Evaluation on magazine layouts

Overall, creating the magazine layouts was useful in getting better within photoshop. I had to create at least 3 different ideas, only 2 of them were based on my chosen conflict and the other was a completely different idea so that I could try a completely different style.
The artists that have inspired me the most for this project would be David Carson and Ed Fella. David carson would be more for the graphic designing bit and how he has put the text and images/shapes together. And the fonts he uses really work with it's theme/background. On the other hand I really liked Ed Fella's work because it would help me for my own designs to add in. Can really see that it's been hand drawn by coloured pencils and things but also the different textures, thickness and sizes that he has used. If I was to create my own font, I would most likely make them in the style of Ed Fella.
My first idea was to keep it simple with a few images and not much text, it did go the way I had wanted but I felt it was boring and could have a bit more going on. The kind of Typface I used in this one would most be Serif but the words 'Animal Testing' was in Sans Serif. Most of it fitted okay but now looking back over it, I don't think the font 'Animal Testing' really fitted with what it was saying - match the kind of feeling I wanted to give.
So for my second idea, I tried to make the font match a bit better but I still couldn't find one that I felt could work. (This is where I could have drawn my own and photoshoped it in). But on the overall for this idea, I had tried to copy another layout that I had found on the internet which had a bit more going on and gave me some good areas to use mixed media in.
From these experiments, I had only kept them graphic like and not using mixed media. So what I could have done was hand draw some of my own pictures and text to photograph and add on. Also I could of done some real life photography of animals then photoshoped it. Further more, I've used many ideas and techniques and from all this I've found it easier to use photoshop. Also have a better understanding in which is the best type of typography to be used with different subjects/emotion.