magazine cover

This is an assignment for my computer literacy course.  This class was designed to give me a chance to create something using several different "standard" computer programs.  The only one I thought was creative was when I had to use photoshop to create a magazine cover.  Although I like my cover I feel like I didn't take enough time with it and could have done a lot more.  I did this because I really hated my teacher in this class and just couldn't make myself spend much time on anything she assigned.  After the class was over I thought about it and realized that I missed out on a great opportunity to not only be a bigger person but to learn to still give my all for the sake of the design.  As far as the design itself goes I was more interested in having a creative idea then in making something creative out of a crappy idea.  This leads to an interesting line of thought, since this is a classroom exercise where the goal is to learn the program should I spend less time on the concept and more on dressing it up or more on the concept less on the window dressing.  Since it is a classroom exercise the obvious answer would be spend more time on the dressing to learn how to do the dressing, but the purpose of taking the class is to learn to be a designer so shouldn't the entire project be done as if for the real world?  I don't have the answer but I know for me I just don't like the idea of taking a crappy idea and trying to dress it up.