Preliminary Task - Final Creation

I started creating my final cover design on Macromedia Fireworks. I designed my mast head first, using two colours: white and purple. I planned on using a rather simple bold font, and stuck to that decision and used a stencil font, which is quit related to schools. Although the font was good I thought that it looked rather plain just on its own , with a white 'Wor' and purple 'Monkey' so i decided something else was needed. I experimented with two seperate fonts and decided this wouldnt work, then i sudenly had a brainwave: I could shadow the words with the other colour used. so i would shadow the white with the purple and shadow the purple with the white. I tested this and decided this was what was needed and so i used it. I also added a small introduuctory like sentance 'Monkseaton High Schools Own Magazine', just so that it wasnt as bare along the side. It suggests that this magazine is unique and different to other magazines out. I used a different shade of purple in this, but still stuck to my colour scheme. I had took a student in front of a colourful painting in the school, and incorperated that into my colour scheme. The colourful background also matches the red school shirt that the student is wearing.I tried out a few different poses, but decided to stick to what i had originally wanted to use, the student standing with a stuffed animal monkey on her head. I placed the photo to the right of the mast head. I wanted my model to look friendly and inviting to the public eye and target audience. So I put her in front of the colourful background and made her smile, which is a rather simple, yet effective pose. Also i made her look to the right, and not directly at the camera. She looks like she is having fun and the monkey on her head is related to the name of the magazine, and the school, as monkey is short for Monkseation. I then went on to write my coverlines. I used a variety of chunky styled fonts, as i feel chunky fonts are more youthful and the younger generation (teenagers) will like them. I also used some simple sentances that would be interesting for all yeargroups. I then tried a variety of putples, and realised that all the different shades looked good in certain positions as the background caused some to be unreadable. So i decided to use a variety of purples, going from the darkest at the top to the lightest. But this still didnt solve the problem of some writing being unseen a little, so i decided to use a black shadow so all the words could be seen. I then added my bar code to finish my magazine.