Final Drafts Of My Front Cover

^I removed blue from the colour-scheme/house colours as I felt it didn't work with other colours and made the front page of my music magazine look unprofessional and over-crowded which made it unattractive and hard to read. I therefore kept the red and yelllow colours along with adding more black and replaced the blue for one of these colours that contrasted well with its surroundings. Using 2 colous aswell as black is conventioanl of music magazines, making it attractive. easy to read and focus and eye catching to the audiences eyes, making them hopfully want to buy it.Therefore making it seem less overcrowded and more focused. The brand logo/name itself also had to change its apearence. I kept the bold read colour as its the most eye-catching colour to the eye and is conventional of music magazines of a similar genre to mine like Q and NME.I removed the blue which I felt made it look more striking, powerful and dominant whilst adding faded inner and outer shadows of black(white a white glow so it stood out) which fitted with the colour scheme/house styles, made it look 3D and stand of the page and therefore more eye-catching of the edge and dominant fitting the style and genre of my magazine as appropriatly and effectivly as possible.

^I added some final touches to my front cover. I moved the 'Only £1.50' splash to the corner of the page pearing out of the edge as I felt this fitted the style of the magazine better as before it just looked out of place and distractting. However I kept the same colours on this splash so that it still looked as eye-catching and dominantly noticable. I removed the words 'This Week' on the same splash to make it straight to the point as I felt these words were not needed and distracted the audiences attention away from the main point of the splash - that this magazine is cheap! Therefore making my low social graded target audience want to buy it. I made the skyline thinner than it was before as skylines arn't usually that thick on music magazines and this therefore makes it more conventional and look as proffesional as a music magazine. I spread my smaller features out around the page with two on each side of the page so that they didn't look as cluttered, were easier to read, more defined and balenced the space on the front cover as the right hand side just looked empty and bear therefore filling this space gave it a much more proffesional finish. I made the issue date and issue number more bold, defined and therefore easier to read along with making sure that every letter was a capital so it looked correctly written and professional. On my bar code I made sure I changed the style of the 'HIP' brand name in the email address so that it fiited the colour scheme (removed the blue) and was also the same style as my new brand name/logo was in my masthead for continuity so an audience can familiarise with this and therefore it will be easier to remember and become popular - therefore using attention to detail just like they do it famous profesiona music magazines - conventional.

^^^^On the last three Draft's I wanted to experiment with changing my main image to see how it would impact on my Front Cover's overall design and if they would improve it at all. I cut each image out using the auto select tools and harsh eraser tools, smoothing the edges off using the soft eraser for believability. I then wanted to experiment whith the effect different types of photo manipulation would have on each image. I experimented with editing these images using Photoshop and creating duplicates so I could experiment with giving different effects on the skin and on the clothes, using the auto select tools. I then edited the images in Photoshop using the colour, exposure, opacity, lighting and blending option tools and then perfected the skin/body of the image/artist using the spot healing, healing, perfector, liquidify and clone tools to give an overall professional, unique apearence to each image. One of the problems I had with this was putting the images back together, as often there heads or arms look like there floating in mid-air which makes the artist look fake and unattractive and the image look unproffessonal and stupid. I chose two of my most decent, effective and attractive images when placed alone and edited them in a unique way to see what I could do with them and how effective I could make them look. I edited one image twice to try and make it more believable and attractive as the clack and white skin and coloured clothing looked fake, dull, unattractive and unproffesional. When placing each image on the design it was difficult to make them fit within the design in an effective, proffesional, effective and attractive way, on some draft designs I tried to edit some of the other elements (also fitting the colurs of the images with the house styles) on the page such as text, boxes and splashes to make them complement the image more but that just made the overall designs even more dull, unprroffesional, unattractive and ineffextive. I therefore feel that these last 3 experimental drafts arn't as proffesional and effective as the image used on my previous drafts. I feel that the images look okay alone but not within my front cover design or the way they are edited. I therefore wont use any of these images for my final front cover draft but may use them within my Contents Page and Double Page Spread drafts if they prove effective, attractive, relevent and proffesional. On my next draft I want to develop and improve my last draft created with the other image, in order to create the best most attractive, dominant, believable, proffesional, effective, attention grabbing, bold and eye catching final Front Cover draft design I possibly can.

 

^^^^This is my last Draft of my music Magazine Front Cover.

