Unit 14 - Magazine Cover and Page-Spread Evaluation

Throughout this unit, there have been numerous steps I took in creating my magazine cover and double-page spread. To start off my evaluation, I decided to base my magazine idea in a digital format, as I thought it the easiest to reach out towards my intended audience of a niche market. The subject I set my magazine around is graphic novels and animation, which I thought would be a good medium to focus on. The intended audience age group I had in mind would range from 15 to 25, between young teenagers and young adults. People at this age tend to be into a variety of differentiating interests and hobbies. Hobbies such as: reading and collecting graphic novels, and watching their favorite animations. I myself have a mixture of these interests and take them in as my own hobbies. When making my cover, I had decided on a dark red background as that was the color scheme I had in mind. The content I was featuring on my cover consisted of two different subjects relating to the theme of my magazine. One subject was revolving around a graphic novel article; the image I used was of the recently released comic, The Walking Dead: Here’s Negan, featuring the iconic character. This was the first feature I had included on my magazine cover. I continued adding to my cover in Photoshop; the next thing being an image of the main character Ruby, from RWBY, the animated series from Rooster Teeth.  Using Photoshop, I had edited my images in different ways. For my cover images, I had saved and downloaded two images from Google images, which was the source for my secondary images. I had edited these beforehand with Photoshop; isolating the two key characters I was featuring on my main magazine cover. I had deleted the backgrounds for the two images and kept the subject characters in a separate layer. Afterwards I had placed them into my cover magazine creation, and scaled them down to a suitable size. One of my key themes for my magazine is to follow graphic novels and animation; so these two articles were presented as my cover lines to empathize what my magazine is centered on. The initial title for my magazine was ‘AniNovelist’, combining both names of my subjects to personalize my magazine. In the center of my cover, I displayed my main sell line of the magazine, which was my own original article section containing two graphic novels that would be reviewed by me for the magazine. I linked my double-page spread to this sell line as that was my desire for what I was centering my page-spread article on. I had kept a simple font style for my written articles for the two graphic novel titles I was reviewing. They were placed in basic paragraph structures you would normally see in official magazines. Over time, while I was editing, I had lowered the font size to suit fit all that I was writing. I placed two images of the graphic novel and manga that I was reviewing for my spread section; and were put alongside the two paragraphs I had finished writing out for my double-page spread. I had taken my own primary photos so that the magazine at least some of my own originality to it rather than borrowing more images that were relevant to my magazine theme. The magazine that I would say gave me the inspiration would be the Empire magazine, as they follow the same style and themes I am having for my magazine idea: such as written articles and reviews relating to films and TV shows; whereas I am basing the subjects of my magazine on writing articles and reviews for graphic novels and animation, something I thought would be good to mix together.

The main purpose I wanted for my magazine was as a graphic novel and animation guide magazine that would keep up on the latest updates, releases for both comics and animation. Along with personal reviews of selected titles that will present different mediums in review articles in every issue for my magazine. The platform I decided my magazine to be placed in; by my desire, a digital format, as I deemed it the most ideal in publishing my magazine to a niche target audience of people aged 15 to 25 that hold their own interests in the medium formats that I will include within my magazine.

From what I’ve worked with in this unit, I have learned a lot on what it takes when working with magazines and the processes you go through to produce and edit all the features you would have for magazine. It is a lot of work that you have to dedicate yourself to, making sure you get everything right when adding your desired content; and to make sure it is relevant to the theme for your magazine, being whatever genre and subject you want to base it around. It has been a very thinking process that you need to have when creating magazines, and it is helpful being creative with your magazine and putting the utmost effort into. I am happy with the work I have produced, and learnt a lot of things that I could improve on regarding my working ability and thinking.

By Aidan Stephenson