FRONT COVER CONSTRUCTION

FRONT COVER PHOTOGRAPHSThe angle inhibits the viewer from seeing a key part of the model’s costume: the golden necklace which is meant to symbolise wealth and power.

I find the pose is too conservative for a hip hop magazine, the top of her head is also cut off which will make a straight line if I was to crop an outline.

I didn’t like the way the light cast a shadow under the model’s chin as it gave her an illusion of a double chin which is rather unflattering.

I didn’t like the way the light cast a shadow under the model’s chin as it gave her an illusion of a double chin which is rather unflattering.

Although I liked the model’s expression and hand gesture, I didn’t choose this image because there would not be enough white space for the sell lines.

For the artist on the front cover, I wanted to display a powerful, female figure because my magazine is all about moving forward and with the emergence of female artists in the hip hop and RnB genre, I thought it would be appropriate to portray an empowered female much like Mary J Blige. This subverts the conventions of a hip hop/rnb magazine because male artists often dominate the front cover.

The first step was to brighten up the image so the highlights become more apparent – this makes the contrast between light and dark more intense and also gives the illusion her skin is glowing.

To discard the inappropriate background I used the quick selection tool to select the areas I wanted to get rid of. I then dragged the outline to the side and was left with a white background.

To get rid of the bits the quick selection tool missed, I used the erase tool.

OUTCOME

I then selected the image and copied and pasted it onto a new A4 background, this gave me the visual of what it will look like on the front cover.

I then proceeded on to edit the model’s imperfections using the blur tool and the spot healing tool.

OUTCOME

To remove the white background because I didn’t need it anymore, I used the remove background tool on microsoft word.

I looked on www.dafont.com to pick out fonts that looked appropriate for my magazine.

The font I used for the masthead is “I fink u freeky”.

I positioned the masthead behind the model’s head so it would not cover her face.

Initially I wanted the colour of the masthead to be the same colour as her necklace but it didn’t really look vivid enough for a hip hop magazine so I added a gradient effect to make it more effective.

The reference I used was Mary J Blige’s VIBE front cover.

I wanted the model to look more majestic so I made the contrast between the highlight and shadow higher.

I also added artist names above the masthead because it is a common convention.

I changed the colour of the masthead to orange although no one picked the colour in my survey, I thought it would be a good way to challenge the form of hip hop magazines.

The font I used for the first sell lines was “EarthBound”. I played around with the colours to see what would look appealing.

1ST DRAFT

I included a banner at the bottom of the page and I used bevelled lines of the same colour family to separate the sell lines.

I also developed the slogan “Just go with it” and put it underneath the masthead.

I added the price and the barcode also at £3.99

This is my second draft, I added a promotional feature which is to win a trip to LA.

I varied the fonts as much as I could but it got to the point where my magazine just looked messy because the fonts were so different.

I revisited my audience research (survey and focus group) and decided to rein myself in and conform more to the results.

After revisiting my audience research, I downloaded a new font called “Aldo the Apach” but I decided to keep the “EarthBound” font for the arist’s name. I changed the colour scheme to red, black, grey and white. Also, instead of putting artists at the top I began to put artists in a list form and placed a sub headline above the masthead. I also changed the position of the slogan twice and layered shapes that contrast the colour of the sell lines. I also edited the promotional feature and positioned it in a higher place so it would not touch the bar code and the price. I also changed the price from £3.99 to £3.00.

The Final Draft

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