On this last draft I chose to take the best and most effective Front Cover draft I have created and improve on it as much as possible. I tried to remove and replace all the negative points about this draft and put all the positive points from previous drafts into this one in order to make it the most believably proffesional, attractive and effective Front Cover I possibly can. The main thing I focused on with this draft was attention to detail and I tried to make everything look as perfected and accurate asa possible in order to create a bold, understandable, proffesional, effective and attractive Final Front Cover draft. The main thing I edited dominantly about this draft is the V-Festival Splash. I felt that the concept and positioning was very effective but its apearence on my last draft were dull and unprofesional as the logo had been stretched out of proportion, the black writing was hard to read against the red and each element of the splash looked like it had just been placed there- unconnected. Therefore on this draft I edited the V-Festival logo on the splash so that it was the full V-Festival logo and not just a part of it which makes it understandable and official and I made sure that it was correctly in proportion, not stretched in order to make it look attractive, effective, proffesional and believable of a real music magazine. I used the same V-Festival Logo and proportions on both the Splashes on the Front Cover and contents Page for continuity and so that they link together dominantly so that the pages look like they belong to the same music magazine 'Hip' for believability and professionalism. I then made the background of the splash more intresting, eye-catching and attractive by using a faded red  to yellow colour (gradient effect using the blending options tools in Photoshop) that complemented the house styles aswell and making the black writing easier to read and notice as the black on yellow colours contrast much better than red on black colours. I also felt this background was effective as it looked more intresting and positivly connoted V-Festivals summer-y, festival, outgoing and happy nature, with its unique design making it more noticable as it stands of the page. I used a similar backgound and design on the V-Festival splash on the Front Page and the V-Festival splash on the contents page for continuity and effectivness, clearly linking the articles and pages together like in a professional music magazines, helping an audiences understanding of the pages and articles. On the V-Festival splash I also placed some of the most appealing and attention grabbing words 'inside exclusive' in black boxes to make them more noticeable, attractive and stand of the page as well as to complement the blocking theme and house styles for continuity to make all my music magazine pages look professional, understandable and stand out from the page to capture an audiences attention. I also placed them overlapping and on different angles to suit the magazine, festival and artists edgy and bold styles and mainstream indie/modern pop genre. I also felt that using the boxes made the writing look more interesting, readable, bold, noticeable (compared to precious draft) and dominantly stood out from its background. On this Final Front Cover draft I also placed extra large quotation marks around the pull quote as its conventional, attractive and emphasis's the fact its a direct quotation from the audience which teases the audience with withheld information and therefore makes them want to buy my music magazine to find out more and read the whole article. I placed a yellow shadow effect around the black quotation marks to complement the bold and dominant house styles/colors, making them look more attractive and noticeable as they stand out from there background. I made the pull quote an italic font as its conventional, emphasis's and connotes the fact its a direct quote from the artist clearly, complements the house styles, makes it stand out from the rest of the writing as its different and makes it look more attractive and effective overall. I experimented with highlighting and shadow effects on the main headline/feature in order to create a bold effect which I feel makes the whole section look attractive, effective, dominant, bold, eye-catching, professional, a believably realistic music magazines front cover and stand out predominantly of the page to capture an audiences attention in order to make them feel the need to want to buy my music magazine 'Hip'. I moved around my features untill they were evenly spaced out and in an accurate position for continuity, professionalism and to make the layout as attractive, eye-catching and understandable to an audience as possible. I moved and swapped around my list of Artists across the bottom of my page so they fitted into the spaces accurately and clearly, were clear for an audiences eyes to notice each artists name individually and to make sure that each artist name wasn't covering or distorting anouther vital element of this draft such as the barcode/web adress/price (like on the previous draft) which I feel makes my front cover look more professional, believable, sellable, understandable and attractive. I also made my masthead and main headline a larger font as there the most important, eye-catching pieces of information on the page and I therefore wanted to make them conventionally dominate the page in order to attract an audience attention/eyes towards the page to make them feel the need to buy it. I felt by making them a larger font in linked the Artist with the brand clearly therefore subconsciously reminding the audience of the brand who brought them this interestingly exclusive article making them more likely to want to buy my magazine again as well as the larger and bolder font sizes complementing my music magazines bold and dominant mainstream genre. I also edited the image slightly by making the Artist/Models eyes slightly wider and more open using the liquidify tools in Photoshop. I feel this makes the artist look more attractive and improves the impact of conventional direct address as it looks like the Artist is looking directly at the audience, making my audience more likely to notice my magazine and be attracted into purchasing it, making my front cover overall more effective. I also perfected the image as much as I could by using Photoshop tools such as clone, healing, spot healing, blending and liquidify tools to make the skin look more even, smoothed out and perfected in order to make my image and music magazine looks as professional, attractive, effective, dominant and believably real as possible. I also used the auto select, opacity, eraser and blending tools in Photoshop to make the outlines of the colour effects I put on the hat and jumper as accurate as possible which I feel makes it look much more believable, real, professional and not-edited. I overall tried to perfect, even out, space out and correct all the small details of my final draft. I feel that by changing and perfecting the finer details of my Front Cover (making all the listed changes) I have managed to create a Final Front Cover draft that looks effective, attractive, dominant, bold, professional, believable, realistic, attention grabbing, conventional, unique, eye-catching and stands out, making the last Draft of my Front Cover an effective one.