Preliminary task

My preliminary task is the front cover and contents page of a school magazine. I have called it "The Student Voice" as this suggests that the magazine is something truly designed for and written for students, and connotes youth; at the top of the cover is a megaphone, which is positioned to look as though it's hanging down from the title and ties in with the name "Voice." I have stuck to a colour scheme of black, white, red and green to coordinate with the "models'" clothes and the white background, and I have tried to incorporate humour and originality into my headlines and contents page in order to encourage people to buy the magazine. The main focus of the front cover is the photo of the two people who are looking directly at the camera (to create a false "relationship" with the audience to catch their attention, and therefore encourage them to buy it). The photo abides by the rule of thirds as it is positioned to the left of the cover; this allows people to focus on it better as it meets the natural eye line. The cover is not crammed full of headlines, but has three evenly spaced headlines so that it still manages not to look like an empty page. There is also a box across the bottom of the page which sticks to the colour scheme and features some of the main headlines. In the contents page, the word "Contents" is written in a fun, loopy font suggesting that the contents of the magazine will also be quite fun and not to be taken too seriously. There are also several edited photos in bright colours surrounding the contents, which are related to the articles written in the contents page.
There are several things I would do to improve my preliminary task; firstly, I would include more images and quotes in the contents page, and make the subheading "All inside this issue!" smaller, so that the page wasn't cluttered, but looked less empty than it does at the moment. I would also feather and refine the edges of the images I have layered onto the background a bit further, as, at the moment, they are a bit messy and don't look very professional; it is obvious that they have been placed on the background, as the transition between the background and the edges of the images isn't smooth and blended in.