First Magazine Cover Design!!

Hey guys! Here is an image of my first magazine cover design! This is for a presentation in english, aiming at the design of the modern magazine. This serves as a visual for my group. Heh. This is still in phase one.

If you need an explanation, feel free to ask. C&C welcome.

And here it is!!

http://zanith56.hypermart.net/ENGL2_...rI_FNL1sml.jpg

And yes, the magazine is to be printed in landscape, not portrait. The magazine is to appeal to basically nerds with interest in sports, computers, graphics, literature, featuring small departments writing about films and gaming.

[p.s. Cargile]

What about ads that are formated in portrait?

Text is too close to the edges again.

Use a different font for "world intellect" it just looks wrong with the rest of the design and wrong to have a script face tracked out so much.

"The New g5" is sitting alone by itself and puts the page off balance. Put it under "Latest Nerd Brain Candy". Also, the G should be capitalised. Watch your letter spacing as well.

Increase the size of your headlines, also change the font; you're using Arial it looks like? Generic fonts are a no no. Play with variations in size as well. Make the emphasis words "pop". Maybe mix in other colours.

The whole snowboarder thing and uridian design thing are too close together, give them more room, not only from each other but more room in between the headlines and the descriptive text. The apostrophe in snowboarders should be curly—this ’ opposed to this '.

Also, use drop shadows sparingly!

A magazine that says it's about graphics and design needs to have good design itself. I like the idea of doing it landscape, that's pretty interesting and will appeal to designers for the novelty sense, but you'll need more to keep them. I like the up close view of the G5, it's abstract and adds visual appeal, but it is completely different from the rest of the layout. Infact, there's nothing really unifying in the layout.

The main logotype is not only different from the magazine, but from itself. The colour scheme is off. You've got cool silver in the G5 which is the main image, but everything else is yellow with red and orange mixed in.

More later if I think of anything.

Thanks for the vote of confidence. Might wanna work on how you put things. Your assistance is well noted, but the way you put it . . . Ah. Does not work so well.

Dave, COOL!!!! you're bringing out your magazine!!! I hope it works well out!

If I may say something though, make it less "vague"
people don't have much time and you've only a split second in which they look at it in which you've to draw their attention to your magazine.

consider expanding your potential audience by dropping the sports bit from your title too btw.
you can write about it, but don't be pushing yourself into a box so little by writing that on the cover. especially when you start out you would like an audience as big as possible. If you write that on your cover, people will think "Oh I'm not a lsports enthousiast and I'm not a 3d enthousiast either. I won't buy it" if they see just two of them they might think "well I'm not a 3d enthousiast, but I like literature, I think I'll buy it"

Other than that I wish you the best luck of the world!

(this from the mouth of someone who knows nothing of the world)

This is not for a REAL magazine . . . This is for a class. One of the group members loves sports, the other and I are writers, and I am the graphics nut. So it is taylored to us.

And thanks.

All the complaints about this!! ARG!! :: Frustration ::

Next time don't say "C&C welcome".

It is not that, it is just me being tired and hating to correct work I was happy with. But in a sec I will post a new version for your opinions.

[General Phoenix]

One other thing, Zanith - even if you post an image and ask for comments, it's perfectly okay to dismiss those comments if YOU are satisfied with it. You don't see me asking anyone here if they like the forums' color-scheme, do you?

(That's because I know they all hate it, but that's not the point. )

Remember, too, that this is for English class - not Art class. What you're going to be judged on is the message you convey with this cover, not the way the typefaces work with the color scheme. We're all just pointing out what we would change if we were doing the work, but WE'RE not doing it. If you try to make all of us happy, you'll never get done, because we all have different ideas. So give yourself a break and just do what you think is right.

And while you're doing that, we'll all make our own magazine covers - just to show you how it's done.

Here is a revized and re-done concept based upon some of the suggestions made.

C&C Welcome!

There we go, it's more balanced now, and the colours are a lot more appropriate. Don't you think it looks better?

The new logo works much more than the old one.

