In my own magazine, I chose to go for a fashion genre, more specifically, children's fashion. I believe my magazine cover conveys that genre the cover image being a chalk drawing on the sidewalk and shoes stepping around the drawing. The drawing itself represents a more childish concept in my magazine and the shoes on the bottom show the aspect of the magazine also selling clothing. I tried my best to put on a very youthful theme throughout the magazine cover to further establish this idea.
Furthermore, to strengthen the effectiveness of my magazine cover, I had to use my genre conventions effectively. On the assignment, I used all of the required conventions we needed. For reference, a masthead, cover image, cover line, a feature article, puffs, and banners. These elements help make the cover more effective because they clearly show how what the magazine is selling. For example, one of my cover lines speak on how there is currently a limited edition overalls set. This emphasizes to the viewer what my fake brand sells and the target audience since overalls are mainly worn by children. Additionally, the color I chose help further establish my target audience.
I faced a few challenges while completing this assignment. For example, it was difficult to figure out how to style things the way I wanted. It was hard to figure out how to adjust the size, font, and color of specific texts I wanted to adjust. Along with figuring out how to create necessary shapes like circles and rectangles that were needed for puffs and banners. However, I was able to overcome these issues by truly searching and attempting to comprehend the InDesign app. I was able to find the controls on the right, left, and top. Moreover, a success I had was after I found out to adjust the texts to how I desired. I was able to truly replicate a youthful theme through the sizes and colors I was able to change the texts to. 
From this project, I learned key design skills that I can use in future assignments. Understanding how to efficiently use these conventions and use InDesign will be a great advantage in the future, along with improving my creativity. I now understand how to approach design issues more confidently. Moreover, this experience will help me with my portfolio because it taught me the basics of InDesign and how to structure a magazine cover. If I choose the magazine for the AICE portfolio project, these skills will be fundamental. I now have a stronger understanding of layouts, design conventions, etc. This will truly support my future projects. 
