This document summarizes a student's preliminary task to design the front cover and contents page of a college magazine. The student chose to target their magazine towards students at The Henley College. They selected a blue color scheme and a bold, friendly font. The student was new to using InDesign software but was able to learn how to use layers to professionally design the front cover with a masthead, main picture, and headlines. While happy with the overall outcome, the student acknowledges some room for improvement, such as using higher quality images and better time management.

1. What? Preliminary Task My College Magazine By Natasha Marlow

2. The mast head of this particular issue of NME is in black (normally it is in red) which shows us what the issue is about. It links to the articles in the magazine. This sets the tone for the over all magazine. The main colours used are yellow white and black. The main image if the magazine is White Lies. The band look particularly moody, which along with the mast head helps to set the tone for the magazine. The text fonts used are quite square and harsh, this implies that the magazine is predominantly aimed at males. The + sign is used instead of the actual buzz word, this implies that the readers are regular and know what extras are normally in the magazine.

3. The main colours used are grey white black and yellow. The main images of this magazine is of Nirvana. The images is in black and white because it is an old photograph of when the band were still together and all still alive. This tells us that the magazine is reflecting on the bad as it was 10 years ago that they are focusing on. Free CD encourages more people to buy the magazine because they are getting more for their money and as it is a music magazine they away giving away free music.

4. My Front Cover

5. My Contents Page

6. My Evaluation For the preliminary task we had to design the front cover and contents page of a college magazine. As part of this we had to do research in to target markets, this told us what content o put into our magazines and how to design the front cover to make it appeal to my target audience. I chose to target my magazine to The Henley College Students and so I chose my colour scheme to be blue as I felt it would be appropriate for both boys and girls in the college. I also want the magazine to look friendly so I chose a big bold font that stands out and looks friendly to attract the reader. For this task we had to learn how to use some new programmes. I had never used InDesign before and had to learn the skills needed to produce my front cover. The program allows you to use layers to create a front cover including a mast head, main picture and headlines, allowing you top place these where ever you want layering text over images to produce a professional finish. I think I have been very successful in producing my preliminary task and I am quite happy with the over all outcome. I faced a few problems but this was mainly due to the new software we had to use. I am happy with my front cover however the picture was not very high quality after I had edited it, I think this is down to saving it incorrectly. For the main task I will do more research and be more aware of my deadlines to achieve a higher grade.