The Process to Finding my Magazine Cover

 The Process to Finding my Magazine Cover 

The week after discovering my theme, the beautiful thing about human memories: it was time to think of my magazine cover. The first assignment was to find a magazine similar to the person's theme and list 5 ideas for our cover.  The second assignment is to define technical magazine terms, apply those to three magazines of your choice, and choose a magazine to analyze further in depth. I had a lot of fun doing these assignments because it made me feel like a director and helped me understand the dedication that goes into a cover of a magazine.

 I really enjoy the GOOD OLD DAYS magazine and how it incorporates a similar theme to mine. When I found this summer frenzy cover, a flood of inspiration filled my head. Looking at the cover, I saw a visually appealing picture of two people just enjoying the time that they shared. I saw cursive letters and bright warm cool colors loading the front cover of the magazine. I saw brief cover lines that previewed different content, yet it still related to the theme of nostalgia. Lastly, the big subheading phrase: "Summer Fun. Staying cool in and out of the water" was also too snappy and catchy to miss. What I just listed were the five ideas that I would love to incorporate in my magazine cover.

For the second assignment, I was told to find three magazines that I liked visually and scan them for technical terms. Those terms were masthead, puff, slogan, unique selling point, barcode, anchorage text, buzz word, cover line, and superimposition. However, this was hard because I didn't know what magazine I was interested in besides my theme. Yet, I was able to narrow down my magazines to celebrities, cooking, and animals.

I chose Easy Cook magazine from BBC and pointed out the 9 elements that the designer purposefully put on.  You can see what I am referencing here on the right side. This magazine had tons of tempting attributes for example the warm colors. I really liked that this magazine had a visually appealing picture centered on the screen, inviting cover lines, and lots of superimposition

Onto the second part of this assignment, I had a set of questions to respond to using the cooking magazine. I discovered the magazine's techniques to appeal to the target audience, the layout of each page, and the meaningful connotations of each image.  A quick summary of the food magazine is that its main audience is people who like to cook or bake. So, it only makes sense for the images in the magazine to be consecutively delicious pictures of food. 

In summary, these assignments led me to the right path on how I should go about making my own magazine cover. It is important that every detail and aspect of how I want to incorporate memories in my portfolio should be carefully considered.