Tuesday, 5 January 2010

Third draft of front cover


This is the third and final draft of my front cover (for now..)
This time i changed the barcode and some of the text. Firstly, I played around with the way the barcode is set out to see people's reactions to it (if it isn't to your taste please comment). If it turns out to be unsuccessful then i will turn the barcode the other way round, to the way it was before - but with the information about price and the date still there.
The second thing i've changed is the font because in my last draft, the fonts i needed were not on my home computer's photoshop.
The last thing i did was add some text to the kickers to attract the consumer's attention. To the main kicker i've added 'World Exclusive' to show that this cover story is for the public not only in the UK, but to the rest of the world, as this front cover is introducing a newly signed band to the world.

Wednesday, 23 December 2009

second draft of music magazine front cover

This is my second draft of my front cover. In this draft I took
into account the improvements I noted in the post about my first draft of my front cover.
First of all, I changed the cover lines' font to the second most popular font which is referred in my target market questionnaire. However, I was at a disadvantage as my photoshop at home holds a limited amount of fonts meaning that the font for my cover lines were not available and so I had to find a font similar to the font which I originally wanted. This also disrupted my selling line. As you can see my selling line is a different font from last time. This was unintentional as my original plan was to change the size of it. However, my version of photoshop didn't recognise the font and so changed it to another font. To fix I will have to change the fonts for both the cover lines and the selling line back to the fonts I want them to be using the photoshop available in my school's computer system. The result of this will be shown in my third draft.
I, secondly erased the gaussian blur on the forehead of my model to the hairline could look more natural. This makes the model look a bit less 'fake' than before. For the selling line, I completely changed it. I tried to make it more exciting using informal language as well as directing it to the audience; however, I'm not sure if this did the trick. The word "jammin'" might be considered as colloquial language as you would only expect it to be said but not written; this also adds to the excitement. The last feature I changed was the font size of the dateline and the price. I made it smaller so there is more negative space surrounding them. This was also annoying to change since the font was unrecognisable and so I had to change that font too. From doing all of this, this is the result I got. As you can see, there is not much of a difference from the first draft, but there are small improvements in this version which may or may not be recognisable.

Tuesday, 22 December 2009

First draft of music magazine cover

This is the first draft of my music magazine cover. As you can see, this version has many problems which need to be improved - but this is what you expect from a first draft of a magazine.
First of all, let me explain the good aspects of this version. One of my good aspects is that the masthead and the cover lines follow the eye flow in a 'C' shape. I also tried to keep the rule of thirds in contact. You can see that the image is in all of the thirds as it is a close-up image. However, the model's highlights are in the left-third which is also associated with the cover lines, selling line and the barcode. The other two-thirds consists of the model's face and the main kicker and explanatory text. Another good aspect is that the masthead stands out from the rest of the text. The main kicker also stands out, but not as much as the masthead. The text also fits the genre of the music magazine which shows who the magazine is targeted for - however this only worked for some of the text - this is also shown by the pink paint splat effects in the background. The background itself is also a good aspect of this first draft as it looks like a fence which can be associated with the genre.
On the other hand, there were many bad aspects of this first draft which needs to be improving. I asked my teacher for feedback of my magazine and these were the points which needs to be worked on. First of all, my teacher said that the font used for the selling line and the strap line works really well, however this type of font does not co-operate with the cover lines and so a fourth font will have to be used on the cover lines so it would look better. Secondly, the image of the model seems to be photoshopped too much and so, to make the hairline more natural, some of the gaussian blur used on the forehead will have to erased. In my opinion, i agree with my teacher as the model seems too 'fake' as so needs to have some natural aspects about it. Another point my teacher made was that the selling line seems too dull and does not relate to the genre of the music magazine. As your can see this is true since the phrase 'Updating you with the lastest news' isn't exciting at all and is simple and unattractive. The fourth and final point is that the dateline and the price of the magazine needs to have a smaller font size so there is more negative space around them.

Monday, 30 November 2009

Photoshoot plan for front cover

This is the photoshoot plan for the front cover of my music magazine. This will help me to organize my photoshoot. I also made a back up photoshoot if my original photoshoot does not go to plan. For example, if the model is ill on the day of the shoot or another problem arises. It explains what is needed in the shoot and if there are any editing which needs to be done on Adobe Photoshop (the use of photoshop has to be kept to a minimum).

Mock up of front cover

This is the mock up for my front cover of my music magazine. It includes the colour scheme which my target audience thought was the best out of the options. It is also in the size which it will be in for my music magazine. It follows the eye flow, a 'C' shape, which is often used in other music magazines such as 'Q' and 'Kerrang'. I tried to have the text in the desired font however, it didn't work.