Third/Final Front Cover Progression

After my second attempt at creating a front cover, I decided once again to change my style. In order to start this front cover I inserted both the skyline, footer, masthead and the main image.

This is because these are parts of the magazine that need to be placed so that the rest can be arranged around them. You can see that the main image also has a drop shadow inserted, which was used to make it stand out off the page and therefore become more of the main focus that it would have been. I also made the footer slightly transparent so that the main image was not totally covered and give the impression that the information placed in the footer is more important. The masthead is slightly covered by the main image as I have noticed this is many magazine front covers in my research and therefore took that idea and used it in mine. The logo of the magazine is also used next to the masthead so that I can refer back to it and use the logo throughout the magazine rather than using the full masthead.

In order to create the footer and the skyline I had to create a rectangle shape and then change the colour to the same pink that I had featured in my masthead, using the eye-drop tool. I then made the footer slightly transparent by changing the opacity.

The next step I took was to add text into both my skyline and my footer. These are very conventional for this part of a magazine as they display USP's that my target audience would be very interested in. I also added space where I would plan to add images within the footer and also the bar code alongside the date and price. These features are also extremely conventional as it is what stores need in order to ensure sales but also for the audience so that they know how much the magazine costs and what edition it is/whether it is up-to-date.

I chose to keep the price and date quite small so that it would not take up too much room and allow less space for the main stories and more images - as this is what my target audience is most interested in looking at.





I then added my main story headline. I placed a transparent banner over the top of the main image so that the audience then know that the text covering this image is relevant to the image itself. I then used a different font ('French Script') as opposed to the one used in the rest of the magazine ('Impact') so that it stands out and demonstrates it's importance. I also used more yellow so that it stands out more against the pink and black.

Then, I added my images and the text that is relevant. As you can see some of my images have a pink box with a drop shadow used behind them, similar to that of which I used for my main image. This is so that the images stand out of the page when surrounded by the amount of text that I have placed on the cover.

The features I have chosen to use are conventional stories that audiences would find on a pop magazine. I have added an element of gossip, bands, solo artists, star style, tickets and freebies as a way of giving my target audience a variety of different features to choose from. Also, I have placed these headlines and images around the main image so that the image is still central on the page and the main focus along with its headline. There are a few banners and text that cover small parts of the main images but the face of the model used and the clothes she is wearing are still very visible, which I thought would be the main idea behind the layout.




After looking at my front cover I felt as though something wasn't quite right. This was due to space that had been left on the left side of the page on the pink banner I had created for my headline.

In order to fill the space, I moved my headline text around. There is now very little space left on the page and so I now feel it looks a lot more professional than it did before.