Front cover - feedback and changes

After asking four people to comment on version one of my front cover with their opinions on how I can improve it and what they like best, I now have a clearer idea of its current successes  as well as its weaknesses and how I can improve on them.

It seems the people who commented on my magazine agreed that its main successes are:

• the colour scheme - 'it suits your genre and target audience well'
• the main image - 'very engaging'
• my font choice - 'makes the magazine look very professional'

The following suggestions were made in order to improve my front cover further:

• add website info
• add more cover lines and make existing ones smaller
• make main cover line much bigger
• add a selling/tag line
• create more variety in cover line through more colour and boxes

I definitely agree with these suggestions and can see how my current front cover has a lot more room for further cover lines, which would involve making the current ones smaller. I do think that these cover lines should be more varied in size and colour in order to add more interest and appeal, but I will make sure to keep the same font scheme so my cover doesn't start looking too busy and tacky. I think adding website info next to the barcode along with the issue number is also a good idea as I have seen many other magazines do this. I am definitely going to make the main cover line larger in order to make it the main point of focus, and I will experiment with adding a selling line, but I do not think it is practical due to the position of the main image.

I am now going to continue with my front cover, making the above changes and experimenting further with the layout and general design. I will then upload a version two and ask my commenters on their opinions of my progress and if there is anything further they think I could improve on.