Preliminary Task

This is the front cover for my preliminary task. The task was to design a magazine front cover and contents page for our school - a school magazine. The one thing I wanted to keep consistant in my magazines was the colour scheme. My scheme was yellow(gold), black and white. These colours are simple and I think the gold stands out making the magazine appealing. The black background looks sophisticated so I decided to add a a yellow pattern to the back of the main image to make it more snazzy and funky for the readers as my target audience are secondary school students who prefer colour and pictures to long pieces of text.
My main image is a picture of myself. I didn't bother about the main image to much though I believe I should chosen a better costume as the blue and yellow colour scheme don't really go together. However using a student as the main image was a way to appeal to my audience as they could relate to the student because he is like them.
I made the majority of my text big and easy to read because my target audience are young and want things to catch thier attention. My cell lines included subjects that would appeal to the reader because they would easily be able to relate to it - e.g. Lockers or the school canteen.
The Masthead is big and chunky making it almost a masculine targeted magazine. The silver to black was a really effective technique because I think these colours are strong, bold and silver connotes slick and stylish attitude and most of the students in this school want to be like that.



The contents page is a little different as I didn't include a picture. I didn't include a picture because I wanted to appeal to not only years 7-11 but 6th formers too. 6th formers are still part of this school and don't want to bombared with all these pictures. Having no pictures makes it seem sophisticated so in a way it is subverting the stereotype.
I added a few effects to the text to make it stand out from the black background (e.g. Drop Shadow, Inner Glow, Outer Glow, Gradient Tool).