College Magazine Cover

My college magazine, is titled Student Lifestyle, which connotes that it is solely about students and the lifestyle in which they have. The name of the magazine is on the masthead, as you can see, the word "student" is vertical against the word Lifestyle, and all letters are white upper-case, and sans serif, excluding the letter 'e' in student, which is in lower-case but still in white. "Lifestyle" is in the font defused which is a rough, edgy font that would appeal to a more radical based audience, however the word "student" is in a more basic font, and because the 'e' is on a slight tilt, i think that this balances the audience, into a broader variety of students and not just the radicals.

The main sell is an image of a student with a mohican haircut. The original image required a lot of airbrushing, and so i chose to edit out the very bad features, and leave it at that, because it's purpose is so that the students will buy into this very real representaion of a student because it hasn't been airbrushed that much. The haircut itself connotes rebellion and individuality and that is why i chose to photograph him for my magazine because he is unique, and this idea of being unique could also be associated with my magazine, because my magazine is unique. The text included in the main sell is "What the PUNK??!!" which is a phrase used in modern culture to express surprise, however i used punk instead of the traditional "what the hell" or "what the..." because "what the punk" ties in with the main sell. The writing is in yellow because it stands out from the rest of the cover, mainly because its the only thing on the cover that is in fact yellow. Also the text features two screamers which show that it is a loud and bold statement. The text underneath "what the punk??!!" is in many different fonts with each letter in a different font than the previous, and this is featured heavily in a punk society, because again it connotes rebbellion and individuality. This main sell would appeal to radicals mainly and in my opinion no other social group, which is not what i intended. Originally i wanted my magazine to appeal to all students, although with this main sell i do not think i have achieved this. The background of the cover is also similar to the main sell in what it connotes, which is rebbellion and youth culture, however it also connotes a certain rough feel to it because the background denotes a graffiti covered brick wall, which in itself is edgy and rough.

The cover line denotes an image of a male student standing next to a piece of graffiti on a wall which is set on a black background, with underneath the text "Graffiti criminal or art" which is in white serif font that stands out from the mundane black background. The image has also been airbrushed, although at first glance it is difficult to tell, it was enhanced because the original graffiti wasn't all that good, and so all i did was brighten the colours withought making it appear fake.