My Front Cover

My front cover was finally designed and published after much hard research and analysis of other world wide recognised music magazines. In order for my magazine to be successful, it had to take inspiration from the successful conventions of the music magazine to appear professional and top class. Magazines for my front cover such as Q magazine, which is the type of music magazine format I aimed to duplicate, were analysed and studied, in order to perfect my front cover.

The layout of this page was an inspiration to my front cover

The central focus of the model, perfectly centralised, identifies him as the USP of the magazine, and he becomes the most prominent and eye catching figure when the target audience gaze at the news stands. The way the text is positioned to fit around the model, and still fill the frame, without running too much across him, is a fantastic technique to inform the audience of the content of the magazine, without diverting their focus from the eye catching USP. The simplistic Masthead, is reflective of having connotations of simplistic and expertise opinion, as opposed to attempting to be ridiculously unique and edgy which in order to make my magazine appear professional, Insightful and appealing, is key to make sure I keep it not to "Over the top". The background is very clever. In creating a well lit, and prominently lit background, the model stands out and is emphasised due to their clothing contrasting with the background, therefore, I saw fit to use this my magazine.

I ananlysed this front cover, simply due to the pose. Whilst not completley identical to my models pose in my final project, the way Bruce Springsteen body language seems rather laid back, signifies a sense if smugness that in the late 20th and 21st century we have come to expect from musicians, therefore incorporating this in to my magazine makes perfect sense if I am to portray the arrogant smug music icon that teenagers envy, and as they are my main audience, It strengthens the position of the model being the USP, as is conventional in the Music magazine genre.

First, I needed to create a background that would be contrasting to my picture of my model, in order to make him appear as the USP and stand out, making him more eye catching and prominet to the primary target audience. Here are a few shots of the creation of my front cover, for the full set of screen shots, please see my scrap book page 23.

The background was created in photoshop by using renders, and filters. After the background was created, it was merged with my model image in indesign and with some headings and fonts added, my front page was finished.