolder, so that it would intrigue the reader. I then included a text in the graphic, which read ‘exclusive’. I used the font ‘Napa Heavy SP’ for this text and planned to use the colour black, for the text. This made the graphic stand out, as the red outline and black text complimented each other. Although the graphic looked good as a whole, I felt there was something else I needed to include to make the graphic and the text in it, to look distinguished. Taking this into consideration, I thought of changing the ‘shape fill’ colour from transparent, to white, which resulted in the graphic looking bolder and the text in it, looking more obvious. I also included another graphic on my front cover; a black circle. I chose to use this because I thought it would be eye-catching and would intrigue the reader. I also included a text in the graphic which read, ‘Free timetable inside’. I planned to use this text because I feel that it is a good selling point and an excellent way to grab the attention of the reader.

For the pull quote, I used the font ‘Undercurrent BTN’ and initially came up with the idea of using the colour black for this text. I placed it diagonally, towards the bottom of the magazine, where model’s hands were. I decided to go for the colour black, because I thought it would look fancy , and also because o f the background I had put the text in front; the model’s white T-shirt would help to ‘bring out’ the text. However, this did not go according to plan, as it became difficult to see and read. I then added effects to the pull quote, in order to make it more visible. The effects I used were the same as the effects I had used for the 3 subtitles; ‘drop shadow’ and ‘bevel and emboss’. I came up with the decision of continuing to use the same effects because this would make my magazine cover look cohesive, as well as attractive. Despite this change, the pull quote was still very hard to read. I then thought of adding a coloured box behind the text, and changing the colour of the text. I first added a black box behind the text and changed the colour of the text to white. This did not work well together because the black background overpowered the whole front cover, resulting in the reader losing focus from the main image. Therefore, I decided to change the box colour to red and also lowered the opacity, which created the transparent effect.

I decided to include an issue number on my magazine cover, in order to make it look more professional and realistic. The font I used for this was ‘Hobo Std’ and the initial colour I planned to use was black. The reason being was because I thought that as my main scheme included 3 main colours, I should use all of them evenly, and not use one more than the others. However, when I experimented with this colour, it was quite hard to see, due to the background and therefore, it could not be read. Taking this into consideration, I changed the font to red, to match it to my masthead. To make the font look even better, I chose to add the effects ‘drop shadow’ and ‘bevel and emboss’. This was effective because it stood out more and was much clearer and easier to read. I used the same font, colour and effects for my main coverline as it helped it to become prominent and also to grab the attention of the reader. The model’s name was typed in the colour red to make it bold, and the rest of the text was in black. I chose to go with these two colours because I thought that both these colours are very daring and vibrant.

To make my magazine cover look more professional, I intended to include a puff, as it would help engage the reader. In this coverline, the ‘Top 10’ has been typed in the same colour as the masthead, to make it look cohesive. However, the font I have used is ‘Napa Heavy SP’ and also added some effects to make it stand out. The effects used are ‘drop shadow’ and ‘inner shadow’ as these help to create the text more visible and 3D. The rest of the coverline consists of the font ‘Hobo Std’ and uses the colour white. My initial idea was to make the rest of the coverline black, however, this made it difficult to read the font and was not as prominent as I thought it would have been. Therefore, I changed the font colour to white, which made the text seem more noticeable. I did not add any effects to this because it would have started to overpower the puff, and would not look too good together.

Another coverline I have included on my magazine cover consists of the 3 colours I had chosen, to be used. In this coverline, I used two different fonts as I thought that it would make the coverline look unique and help to attract the audience. The fonts included in this coverline are ‘Hobo Std’ and ‘Napa Heavy SP’. I decided to use these fonts because I did not want all my coverlines to use the same font and appear identical to each other. The use of different fonts made my magazine look efficient and would help to intrigue the reader. I also played around with the font sizes to see which one would fit in with my magazine cover, overall. I came to a conclusion that I should make the word ‘quiz’ bigger than the rest of the words, as including a quiz in my magazine would be a good selling point and would immediately grab the attention of the reader. I also changed the colour of this word to black, in order to make it more prominent and easy to be read. On my magazine front cover, I have also included a barcode to make my magazine look the same quality as some of the well-known magazines.