Use more legible fonts. Otherwise not bad! More on reddit.com

No2 is by far the better version. As the other commenter said, body copy isn’t good for a cover. It’s designed to show short, exciting snippets of info to encourage the viewer to buy the magazine Nobody will stand and read small text in passing. The cover should be a snapshot of the most engaging content More on reddit.com

I think it's dangerous to judge design work (ok not dangerous... just somewhat sloppy I guess) based on the photography. The placement and the way the other elements interact with it sure but the photo... no. See what you've got here is a great eye catching pic. And it really makes the cover sing. But it isn't what makes a great mag cover. That pic is what makes a great pic. Just because you started with something great doesn't mean that the cover is great. So I tend not to look at the images at all unless I can clearly see that the photos themselves have been heavily worked on. This to me just looks like a stock photo of Zooey so I'm going to ignore it. The font for the mag title is great but Petemck is right the vectors are a little sloppy. Dougglas really nailed the heart of the problem you have by pointing out your typography issues. I don't know if you've taken a course that focuses on typography but I just finished mine last week. And my professor would tell you that you failed to design the space around the elements. As I said Dougglas pointed out several of the issues. I'll point out a couple more. The descender on the "y" in "diy" is uncomfortably close to the "f" on the line below it. Your leading is messed up here. Also the leading in general throughout the piece is inconsistent. That's ok on the inside but covers are about consistency in formatting when it comes to things like leading, kerning and so on... especially when we're talking about copy below the sub headline. As others have already mentioned the way you positioned the type in "get her look inside" is just awful. The font makes it look like you are saying "Get Her!" "Look Inside!" Two separate, declarative sentences. If you could get Zooey Deschanel by looking inside that magazine you would sell the run instantly. LOL It doesn't look like you kerned the article titles. Did you? The space between the "h-a-and-n" in Deschanel is particularly bad (and as mentioned already "funky" is REALLY bad as it needs both kerning and maybe some baseline shift). The "365" article doesn't really "pop" for me. You should have done something more to set it apart. A different font, or a stroke or something. You have an issue that I'm sure you're aware of as far as readability goes because you have the black umbrella with the pale white skin of the model restricting you to either black text on skin or white text on umbrella. And because of that you've sort of smooshed the copy into some weird shapes to avoid crossing the line between the colors and affecting readability. I would have tried to find a way to lay out the copy a little smoother. The copy looks clumped together and makes for some strange looking paragraphs. Also my professor hates ampersands and would have cursed you for using them so often. I don't agree that they are always bad but I think more than one on the cover looks bad. And I never use them in small type the way you did. Lastly this is just a design choice that I don't agree with so I'll point it out that it may be something you wanted to do but it doesn't look quite right. You have the mag name in that handwritten font and then the article pulls (article titles) are in a different, clean sans serif. Except the article "Funky DIY Trends" which for some reason splits the difference and uses both fonts. If you wanted to show emphasis on the word funky I would have chosen another font. Not the title font. It's one thing to break consistency with the other article pulls for the sake of emphasis and it's another thing to create a new consistency with the title. I don't think it works. Hope that helps. All in all it's an ok layout. Could have used some polish. But then nothing is ever perfect I suppose. Cheers. More on reddit.com

I design magazines for a living. I subscribe to magazines I like the design of (Hi Bon Appetite!), read typography textbooks, and surf Behance a lot. Text books are great for learning the basics, magazines are great for seeing those principles in practice, and Behance is full of out-of-this-world creative typography and layout. Between the three, it makes for a good balance of inspirations. More on reddit.com