Keep the tag line under "The New G5" all one colour though, it's awkward to have it split like that.

The two headlines on the bottom look much better now, and I like how you used the blue to emphasize the one.

I still think you should look at other fonts than Arial.

All in all a good revision.

[General Phoenix]

If you want a simple font that still has a bit more character, try Futura - it's suprisingly versatile.

[p.s. Cargile]

I think you will bennefit more if you approach every project as if it were going to be real, even if it is the wildest fiction. And that can mean as much as measuring the margins of magazine covers to align your fonts. Attention to detail stands out, even if people reviewing your work don't realize it. I don't mean that this needs to be redone. It's spot on. But just because it's an school assignment doesn't mean you can't tackle the project as if you were actually trying to sell the idea as a legitimate magazine. That way you can add your projects to a professional looking portfolio that--if this is any indication--would be impressive.

I mentioned advertisement concerns above because of my mindset of taking it as a real magazine. It wasn't meant to say the landscape format wouldn't work. I think it will. I understand that digital artists perfer to showcase their work in 16:9 ratio, and landscape is perfect for this. If I were in charge of an advertisement department I would find this format challendging and oppertunistic.
Since the magazine caters to a unique audience, its unique format shouldn't bother that audience. It wouldn't bother me.
The sports is interesting. Many people aren't going to turn to this mag to get their sports fix, there are plenty of mags that do that. That doesn't mean that sports should be omitted. From the snowboarding article, I would infer that the sports enthusiast in your group leans toward the extreme sports. As a person that enjoys digital art, good literature, and the top of the line computer systems and software that make making digital art and writing easier and better (I'm your target audience already) I find I'm more interested in extreme sports than in team sports. I would be inclined to read those sports articles. Even if they were about baseball, I wouldn't read them, but I wouldn't burn the magazine. I certainly don't read all the sports features in Maxim.

And that's enthusiasts with an a, according to dictionary.com. Your english teacher might frown on that e.

Why would the format of the magazine make advertisements a problem?

Smaller advertisements won't really need to have their dimensions changed, and of course full and double page ones would need to be layed out landscape, but it shouldn't be too much of an adjustment, really, except where full and double page ads are standardised over many magazines. But if a company really wants to advertise with you, they'll make a special ad just to fit the size.

[p.s. Cargile]

That's what I said.

I know you can take or leave it, by I kinda liked the general layout of your initial posting better than the first revision... (Sorry for not seeing it sooner to say so...)

The following comments refer to your first draft:

- Reverse the font choices -- Use the cursive font for "TransWorld", and the larger 'blocky' font for "Intellect".

- Make the "g" in g5 a "G" -- I think that's how Apple puts it;

- Keep the "G5" teaser where it is, but make it larger. It skews the page at the size it is, but if larger, it makes that imbalance intentional, and it would work.

NOW: Comparing the two:

At first blush, my instinct is to say that the blue-white text of the second layout works better than the orange/yellow of the first; however, looking at the two it seems that the stand-out quality of the orange/yellow text works better for clarity; You might consider, in the long run, not sticking to a specific color for that text, but only specific font and style choices -- that way, you have the freedom to choose whatever color will contrast (or complement) your cover photography.

Finally, choose a color scheme, and stick with it for all of your 'headline' titles ("The New G5", "2004 Snowboarders Expo", etc), while going to the neutral color (white or black) for the subtitles;

Overall, not bad first, and second, efforts! Keep the faith, even with all of us nags givin' ya grief about the design.

tvdoug
<------>
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." (A. Einstein)

LOL! Thanks guys! I think the revision is it. I need to move on to another project, a propaganda poster for my ART-31 class. I am trying to take all into account of what you guys are saying, and thank you! This has helped me along greatly. Just a few little tweaks, and we are set.

-Dave

propaganda for what, may I ask, dave?

It is in regards to the Arnold Schawarnzenegger election here in California. Then there is a second poster that needs to be done. I am debating on several topics.

zanith, maybe cool for you to know
thye're naming a mountain after him in Georgie.