Research and planning: College magazine front cover evaluation

This is my front cover for my college magazine. When making my magazine I used In design to create the layout and do my cover then used photoshop to edit  my images which featured in my magazine, for instance I uses photoshop to edit my picture of Alex (my model) and the hyde logo, I had to edit the background from white to black so it would blend in with my background. As time went by my front cover began to look more like a professional magazine instead of a beginners magazine.

When given the task I felt very unconfidant as i wasn't familiar with the soft wear we was going to be using however I was very keen to experiment and challenge myself especially as it was new to me using photoshop and editing then using indesign to create a magazine cover. 

I think that my colour scheme went well as I stuck to the bright blues, yellow, greens and purple/pinks which stand out ontop of my black background. The font style is very clear so people of different intellectual levels can read it clear without struggling with words. It's very organised and not over packed it has a bit of text is big bright fonts to make it eye catching 

One if the more difficult tasks I had to do was putting a bar code into it, because when you put an image onto the page it was hard to move it as it cropped the image when you tried to move itc you had to click shift in order to move the image, which took us a while to find out

Throughout this task I learned how to use photoshop,I first learnt how to colour people's hair then moved onto getting rid of blemishes and more advanced editing and learning how to select an image and copy it without having all the unwanted background, for example we learned how to cut a person out if a background so we could transfer it onto another document.

After a few lessons on indesign It gradually got easier to use as it just became natural to do most of the tasks such as add a text box and add an image, it just got frustrating when you would try to move an Image, it was hard getting into the habit of holding shift while moving a picture. 

In the process of making my college magazine front cover I could have made a better draft which would have allowed me to have more of an idea of what it should contain, for instance I only put 3 main stories onto the front when I could of added about 2-4 more which would have made it look more interesting and more students would have picked it up as the sections could contain the information they wanted to know about college or even just found a section helpful. If I was to re-do this I would make several things better. One of the major issues with the cover is its quite empty so I'd include lots more sections on the front such as how to write a CV and revision tips as it would benefit the students. I would also get a better picture because this one looks odd as he's wearing black pants and the background is black so it looks like he's floating in the middle of my page. Next I'd change my masthead font to something more bold and chunky as it looks like it part of my sections when the masthead is support to attract people to look as it should stand out and catch peoples eyes.