GQ Magazine Cover

              

Our task was to create a copy of a real GQ magazine cover and to try and make ours look as identical to the real one as possible. (The real one is the one on the left with my copy on the right.)

We were asked to do this task to get us familiar with the software that we will be using to create our magazine, which is Quark XPress 9. The only DTP software that I have used previous to this is Microsoft Publisher. I found Quark XPress much better to use when creating a magazine as it offers a larger variety of tools that allow you to create a very professional looking magazine. I also liked the layout of the software as all the available tools were categorised under certain sub-headings, which made it easy to locate the tools that you wanted without too much hassle.

There are already many different skills that I have learnt whilst using Quark XPress. This includes:

Opacity- At first the opacity tool looks to be very simple, but it can have a great effect on a magazine with very little effort. Often, magazines do not contain block colours but slight gradients of colour that make the magazine look more appealing. In this case, there is a slight hint of blue in the background, so to create this, I drew a rectangle for the background, filled it with blue, then used the opacity tool to create a shade of blue rather than a solid blue background. This gave the magazine a more sleek/professional look.

Layering- I have become more familiar with using layers to order the layout of my magazine. As there are many different features on a magazine front cover such as the masthead, coverlines, central image etc. it is important to have the correct layout. Layers help to organise and arrange all the different features on your front cover, and also allow you to “select all on layer” which is helpful when you want to alter everything on a certain layer, and “hide layer” which is helpful when you don’t want to delete something but want to hide it while you work on something else. Another example of how I used layers is that I put the cover image on one layer, the background on another, and split the coverlines onto different layers to help me to organise them.

 An example from the Internet of what the layering panel looks like and the options available.

Tracking- I found this to be one of the most helpful tools that Quark XPress has to offer when creating a magazine. This tool allows you to alter the spaces in-between letters and lines of words. This tool is great for magazine coverlines as it allows you to fill space on the front cover with the most important coverlines, while at the same time, compacting smaller coverlines, making the text look professional and keeping an adequate amount of space between each coverline so that the magazine doesn’t look crowded and bunched together.

An example of where I used the tracking tool.

When creating my magazine I know that I need to be aware of certain things, such as making sure the colours, fonts, language etc. is appropriate for my chosen target audience. I also need to ensure that the pictures I use look professional, and suit the style of my magazine. Finally, I want my magazine to look unique and contain interesting articles and features, but I need to be careful not to overload my magazine, which would perhaps discourage readers.

This exercise will definatly help me when constructing my own magazine pages, as I now know what simple but effective things you can do to make a magazine look more professional. I have also got an idea of some of the features that I would like to use when creating my magazine, such as the new skills that I have learnt, listed above. Now that I know how to use this software, I can start creating my magazine straight away without wasting any time.