My Magazine
 

Well, I've started making my own magazine. Me and my friends have been talking about it, and have been wanting to start something for a while. I'm going to be planning out what is going to go in a few of them, and have started issue 1.

This is the cover :




I would very much appreciate it, if you could critique it, or tell me if you like it an so on.

Also, if you have any contributions you'd like to make to the magazine, it would be great to hear from you. If you want to write game, anime, or manga reviews, or write in a letter, you are more than welcome to. My boyfriend is writing the new Grand Theft Auto review at the moment, I'll probably be writing the Mario Kart one. If someone has a decent Dir en grey review/history to input, that would be awesome. To be frank though, I don't want anything remotely [OMGZ DIR EN GREY IS AWESOMES.] So if that's where you're heading then no thanks :D

Depending on how it goes, I'll probably be selling the magazine at cost-price, [ie. non-profit.] But as I said, that all depends on what time I have and stuff, and that's probably somewhere in the very distant future.

[Oh and also, thanks to Nagoyankee for the translation of the magazine name.]

Since it it doesn't look like a Japan only magazine, i would probably give it a more general look and name, like "Wired" or something like that.
Other than that, it should be monthly, since doing it weekly is kind of a pain on the neck, I don't what you're hamming for but this is just an idea. As for the rest good luck and I look forward to reading it.

Wow, that's amazing! Your good. :D

Yeah, I was sort of struggling with the name of the magazine, and there is a possibility it could change because of course, it's a very important part of your brand indentity.

I have far too much on to do it weekly, so it would definatly be monthly ^_^

Thankyou for your input :D

Thankyou ^___^

Is this an official publication? Such as profits, printed, web, etc.?

The layout was done very well, however it lacks contrast. The initial view is confusing as it does not lead the eye in any direction.

If the type at the bottom, (Death Note, Dir en Grey, etc.)
are your topics of discussion, I would suggest (in a professional sense):
take off all caps
add a page # for each topic
and use a sans serif font as they are easier to read.

eidt: crap, hope that didnt sound condesending.

Nope, it's nothing official. It's just me and bunch of friends doing reviews and things like that, to be honest. I haven't got any experiance with magazines or related publications, so really this was just the trial cover for now. The only thing I have experiance with is Photoshop, and I also plan to write the majority of the reviews since my writing is pretty good.

If people liked the first issue, then I was planning to sell it on the web for the price of making it - non-profit. Right now I just want people to enjoy my writing, I'm not looking to make money as of yet, after all I'm only 17 and am inexperianced in this area.

The type at the bottom are what's featured inside the magazine - looking at it again, I agree with what you said. I'll consider this when doing the second draft.

And about the view - I see where you are coming from. It's really hard to see it that way, since obviously I have seen it being composed so I never get that intial reaction from viewing it. I think I'm going to switch a few things round so the initial focus lands on Mario and Luigi.

Thank you for your advice!

If you're unsure about your layout and such feel free to ask, pm etc. This is in my field of profession.

One thing to beware of is the non-profit bit. Technically you cannot charge any amount if you are using copyright characters and images unless you create from scratch yourself. This includes screenshots of games, scans of mangas or any material taken off the web as it would be considered copyright infringement.

The only way to make value off for "materials" is to change cost to donation. This would make the megazine a fan based "non-profit" publication. This is how websites that do fansubbing or whatever continue to stay operational, by accepting only donations.

Thank you very much! I am probably going into the Graphic Design field myself, so it would be great to know someone who is actually in there. I'm wavering between Game Design and Graphic Design. At the moment I'm studying, Art, Media, Product Design, and Sociology, so some of them are pretty helpful for the graphical aspect and will get me a place in University if I do well enough.

I see, thank you for that bit of info. I didn't know too much about it, so that's really helpful. I will do donations instead - though it means I couldn't print out actual copies of the magazine [ I couldn't afford to do that ] I could still publish them on the web and leave the donation option available for people who liked my work.

From what I see of your works (whatever I see on this site),
You have a natural talent in the graphics field. Game design is good to learn, can get really complex if you like programming. With formal training in application software I can tell you would make it far.

IMO, learn it all, anything & everything. I see no reason for you to just focus in one field.