Preliminary Task Front Cover (Final)

This video shows the step by step construction process of the preliminary cover I have produced. The task                          was to produce a school magazine cover and contents page.

                                                                     Front Cover:

Producing the cover:

Base Photograph -

The photograph which was selected to be used on the front cover was taken using a basic camera which was borrowed from the schools supplies. The model is a sixth form student and was selected due to his smartness and availability. Although I would have liked him to have looked slightly happier in the photograph, I believe that the picture I selected emphasises the seriousness of school but brings it to a more relatable level due to his youth and natural charm. The location in which I decided to take this photo was outside one of the schools main buildings. The contrast of the building and lush plant life displayed shows a connection between education and nature, thus bringing appeal to the magazine and boosting the image of the school.

 Photograph Editing -

The photo I was left with was far from perfect and therefore required a lot of editing.

To begin with I blurred the background of the picture so as to draw the majority of the audience’s attention to the model and text.

Afterward I chose to airbrush out some minor features, these were the Nike logo on the models jacket (which was to avoid copyright infringement and unwanted product placement) and some undesirable facial features (spots, moles, etc). I was able to achieve this using Adobe Photoshop’s blur and clone tools (I would clone the texture of another part of the model, place it in a new area and then blur the edges to provide a seamless and professional looking effect).

The final step of the editing was colour correction. Using colour correction, I enhanced some of the more noticeable features of the model and was able to remove a few unnecessary shadows. The main changes were making the eyes a purer blue and bring more colour to the lips. Unfortunately I think that I overdid this, resulting in a lack of subtleness and therefore leaving the picture with some unrealistic features (eyes a slightly unnatural colour and lips which look as though they have had lipstick applied to them).

Final Touches -

To finish up, I added a title, text, barcode and the Schools logo.

I made the title (SGS Weekly, with SGS standing for St Gregory’s School) black and a large font size so as to provide contrast to the background. Adding to this, I gave it a yellow outline which draws attention and indicates that it is the name of the newspaper. Inspired by various other magazine layouts such as ‘Sugar’, ‘Q’, ‘Seventeen’ and ‘Karrang’ I placed the title at the top of the page, behind the model. After this I added the recommendation “Best Magazine in Kent” from an imaginary person named Dave, giving it the feel that it has been designed and reviewed by local talent. Furthermore, a brief list of the magazines features has been given (‘latest trips, exams time tables, event dates and much more’), a main feature (‘New Uniform!’) and an enticing competition for a £10 book voucher prize. Afterwards, the schools logo was placed in the bottom left corner of the page so as to give the magazine a branding and make it easily identifiable for the readers. The barcode was added to give the impression that the paper is authentic and is able to be commercially distributed.

Errors -

After publishing this cover, I realised that I had made a few basic errors. These are as follows:

Spelling errors. In the list of features, I accidentally wrote ‘Events Dates’ instead of what I intended to write which was ‘Event Dates’. Despite the error being small and largely unnoticeable, the extra S lowers the magazines reputation as it gives the impression that the magazine will be riddled with spelling mistakes therefore lowering the overall enjoyment of the audience.

This has since been corrected.

The other error I made was over editing the facial feature to the extent of making them unrealistic.