Music magazine - planning and creating of the front cover

Initial ideas

Proposal for the music magazine



 Flat plans

-Masthead: I chose to stick to the traditional placing of the masthead to make my magazine look more conventional. I will make it large and bold.

-Dateline: I have chosen to put my date line underneath the masthead. It'll be a small font in comparison to the masthead and will include the date of the issue and which issue it is.

-The main image: the main image will cover the whole of the front cover but the most important part will be in the middle third so it won't be covered up.

-puff/plugs: a few will be scattered on the front cover to show competitions ( things that can be won)

-barcode: the barcode will be placed right at the bottom to show how realistic my magazine will be.


Photography
I created a photography shooting script so I could plan many different photo designs, then could review each of them after taking them or if I knew they wouldn't work I could review them before I took the shot. On my photography shooting script I only spoke about four different designs, even though I took and reviewed more.














These are some of the photos I took when shooting for my front cover. 



In this photo, I chose the floral dress to represent the summer month that It will be issued in. The guitar represents the music magazine that I am creating and I feel that this as well as the woodland background shows a more 'country-pop' genre that I have chosen to create my magazine around.

My critics of this photo is that it is on the left third of the photo, this is where all the information (well a bigger percentage) will go, so because of this the model needs to be on the other side. I also feel the pose is to posed and make the magazine feel unnatural. The model is to pale to represent this summer magazine so if used I would need to photo shop a tan on her to make it more realistic.

This photo was taken at the same time as the previous photo, as it was taken in the same shoot. A different pose was executed here, this works because it doesn't reveal everything, so when it comes to the double page spread I'm able to show more of the:

- Model
- Environment
- Outfit
- Props.

Although, this photo doesn't portray the smiley young pop star that I wanted to be shown through, so I don't feel it would be appropriate to use.

This was my favourite of this particular shoot, and the one which in fact I did begin to create my magazine front cover with. I liked this photo, and it fitted well with various text arrangements.

unfortunately when I inserted this into Photoshop and in design I found that the image was very pixelated and blurry making it unsuitable to use, this was a great shame and meant I needed to take more photos ready to insert into my front cover design.

I have collected screenshots of my front cover as I have gone along to enable people to be able to see the stages I have completed.

Here I have used just an example  photo from offline just so I could work around it with the different mastheads and plugs, then later I would insert my photograph instead of this one. I used this example photo as it has the same feel/theme I would like to include in my own.

Masthead: This masthead I created to look feminine, and a country/pop theme. I think the white colour stands it out along with the blackening outline.


Barcode: I used this barcode to make the front cover more professional and less amateur. The barcode is a conventional feature making it more realistic.

Masthead: the masthead I have enlarged here, this makes it more visible on the front cover, this is important so it stands out more. I also added a drop shadow to the font so again it lifts it a little from the page.

I started to alter the fonts so they weren't all the same. From different magazine examples i can see that all the puffs and cover-lines and different fonts, colours and styles.

I also ensured all the writing on the left all started as far over to the left as possible and in line to make it look more professional.

On this screenshot I have added another colour to the scheme, a bright pink. This enhances the summer colour scheme, it also breaks the text up more. I choose to include black text and a bright colour from various inspirations:

Here  i have continued to make it look more and more professional and conventional, taking inspiration from varying pop magazine covers.

I have furthered the editing in order to create better text, for example putting words in bold, or enlarging it. I've also used underlining in some case.

I have ensured the colouring is alternate in order to imitate the various examples above.

The next changes i need to make are:

- The background photo to my own photo

- Another plug on the righthand side

- A link to the Alexa Denzal interview.










New photography

Photography shooting script

This new photo was taking at the local forest - this gives it the country pop feel. The young girl (happy and smiley fits in with the target audience.)

The dancing costume allows a  background story to be created as well as an interest to another target audience. This theme will be continued through out the magazine in order to keep consistency and allow the artist to be created.

This photo has been on Photoshop and I enhanced the colour and adjusted the different settings such as:
- contrast
- lighting
- shadowing
- saturation










I like these photo's because they are natural, not looking to over posed. When looking at different inspirations I noticed how the pop music magazine artists were posed more naturally so I wanted to capture this in my photography.


Due to the lack of eye contact here ( an important feature of the front cover photo ) I have chosen to use this photo on the contents page and the one above on my front cover. This will make my magazine more conventional and professional looking.


This photo has the same setting and model as it was taken in the same shoot. I feel she fits well into the description sample, and the setting enhances the country pop feel.

Next stages of creating my front cover:

Here I have inserted my own photo into the back ground of my front cover and ensured it filled the frame proportionally so that the photo wasn't at all distorted.


I then needed to readjust my text to fit well around the new photo, again remaining the professionalism.


I have also added more text on the right hand side as from my inspiration I found it unusual for their to be any empty parts on the front cover.

First Final Draft

On reflection

When looking at my front cover i can see many changes i need to make.
These include of:
- Enlarging my masthead ( increasing width and height)
- Changing font of my masthead ( More San serif )
- The photograph ( rule of thirds, use of lines, change of outfit)
- The coverlines


New photography 

Techniques I have used

- Rule of thirds
- high key lighting
- The use of lines
- props
- Zoom

Location

The location I have chosen is in the woodland / forest area. I have chosen this because I feel it

has great relevance to the music genre I have chosen. (Country - pop). It also allows the model to seem more realistic and involved in everyday life making her more relatable and likeable to the audience.












Front Cover stages 

1) In this stage I have used Photoshop to cut out the picture of the model and inserted back on top of the original photo placing the mast head in the middle.




I have made sure the cover line was large so that it stands out significantly when the rest of the text Is added.

 

2) Here I have added more cover lines puffs/plugs to build up the front cover making it more professional.






I have added more conventions also such as the barcode.

 

 

 

 My final front cover