A skill project of a magazine cover

It's not bad. Just a few things to change:

1. Change the purple background. Doesn't work with the blue you've picked. Maybe a nighttime sky with clouds? Looks like a night shot of the capital.

2. Remove the yellow circle. Very distracting. We designers hate bursts. :)

3. The red title isn't working either. I'd make it fully horizontal again and a sans serif font.

4. Remove the top blue bar to give the title more room. Make the title bigger. That's your most important element.

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Powerpoint is not a design application

Please don't take this question the wrong way, but, are you in High School?
I'm only asking because it will change the way people critique your work. I wouldn't expect the same level of competence from a professional or someone well into college as I would from someone in High School.

This looks like a really bad trade magazine. I see no redeeming qualities here. If I were your instructor, I'd urge you to start over. From Scratch.

The whole thing is to blah... even for a 'safe' magazine. Look at the Smithsonian, or National Geographic.

The photography is boring (and I'm not sure the headline matches the photo).

The fonts are safe and predictable.

Did you name this? How about just 'DC'? It's got much more impact and the audience would understand. The way you've got DC subscripted isn't working either.

Spend some time browsing your local bookstore magazine racks. Really dig around, look at the really popular ones, as well as titles you may never have heard of. See what connects, see what works, what doesn't.

Good luck.

Thanks Natobasso and ShawnAllan,

Your critique was really helpful for me to gain more focus on what I need to work on. I have to bring a more "Wow" factor to it. I will work more on it. Maybe I should make the Capitol a toned image instead of full color and ramp up the overall appearance of it. Run the title "The Power Brokers" very blocky. Play with the transparency of the title or try staggering the baselines of the words and sizes of them. I may also change the cover from being a national, newsstand-type publication.

It is funny, the photo is of the Capitol at dusk so that is the sky. I did lighten it a bit so that more so that it would not be too dark and saturated for print. I had to work with the limitations of the picture itself. There was not much more to the top of the picture than you see.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Thanks Naatobasso, for the complement.

I had to learn to roll with it when working years as a solo, in-house graphic designer on a Mac in a sea of PCs. Visiting this site helped sometimes when I had felt like I was in a vacuum.

Posted before I realized I had spelled you name wrong.