Improved and Final Front Cover

Final Front Cover

Now that I have seen what I need to improve on I went back to my first draft of my front cover on Photoshop and added in the features that were mentioned in my audience feedback. Below is my final draft of my front cover with the improved features from my feedback. I have added in different fonts and sizes, made the date bigger, made headlines clearer and put more cover lines in. Also I have made the image size bigger after looking at the other magazines I have been researching which most have the models from the torso and above.

Audience Feedback on Front Cover

Audience Feedback on Front Cover

For my audience feedback on my front cover I left small sheets of paper by my first draft of my front cover so people could write on the paper what they liked and disliked about it. Below are the pieces of paper and the main targets I am going to focus on putting into improving my front cover. 

Here are the main points I need to focus on when improving my front cover: 

• "More variety of fonts need to be used"
• "Wider variety in sizes of fonts"
• "Could make the date bigger"
• "There is a bit more space on the bottom right, could add more cover lines"
• "Fonts look very simple"
• "The headlines need to be bigger"
• "Make it clearer who is the main person featuring in the magazine"

Finished Front Cover

1ST DRAFT FRONT COVER

This is my first draft of my front cover. I will be getting feedback on what to improve from my target audience and then I will be updating my front cover taking the advice from my feedback and adding improvements. 

Front Cover Construction 4

Front Cover Construction 4

RELOAD LOGO

RELOAD LOGO

I have come up with the original idea of creating a logo for my title like some other magazines such as RWD Magazine (left) that has the logo of a rewinding symbol which just separates it from the other magazines and makes it unique with its own style. I have come up with the idea of creating a Reloading symbol seeing as my title is called RELOAD. I came up with this idea when constructing my magazine and I noticed the reloading sign in the URL tab on my mac laptop. --------->I thought this would be a good idea to recreate this symbol as the 'O' in my title. I have started making this symbol as you can see in my front page construction above.

Font Research

 Font Research

In my font research I aim to decide on the types of fonts I wish to use on my front cover of my magazine. To do this I will need to look at various magazines that fit in with the genre of my magazine such as VIBE and RWD Magazine which can both be associated to the urban genre that I am following. I am going to look at some of the styles of typography and fonts used on the magazines I have analysed.

<-------- These are some of the examples of fonts that I would like to follow the style of when constructing my cover lines on the front of my magazine. The font is similar to the style I will use as it is simple and bold which will not draw attention away from my main headlines which I will have in a different, eye catching font. The Plus sign is a feature I would like to incorporate onto the cover of my magazine as it gives the magazine a unique look instead of saying 'plus'. I also like the idea of putting some text inside a box so it is different from the rest of the fonts and text, also so it stands out a little bit more from the rest. These images are from the TI edition of VIBE Magazine.

Magazine Decided Colour Schemes and House Style

Decided Colour Schemes and House Styles

 

 

Cover Lines Planning

Cover Lines Planning   

 

Title- RELOAD

Featuring Artists-                                                             Main Artist Exclusive

                                                                                                              Interview- Connor Stevens Wiley                                                                                                         

Devlin                                  

Giggs                                                                                                            Quote from Connor Stevens

Ellie Goulding  

Nicki Minaj                                                                                                   "                                         "

Boy Better Know                                    Main Image

Wretch 32 

Yasmin

Example                                                                                                          

Calvin                                                                                                            

Maverick Sabre

Interview with a famous artist-                                        50 biggest tunes right now!

Either Professor Green or Example

 Barcode

 

 QR Code

 Website                                                         Who is the greatest rapper ever?

                                                                        You decide

Date Issue   

 Header- Music Style Sport TV News Film Gaming

Front Cover Construction 3

Another change I wanted to make to my front cover was the background. I wanted to change it to white as I feel it would look better. All I did to change the background was to go to the fill paint bucket tool and select the background as the colour on my gradient was already white. The paint bucket tool is on the tool bar on the left. (below)

As you can see the title has now got a slight reflection and I decided it was not quite right. Therefore I made the opacity higher to make it seem like a more realistic reflection so you can't see it as well. To do this I simply went to the tool in the bottom right corner and used the slider to turn up the opacity (below) until I was happy with it. I ended up having the opacity at 80%.




Furthermore, the gradient tool was selected so I then clicked where I wanted the reflection on the second title to stop and dragged down from the middle of the two titles.

Now I had a layer mask on the second title I selected the gradient tool which will give it a reflective effect. I selected it on the tool bar on the left.








