Magazine Cover and Contents Layout

I have been practicing making potential layouts for my magazine cover and contents page on Microsoft Publisher. As is it only the layout, it is not detailed.

This is the first cover layout I tried making. It is not detailed and I have already decided while I was making it that I was not going to use as it my front cover layout. It is very plain and looking at it, I know that it would not make a good cover if it was used.

This is the first contents page I tried making. I somewhat like this layout. My idea is to use a picture of the school's common room, and edit it to make it look darker, giving it a more moody, yet welcoming feel. The contents area is going to be solid white from the picture, fading into black or blue. I'd prefer to use blue since that's the main colour of the main school building, but then with the common room image, I want to make it so that it fades into black towards the edges.

This is the second front cover I made. I really like this layout because there is a lot on the cover, and this can capture a lot of eyes. This layout allows a lot of information on the cover, so anyone who sees it will know what to expect when they open the magazine. Since I can use multiple pictures of students, the cover will have a really communal feeling.

This is the second contents page. I don't like this one as much as the first one. There is a lot of unused space which is unappealing to me, and also unappealing to potential readers. When it comes to magazines, minimalism is not the way to go, in my opinion. The coloured spots are just the spots that I would add if I did decide to use this layout. This is not the entire colour scheme, but this is just an example. If I use spots, I will use the spots following the colour scheme of the common room.