Magazine Cover Conventions Blog Reflection

 Hello everyone! Welcome back to my blog! Today I will be reflecting how it was like working with in-design. 

Before I had to make a magazine cover, I never noticed how detailed they really were. After studying magazine conventions, I realized that there are many different parts of a magazine that really ties it together. I learned how important several different things are. Things such as the masthead, dateline, coverlines, and the barcode. All of these conventions help catch the readers eye which is why its so important. For my magazine, I chose to do an animal genre. My goal was to make my magazine cover playful and fun. The picture I chose was my 2 cats and it immediately gives the reader a clue of what the magazine will be about, which was animals. The bright colors also help demonstrate that this magazine will be fun and informative. Using the coverlines such as "2025 best cat information" can help the readers know that it will give information. Using coverlines "Cutest animals you will ever see!" also gives the idea that the magazine will be exciting. 

Throughout this project, I was making sure that all the conventions I used were accurate. I made the masthead big and bold so that it's easier to see and recognize. I made the coverlines interesting and bold so that the readers will be more interested top read my magazine. The dateline is important because it tells when the magazine was released. I added a yellow puff to advertise that there are free posters in the magazine. All of these conventions helped me make the magazine cover look more appealing and authentic. 

One of my biggest challenge that I faced was balancing the texts with the image. It was a little difficult to place all of the texts because I didn't want it to look squished and unorganized. I also didn't want it to block the cats face. I also struggled choosing the fonts because there were so many and I wasn't sure what looked the best. There also wasn't many color options so I chose the one that looked the best with the cats. Something that I am proud of is the overall layout that I did. I think I chose the perfect places to place the masthead and all of the other conventions. The color yellow really helps get the readers attention. 

This project has taught me how important the layout is and what font sizes and colors are best. Next project, I want to balance all of the texts better and space them out better. I want to use InDesign more often so that I can work faster and more accurate. This project will help my portfolio project because I now understand how to use InDesign better and I learned how to make choices that will make my magazine cover more appealing to the reader. All of the skills that I learned will help me with future projects because I will be more experienced with using InDesign. 

Final project: