COVER Orientation and fnal cover assignment:
For your final you will do the orientation as outlined below and create a cover for a magazine. The cover may mimic or be a parody of an exisiting publication, or you can create a fictitious one of your own. Use your own original graphic(s) and develop a concept around it. Please see a collection student covers from previous classes. This is your chance to show me what you have learned during the course of the class!

2. Other parts that are typically included are: the 'dateline' (stating the day, month, and or year) that may be located next to the 'bar graph' or near the 'masthead'. And sometimes magazines have a 'selling line' - a slogan or a one liner that summarizes the intent of the magazine for the reader.

For definitions of the above terms read: Parts of a Cover.


3. Research shows that people scan magazine covers quickly, so the cover needs to get the reader's attention immediately, and tweek their curiousity so they open it and begin reading.

Look at the examples below. Also visit your nearest bookstore or library
and look at many different magazine covers to gain inspiration and ideas.

4. What are different design approaches to a magazine cover? READ the four sections below and write one brief paragraph about each of the four design approaches. (4 paragraphs in total)
GO TO: http://longleaf.net/coverlines/

i) Early Magazine Covers
ii) The Poster Cover: Pictures That Need No Words
iii) Pictures Married to Type: The Quest for the Perfect Relationship
iv) In the Forest of Words: Covers at the Turn of the 21st Century

5. Go to a magazine section of a large bookstore such as Barnes and Noble or a small tobacco/periodicals store with a good magazine selection. Stand a few feet back from the display shelves, and scan the covers of numerous publications and write brief answers to the following questions: Which magazine(s) stand out? (name six of them) How visible are the magazine mastheads on the magazines you can see? Describe three possible strategies in cover design that work to get your attention. What do you think makes a sucessful cover?

SEND VIA EMAIL:
Please include written work in email format and in the subject field of the email put your last name and first initial with 'final orientation'.

Example: McIntosh J-final orientation

COVER FINAL:

REQUIREMENTS:
From the above articleschoose one of the layout categories for your cover: the poster cover, pictures married to type, or in the forest of words. Work with the below requirements to build your front cover. Your cover must include:

1. Magazine Title/Masthead

2. Title, synopsis, author (optional), of at least two articles or feature stories.

3. Date: the date needs to establish if the magazine is daily, weekly, monthly, bimonthy, quarterly, annual, special report... See examples of different magazines to determine how this works.

4. Cover photograph or graphic.

5. Establish some kind of theme for your cover. Each cover must have enough information to tell a little story. You may do a parody of a cover, a humerous cover, you may also choose to do a cover that is more topical; fashion, space, music, pets, travel...or you may choose your own theme. Check with me if you have any questions.

6. Dimensions: 8.5 x 11.

7. You may work in color or black and white. It's wise to establish a color theme.

8. All art work needs to be original.

9. Work at 150 dpi or higher. Working at 200 dpi ensures that you will have a beautiful print of the cover. Generally any resolution 150 and above should produce a good quality print. Since web graphics are generally 72 dpi - they print poorly. However, for posting on your blog and sending via email to me, convert your cover to 72 dpi (image menu>image size), and save as a jpeg. Remember to always work saving your original work in psd format at a higher resoution, then when you are finished adjust the dpi and save a copy as a jpeg.

Grading Criteria: TOTAL = 20 points
concept (10):
title, theme, stories, cover information, ability to visually convey one of the layout categories: poster cover, pictures married to type, or in the forest of words.

execution (10):
graphics: adequate resolution, background graphic clearly communicates theme/magazine concept; typography: legibility, font choice, adequately spaced words (leading and horizontal spacing); layout: combining graphics and type to create an effective cover layout based on one of the layout categories.

SEND A good quality jpg of your cover. It will be posted in a class final gallery after I have completed doing grades for the class.

Save in jpeg format {file>save for web} and in the subject field of the email put your last name and first initial with 'FINAL'.

Example: McIntosh J-final

Here are a few more examples: