Front Cover, Contents Page & Double Page Spread Practice

Front Cover 

This task was to help me during the process of my research and planning for the practice designs of a front cover, contents page and double page spread. The images used on my front cover are taken from the internet, which I know for my real work, this isn't allowed and all images used have to be your own. I created this on Microsoft word, changing sizes of images to fit the page and look like it was an actual front cover of a magazine. I based my front cover around Top of the Pops and followed the same sort of layout that they use for their magazine. The masthead of the magazine is "Teen Today" which suits with the genre of my magazine as the audience of it is aimed at young teens. My main image is a long-shot, which isn't the sort of shot that is usually used for the main image of a front cover. I now know for my actual coursework to use a mid-shot for my main image so it allows the audience to connect with the model in some way. There is also a lot of white space left around the main image which makes the cover look unprofessional and quite careless. I used the strapline "We're not your average girl band" which will help to grab the readers attention and will want them to learn more about the band and why they are so different to other girl bands.  I also used 6 other straplines to show that there was a range of things happening in the magazine to help draw the audience in. This practice has helped to consider the different aspects of designing a front cover and what sort of affects I can use to make it look more professional and appealing.  If I had to create this again, I would add the date and the price to the magazine as I left them out and these are necessary things that are needed on a front cover.  

Contents Page

Again, just like my contents page I got the ideas of my contents page from the layout of the Top of the Pops contents page. I quite like the layout I used as I think it makes it look more organised and allows the readers to easy find different articles easier. I also decided to split the articles under certain subheadings such as 'Fashion and Win' so that it shows the reader the different features that the magazine are writing about. When doing my research of music magazines, I saw that a lot of them placed the page numbers over some images to show the audience what it was going to be about. I decided to incorporate this idea into my work so it looked more interesting and engaging. Additionally, I highlighted and printed the celebrities names in bold to attract the reader. I included articles that will appeal to my target audience and used a list of competitions and offers to allow them to interact with the magazine. However, when it comes to creating my actual contents page I know to not leave a lot of 'dead' space as this wouldn't happen in an actual publication as it make it looks unprofessional. I will also add a lot more images to make it look more fun and attractive to the reader.

Double Page Spread

When creating my DPS I had to make sure that the page orientation of the word document was in landscape as this is usually the format of how a DPS is presented in a magazine. I wrote the interview in the style a DPS would be written which is in columns, this helps to make it look more presentable and organised. I also decided to bold the questions of the interview and write the answers in a normal font. I plan to use this format in my actual coursework as it allows the reader to follow the interview with a more natural flow and helps to tell interviewer and the artist/band apart. The image on my DPS takes up a full page but I didn't include a caption which I now know is something to be included in my real work in order to make it more informative. When looking back at my DPS, I could have written a lot more so that the text didn't look like there was a lot of left over space and unfinished.