I then needed to create a layer mask (below) to edit the actual gradient and opacity of the vertically flipped second title. So I went down into the bottom right hand corner and clicked on the icon that looks like a small camera and as you can see on the image it is highlighted in a yellow box.









Next, I flipped the second title vertically to make it the opposite way round to the original title just like a reflection would be. I did this by right clicking on the second title and then clicking flip vertical.

Continuing on, I next wanted to add some effects to my title. I wanted to create a reflection effect. To do I started by clicking duplicate layer to create two of the same title. I did this by right clicking on the title that is in the bar in the bottom right corner and it comes up with a tab and I then clicked duplicate layer which is highlighted in the image.

FRONT COVER CONSTRUCTION 3

Front Cover Construction 2

As you can see now the title is inserted above my models head.
The title is simple at the moment but later on I will be adding colour and some effects to make it stand out more and seem more interesting to customers. I wanted the font to be positioned above the models head as this is what most of the magazines do, which I found out when researching into the music magazine market.





 The title was inserted into a new page and all I had to do was to click on the title and drag it into my other page where I already had my model. I had to hold it down onto the other page for a few seconds before it transferred into the other page. Once is transferred I kept holding down on the mouse and dragged it into the position I wanted it to be placed.

 After I had finished editing my model, I decided to insert my title that I got from the website www.dafont.com where you can type in the name of your title and choose the font you want. I went for a simple but bold font which is what Vibe and RWD magazine have on their front page as I found out in my research. To open the title I had already saved it so all I had to do was go to File -----> Open then search for my font, click on it and press open.







This screen grab is after I had finished using the spot healing brush and as you can see the two images are different if you look closely you can see there are no imperfections on my models face or neck.

Continuing on from my last development of editing my front cover I now wanted to clear up any imperfections on my models face such as spots, blemishes or uneven areas. To do this I used the spot healing tool (above) selected on the tool bar on the left. I made the tool size 15 which is relatively small and patched up any spots or imperfections I could see on his face

FRONT COVER CONSTRUCTION 2

Front Cover Construction

Now that the brightness and contrast levels were apparent I was able to select the amount of brightness and the levels of contrast I wanted to apply to my model. I selected the brightness to 20 and the contrast to 30 which highlighted his face more and revealed the brighter colours in his clothes. This makes the model stand out more on my front cover, which is how NME and Q magazine have their models on the cover, looking back at my research.



Next, I wanted to actually edit the body of my model. I wanted to enhance the colour and brightness on his clothing and face so I went to Image ------> Adjustments -------> Brightness and Contrast. Once I had selected what I wanted I was able to then change it and play around with how I wanted it to look until I decided I was pleased with the outcome.

  Once I had selected his body and all the features that I wanted to edit, I went to select -------->  inverse because at this point I was selecting everything apart from the figure of the body. Clicking on inverse selects the figure of the body and this is the only part that is currently selected. This would now enable me to edit the body without changing anything in the background.





 This is the first part of editing my model, I cut his figure/body out with the quick selection tool (below) by dragging around his body and zooming in to make sure I correctly selected the parts I wanted. In certain areas It was harder to select around the body as they are a similar colour to the background and it doesn't pick up the colour as well on Photoshop. So I had to zoom in closer and accurately select the parts I wanted.




This is a screen grab of my original picture of my model for my front cover that I am using. I am going to start making my front cover of my magazine, on Photoshop, from here and this is the starting point. I am going to create a very urban look to the cover of my magazine including urban fonts and maybe some slang.

FRONT COVER CONSTRUCTION 

Final Front Cover Photo

Final Front Cover Photo 

I have decided to use this photo for my front cover because I like the clothes he is wearing and the posture he is standing in. I have edited this picture in Photoshop to take away any imperfections and I have turned the contrast and brightness up slightly to give him a more enhanced look when standing out on the front cover of my magazine. I aim to select his body and put the figure on either a white or black background, with cover lines wrapped around his body depending on the colour of the background. I am going to maybe have the title above his head but I am not decided yet on weather to put the title slightly behind his head as this is what the magazines do in my Magazine Genre Inspiration. The colours of font and for the title of my magazine are maybe going to be blue, black and white as I have researched that the house style of magazines I am following mostly have three colours that flow without the magazine, also these colours in the text and title are usually found on the clothes of the model so that the unified house style all fits in together.