Myles' Blog

This is my magazine contents page mock up. I decided to continue with the simple but bold design, which I feel attracts my target audience. I kept the title a simple font and made it large for a pronounced effect. For the contents themselves, I have divided the magazine into three topics that contain 5 subtopics each. I think this layout will attract my target audience because it makes the magazine easy to navigate around which would in hope keep my audience enthused. For the images, I took photos that I felt would naturally come across as powerful by using defined muscles, colourful weight plates and an appetising meal.

This is my behind the scenes for my magazine contents page. I chose my photos according to the three topics contained within my magazine which are about your body, exercise and food. For the body topic I took a photo of my friends arm when doing a bicep exercise, putting the focus on the muscle definition. For exercise topic I knew the colourful weight plates would at power to the contents page and overall make it more pleasing. I took the photo close to the plates to make them the main focus. Finally for the food topic, I created a ‘nutritional meal’ to support the idea of fitness and staying healthy. The shot I took was a ‘birds eye view’ shot to you can see each type of food.

This is my initial idea for what my magazine contents page will look like. For the contents page I want to give it a handwritten type of style, like a teenager’s fitness logbook. The font for the words ‘the contents’ along with the topic themes and pages, will be in a handwritten font. In the top left corner will be the name of my magazine in the same font and colour as on the front cover. In the top right corner, I will have the issue number and date in which the magazine in produced. Alongside the topics and sub topics I will have an image relating to each topic, this in hope will make the contents page look more full and aesthetically pleasing.

This is an updated version of my new magazine front cover. I was overall happy with the way my front cover looked, but there was some aspects that needed to change. Firstly, I didn't like how the bottom right coverline went over the top of the main image, so I had to play around with the layout of the magazine. I found the only way I could fit that coverline in that corner was to move the barcode somewhere else, and I think the loaction I chose is suitable and professional. I also moved the magazine month number up to the top right. After doing this I found there was still a small area of space underneath the coverline so I added a small social media link to reach out to my audience. Another change I made was adding in the edited main image, however an issue I encountered was that there was spaces either side of the model, so I simply enlarged the model slightly to reduce the size of these gaps. Finally, I removed the page numbers from the coverlines as they are unnecessary. What...

This is showing the process of me editing my magazine's front cover main image. I found that the model in the image looked a bit pale meaning his muscles weren't as pronounced as they could be. I decided I wanted to change this by making the model look more tanned with the use of Photoshop editing software. I did this by taking the original photo and increasing the vibrance to make the image look brighter, the warmth to make the skin look more tanned, and I also increased the sharpness if the image to make the muscles look more defined. I am very happy with the way this turned out and think it makes my magazine look a lot more appealing.

This is my updated magazine front cover. I added in the new main image and I think it makes the front cover look much better. The whole upper body of the model is in shot compared to being slightly out of shot on my previous front cover. Looking at the parts of the magazine, I mostly kept everything the same, however I had to change the layout for the coverlines to fit with the new main image. I made the puff a slightly darker shade of grey to match with the mise en scene and moved it down slightly to suit the main image. I also made sure that all the fonts were the same to give off a clean look. What I learnt from doing this is that it is important to take multiple photos so you can ensure you choose the best one for you. I was convinced my previous image was the best I could get until I took more photos and and happier with the one now.

To ensure my front cover looks the best I can make it, I decided to explore by taking photos with different t-shirt colours and trying different poses. I found the white top I had previously used blended into the mise en scene, which slightly weakened the power of the main image. After trying different t-shirt colours and poses, I found a dark grey t-shirt created a much more powerful image. I also really like the pose with both of the models arms in front as I don’t have to cut off the models arms as it previously did. I think the photo comes across as naturally brighter and more professional, so will choose this as my new main image.

On the front cover I noticed there was a crease fold visible on the bottom right of the white screen. I used the 'heal' feature on photoshop to to smudge the creases in attempt to make them less obvious. In result I was able to make the creases much less obvious resulting in a cleaner look.

Here is my magazine front cover mock up. I stuck with the simplistic design as shown on my initial idea sketch. I also stuck with the font, colour and presentation of the masthead, which I think works well on my front cover and I love the idea of the repeated letters 're' to signify repetitions in the gym or perhaps repetition in not giving up trying something hard. I created this frontcover on Canva which I find doesn't give me as many features as a more advanched editing software like PhotoShop so I will instead create a similar version on PhotoShop. In terms of changing features of my front cover, I will take more photos again using the whitescreen, trying different poses and different T-shirt colours. This in hope will create a more powerful main image.