For my preliminary task I have to create a college magazine front cover and a contents page. I also analyzed the front page of a college magazine to be able to better understand the concepts and elements of good magazine design. I used Adobe Photoshop to do these.
The first thing I did was I analyzed the front cover from a Loyola Marymount University. I felt that by doing this I would greatly increase my knowledge of the design thoughts that go into making a front magazine cover.
For this preliminary task I will analyse the cover of a college magazine. I chose to analyse the magazine of the Loyola Marymount University. I chose to use this magazine as it had a far more catching and interesting cover than all the other magazines I had a choice from.
The cover has a very minimalistic approach to getting the information through and it relies on an established reader base and possible recommendations to attract sales rather than outlining everything the magazine has to offer on the cover page.
I will start my analysis on the masthead. This is the name of the magazine that is displayed in a specific and usually unique font that is used throughout the publication. Loyola Marymount University’s masthead is an abbreviation of the university’s name and it uses a large bold font, just off centre. This bold, bright and simple font has connotations that the people that this magazine is aimed at are very bright individuals. The masthead is simple and minimalistic to stay with the style of the magazine which is very minimalistic. The denotation of this is simply to show what the name of the magazine is and the connotation is the simplicity of the masthead, which is a very modern thing. Showing that the readers of this will be very modern people.
The next thing I will focus on is the selling line, which is the text underneath the masthead that outlines the focus of the magazine. This is partly hidden by the main picture which again shows that this is an established magazine with a constant reader base and the magazine does not need to advertise the content of the magazine with lots of text to get sales. The selling line is also very simple, being “the magazine of Loyola Marymount University” with the word “magazine” highlighted, the highlighting of the word magazine emphasises the fact that this is a magazine and not another type of publication. They chose to do that in red because the color scheme of the masthead is white and red and the red highlighting of the word “magazine” is there to stay with the color scheme of the magazine.
The main image in this magazine is a very unusual picture of someone wearing a suit and space helmet. The picture goes along with the cover line to show what the content inside the magazine will be. Again, going with the theme of the magazine the picture is simple and minimalistic without much going on in the picture to distract the viewer. The picture is composed with the subject in the center of the frame using simple and few colors. The sky is a bright blue which has connotations of the California weather which is always sunny (even tho it’s not but people think it is)
The coverlines on this magazine are very simplistic again, going with the whole look of this magazine. They also have the same color scheme. There are symbols to show what the content the coverlines are referring to, this is done to simplify the cover page and quickly and efficiently get the information to the reader. The text on this magazine does not have any anchorage as many others do as there is not much text on the magazine
The target audience of this magazine is mostly the students of the university and possible people who are interested in it. We can see this is aimed at students as one of the coverlines refers to a slideshow of students helping others. This shows that it is aimed at students as magazines sometimes are aimed at a similar demographic and if there are students doing amazing things like going to Mexico to help other they would like to see.
The cover has a very minimalistic approach to getting the information through and it relies on an established reader base and possible recommendations to attract sales rather than outlining everything the magazine has to offer on the cover page.
I will start my analysis on the masthead. This is the name of the magazine that is displayed in a specific and usually unique font that is used throughout the publication. Loyola Marymount University’s masthead is an abbreviation of the university’s name and it uses a large bold font, just off centre. This bold, bright and simple font has connotations that the people that this magazine is aimed at are very bright individuals. The masthead is simple and minimalistic to stay with the style of the magazine which is very minimalistic. The denotation of this is simply to show what the name of the magazine is and the connotation is the simplicity of the masthead, which is a very modern thing. Showing that the readers of this will be very modern people.
The next thing I will focus on is the selling line, which is the text underneath the masthead that outlines the focus of the magazine. This is partly hidden by the main picture which again shows that this is an established magazine with a constant reader base and the magazine does not need to advertise the content of the magazine with lots of text to get sales. The selling line is also very simple, being “the magazine of Loyola Marymount University” with the word “magazine” highlighted, the highlighting of the word magazine emphasises the fact that this is a magazine and not another type of publication. They chose to do that in red because the color scheme of the masthead is white and red and the red highlighting of the word “magazine” is there to stay with the color scheme of the magazine.
The main image in this magazine is a very unusual picture of someone wearing a suit and space helmet. The picture goes along with the cover line to show what the content inside the magazine will be. Again, going with the theme of the magazine the picture is simple and minimalistic without much going on in the picture to distract the viewer. The picture is composed with the subject in the center of the frame using simple and few colors. The sky is a bright blue which has connotations of the California weather which is always sunny (even tho it’s not but people think it is)
The coverlines on this magazine are very simplistic again, going with the whole look of this magazine. They also have the same color scheme. There are symbols to show what the content the coverlines are referring to, this is done to simplify the cover page and quickly and efficiently get the information to the reader. The text on this magazine does not have any anchorage as many others do as there is not much text on the magazine
The target audience of this magazine is mostly the students of the university and possible people who are interested in it. We can see this is aimed at students as one of the coverlines refers to a slideshow of students helping others. This shows that it is aimed at students as magazines sometimes are aimed at a similar demographic and if there are students doing amazing things like going to Mexico to help other they would like to see.