• A magazine cover I did for my final graphics exam.
    12 replies, posted
I'm only posting here to get some feedback on what I could of done, it's still nice to know as I can use them pointers in the future. This image was all created by me except for the photo of the gun and the text at the top is from a magazine I read, but I did edit these photos a lot. Every other image on here is created with me with either a camera or some Photoshop random button pressing. Also, it's a thumbnail so click it. [URL="http://s16.photobucket.com/albums/b13/borisjake/?action=view&current=finalpeice2.jpg"][IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b13/borisjake/th_finalpeice2.jpg[/IMG][/URL] Your probably thinking there isn't much text on the front, that is because I intended it to be a big feature magazine, PCZONE usually do this kind of thing.
Their should still be more text. You said you wanted less text because it's a big feature magazine but the cover is kinda boring so it doesn't really work well imo. [url]http://www.gamesetwatch.com/pczone-0911.jpg[/url] [url]http://i162.photobucket.com/albums/t280/left4dead411/pczone-l4d-cover-jan08.jpg[/url] [url]http://www.gamesetwatch.com/pczone-0908.jpg[/url] They all have other articles on the front.
When in the exam I brought in about 15 different magazines and I was particularly influenced by this: [URL="http://s16.photobucket.com/albums/b13/borisjake/?action=view&current=pcgaming1007.jpg"][IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b13/borisjake/th_pcgaming1007.jpg[/IMG][/URL] And this is the actual scan I made. I'm not saying your wrong though, I just wanted something original.
Well there is a lot going on in that cover so it works
Not keen on it at all im afraid. There is no intergration between text and image, they both sit on their own layers. Also the l4d3 title occludes the main focus, and the centre of the page is completely blank. Magazine covers also have a clear path to read through, starting at the "PC ZONE" and working its way through the main image and to the main article.
The zombie in the bottom corner really looks out of place. It'd be ok if he was in front of, lets say the black area of a portarait or somethin g but in front of a screenshot, it just looks bad. Moreso as the middle part of the picture provides no info at all, not picture and not text-wise.
notice how in your reference picture, there wasnt anything around the sides. Your cover looks a little boring and blank, becasue there is nothing in the middle to attract attention. You should also add some other feature articles in block letter writing around the outside, just to fill the blankness a little more
When it comes to marketing extra articles shown on the front page attracts more attention. Those who are probably interested in Left 4 Dead will buy the magazine but you'll definitely lose ground to other magazines when you don't mention other games on the cover. Even though you'd a different intention than what most of us are advising you that could have been better. The cover doesn't appeal (to me), so if you plan on having a job related to designing covers it's best to target the biggest possible group of customers.
I'm a bit too lazy to be specific at the moment, but "amazing" was not at all how I felt. The fire on the car looks unrealistic, like you've taken the same layer of 2D-ish fire and pasted them in front of each other. Other than what I personally dislike about it, there isn't much to say. Although in the back of my head, I'm thinking why it doesn't have a little bit more quality, since you're making this for final exams. Sorry if I came off as rude, I'm just sharing my thoughts.
I'm not taking any of this badly, it's really useful. Thanks everyone for the advice, I will take this into account next time I do a peice of graphics like this.
I thought about making something like this after my friend made a complete magazine dedicated to the history of Valve. more like a special edition all about a developer magazine but it was really cool and he did it all in photoshop. he even did reviews of maps for the multiplayer games like CS:S and TF2.
Not bad, I like the blood behind the "PC ZONE" However my main improvement would be to make the Font a little more intersting. The words "Left 4 Dead 3" are a little boring and look wuite flat on the page
Zombies don't eat icecream you silly.
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