Front Cover Development

After getting some feedback on my initial cover, I set to work on making a few alterations so that it looked more like a front cover that you would most likely see in shops and on the magazine stands, the steps I took will once again be posted and given a detailed explanation below:

The majority of the feedback was that my cover lacked any differentiation between the colour scheme. The first step I took was to move the CDI over to the right hand side a bit more, allowing me to have more room to work with for my features. I also took the strapline and made it smaller, changed the colour to a golden shade as I thought it would compliment the black background of the cover. The masthead has also been increased in size so that it draws more attention tot it when on the shelves. In the second phase I kept the majority of the text the same, however I did play around with text sizing so that certain aspects would be clearer, predominantly these were the key articles that would feature in the magazine itself, these were also highlighted with block colouring which helps enhance the overall look of the cover as well, by having more colours in the scheme it also added another dimension to the cover. The features have also been changed into colours as well so that it isn't just one single colour throughout. The third stage of this development is where I took the coverline and added it back in, again i changed the size of it and matched the colour to the strapline, I have still kept it with the strapline so as to keep a continuity aspect there. I also added the barcode and the other small bits of information, such as price, issue number and date back in, these werent changed as I felt that they were suited to where they were and weren't in need of being change.

In these next two development sections I focused on getting all the fienr details in place and ordered correctly . The first stage here I went and took out the page numbers that were with the features on the left hand side and simply had the feature, I also changed the features so that they all had the same colour, however so as not to end up with another cover that had a very single coloured scheme I then broke the featuers up using some red lines that gave it a more flashy look so to speak. In the second stage here I then moved the CDI to the right and up a bit as I felt that by moving the features covered up some of the image and I wanted to keep the entire image viewable. The main article title was then added back in and placed back into its original position so that people knew who the artist on the cover was. To make it a more authentic looking magazine cover page I have added a web page to it so that people could go online and access extra material on the magazine.

Final development of cover:

This is where the development of my cover has gone, I have used the feedback from people and through research as well, I feel that this is a much better overall look for a magazine cover. To this final one I have added back in the puffs along the bottom of the cover, and once again used the block colouring to enhance the overall aesthetics of it.

Looking back at the original cover I had, I believe that this is a much more appealing cover to my target market, it has that edgier look to it and a more current feel and look. I personally feel that overall this cover has taken into account the feedback and the criticisms that I have been given and I hope that this cover meets my target audiences needs.

Creating my magazine contents page

In this post I am going to once again take you through the stages that I undertook in creating my magazines contents page:

To start with I began by taking a white page and continuing my theme from the front cover went for a large piece of text boxed in with colour, allowing me to use a white font here on a black background. The image in the upper right hand corner of the page was created by taking the original image, duplicating it and applying a zoom motion blur to the bottom layer before changing the top layer to a lighten layer, this gave a distorted yet unique image. I've also added in some text under the image giving it a reference to a DPS in the magazine. In the second and third phases of this design I added in another image, this time I simply changed the brightness and the contrast of the original before flipping it horizontally in order to make it seem as if the subject is looking into the details on the page. Once again I added in some text which linked the new image to content on the cover.

These next two phases are where the pages really start to take shape, in the first of these stages I have added some block colour and some more text to the bottom image and started to add in some more page details about the content in the magazine itself. On one of these articles I added in I have linked it to a recently released song which has become quite popular called 'I Need A Doctor' which was released by Dr Dre. therefore I added it to the contents page in the line 'Dre needs a doctor' playing on the name of the song. In the second of these shots, I decided that the page was looking a bit bland and boring so I decided to once again carry my them from the front cover and break up the lines of text with some simple coloured lines. I've also added in a small piece of text with a link to the website where there are extra reviews, competitions and downloads as well.

Final Contents Page:

This is the final contents page that I have come up with, the additions on this one are that I have taken up the large empty space on the right hand side of the page with text that gives the readers a much more detailed view, although not too detailed that they get the information straight away, into what the rest of the magazine will cover inside. By using some more block colouring it draws the eye to it and make people want to read it. I have also used text at the end of the piece which gets larger to indicate that the magazine only gets better and better as you are reading it and that there's a lot more inside on top of what's being advertised on the contents page itself.

Creating my magazine front cover

In this post I will take you through the stages that I went through to create my cover:

(All the fonts which have been used were found online at www.refont.com)

Above you can see the first 5 stages that I took to create the cover, I started by taking the original image and changing the brightness and contrast to give a darker, Richer image. The next step was influenced by a cover I had seen this year of Kanye West with a crown of thorns on his head, so I decided that I wanted to create my own powerful image. I took a stock picture of a skull I found on the internet and pasted into Photoshop on a new layer, I then changed the size of the image several times until I was happy that it was the right size and in proportion to my original image. Next I used a feature in Photoshop called warp to change the angle of the skull so the contours all lined up and it matched the shape of the subjects face, I tried to make the cheeks, eyes, chin and nose match up so that it looks like it could actually be his skull, I also trimmed off the upper part of the skull as it was too big to be on the image.

In this next phase of editing, the cover itself starts to come together, after having the skull image lined up with my photo I changed the layering effect on Photoshop to an overlay so that the skull was a lot more transparent and it also blended with the colour of the face. To then change the image and give it yet another dimension I selected the facial area of the image and cut it out, putting it onto a new layer, I then filled the gap and made the entire base layer black, with the facial image pasted back onto a new layer I lowered the opacity of it to 86% to create a bit more of an edge to the image. I then set about making it into a cover, I started by putting the title on, looking at the cover I didn't think that my previous ideas had the suitability for the cover based on the image I now have, I then placed my strapline on 'They said Hip-Hop was dead' I chose this as a strapline because of the suitability and the relation to my main image. I also placed on the price, date and issue number in the bottom corner. The next stage that I went through was placing on the name of the artist on the cover, I placed it down in the bottom left as I felt that it was the most appropriate place and it also filled a large blank area.

These are the final stages of my cover coming together, in the first of these I added a barcode to the bottom right of the cover and then moved the date, price and issue number above it to keep all of the magazine details together. On the next step I added a puff underneath the strapline giving a bit more detail about the main topic of this magazine, as the cover has the image with the skull being superimposed and the strapline being to do with Hip-Hop being dead, I put the puff to read 'We meet the man who is leading the ressurection' I felt that it was suitable as it fitted with the whole genre of this particular cover. In the final cover I added some more puffs to the bottom to fill the blank space and to add extra information about the magazine for the readers, I also moved the price etc to the right a little bit as there was a gap that I felt shouldn't have been there.

FINAL COVER:

For the final cover, I added in some more puffs down the left hand side of it to again show what else the magazine has inside of it, I have put that it has interviews with several major artists who have just released new songs out onto the market which would entice people to read the magazine hoping that they would get an idea of what the new songs are like, I have also put the competition there, this will also make people want to read the magazine because gig tickets are highly sought after and being the first issue the tickets will help to bring in customers which could then be turned into a loyal customer base. I have had to move down the 'Van Kho' text though as when I was adding in these puffs they overlapped into the text so I have changed the text size and slightly altered the layout to create the final version of my magazine cover.

Magazine Coursework Images

These are the images that I have taken and chosen to use for my magazine cover, contents and also the DPS that I will be creating over the next month or so, the images which have been taken have all been thought about so as to portray the messages that my magazine will have when its all been finished.

When it came to taking the images myself, I decided that I would use my strengths in photography to utilise the schools studio space in which I felt I could create some stronger images because I had control over the lighting whereas taking the images outside meant that I would've been quite dependent on the weather being right.