Stephen Cobb A Level Media Transition Project
Magazine cover analysis:
I chose to analyse this cover as it has a lot of different aspects to it
that contribute to it being an effective cover.
The Image itself is of a high quality; this gives the cover
a more professional feel and also contributes to the aesthetics of the cover.
The fonts used on the cover are largely sized and stand out
due to them being on colours that contrast the text colour; this makes the text
stick out, meaning that the person looking at the magazine cover is more likely
to read that text first. The text “Head of the class” is in a mildly serious
font to connote the achievement and the success of being head of the class;
this is the text matching the font and colours used. The font used at the top
of the cover on the school name and logo is made to be readable but not too eye
catching as the reader does not need to be drawn towards the school name as
much as what the cover is actually about. The font colour used for the
masthead, or title, is made to match that of the schools uniform, this adds a
more formal aspect to the magazine as it adds an identity to the text which links
it to the specific school and this adds an aspect of professionalism. The layout is very simple and clean, it allows
for the reader to see exactly what the creator wants them to see straight away,
it has the logo and branding at the top of the cover which is a very generic
location for it to be, this diverts attention to the masthead which entices the
reader to find out more about what the masthead is saying by reading the
magazine. The photo used has a main focus
on a child in medium close up with some more behind him, slightly out of focus,
this allows for the front child to be associated with the masthead of “head of
the class” as it makes it look like he has more authority and is more important
than the other children in the shot. The word “Class” has been put in a
different font colour and has been made bigger than the rest of the text on the
magazine to make it stand out, this catches the readers eye, making them read
that first which draws attention to the masthead which would commonly be
associated with the main story inside. The picture that was chosen by the
creator shows all three of the children in shot smiling, this gives the cover a
much happier and friendly feel to it, which makes it less formal but the
informal style of photo is conflicted by the very formal font styling, this
confliction of informal and formal makes the cover very effective in catching
attention.
I took inspiration from this cover design for mine by using
the style of a having a curved, stylish top banner with branding inside, I
thought this works well to frame the picture and to leave a lot of space for
everything else, it also gives the cover a very clean, professional look. The
design of my cover follows a modernistic and curved style; this was achieved by
making the shapes in Photoshop. After creating my desired shapes, I realised
that the colour of them was too light and make the cover look very tacky and
badly made, I added a satin effect to make them darker, this made the cover look
better made and more professional as it added variation in the colour. This
links closely to my font choice, I used a font named Nexa Bold as I thought
that it went with the colour scheme and design of my cover very well as it is a
very simplistic but readable font.
The photograph I used was taken by me, on results day, I
used this specific one as it shows a student in medium close up with his
results looking happy, this links with my cover lines and makes the cover all
work together. After adding the photo I realised that it was very dark and gave
of a negative feel so I made it brighter by adjusting the exposure and
saturation, this gave the image a happier feel which is what I wanted for my
cover as it was about successful results so a negative photo would not reflect
on that.
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