Front cover plan

The magazine front cover is the most important part of the magazine because it sales the magazine.For my music magazine front cover, I'm going to use a grey background. I have decided to use a grey background because it will make the colours of the images that I'm going to use stand out more. I will use a dark blue and purple for the text and a hint of gold for page numbers. My magazine is called 'RnB Sound'. I have chosen to use this name because it targets a specific audience of people who love and enjoy R&B music and it therefore fits in well with the content of the magazine. I have decided to place the name of my magazine at the top of the front cover on the left third. This is because when my magazine is stacked on the shelf with many others, the title will still be visible to the target audience and it will also attract other readers.


 I have  placed the selling line below the title for the same reasons.My selling line is designed to attract people who might not necessarily be interested in r&b music alone but in lifestyle and fashion too.On the left third, i have decided to advertise a prize which is to win tickets to see a famous singer live in concert. I did this to fulfil the desire of the audience by giving them the chance to win something great. I have placed the price of the magazine on the top right where the readers can see it. I have a few cover lines to make the magazine look interesting to read and worthy of being purchased. The main cover line is the come back of a r&b singer on the music scene and an exclusive interview with her.

Plan

I'm only going to use one image on the front cover. This image is a picture of the r&b singer who has just made a come back therefore it blends in well with the cover line. I have decided to use a long shot. Most r&b magazines use long shots or the close up. I will use the long shot of the celebrity holding a guitar as way of making a statement that she is ready to take over! The long shot is most suitable because it shows every detail of the picture including the guitar. I have also placed the bar code on the left side so for easy access. Below is a plan of the layout for my front cover.

I got the inspiration for my music magazine front cover from a r&b magazine called Rap Up. I have been analysing their front cover in order to get an idea of how i should design my own. I like the combination of the colours that they used. They used a grey background which makes the text colours and images stand out. I discovered that the background colour, the colours of the main picture and the font colours merge together brilliantly. The grey background makes the black font colour stunning. The black font colour then complements the black hair of the girls in the main picture which makes it look vibrant.The main picture does not interfere with the logo. I noticed the use of the colour purple to brighten the front cover. The girls are also wearing colours which are bright but faint at the same time. This makes the magazine look mature and funky at the same time.

This week i have been looking at the front covers of different music magazines and analysed them in order to get an idea of the genre of the music magazine that i want to create as well as the mise en scene. I have looked at the NME music magazine. I analysed the colours, font and images used. I noticed that the red colour and the bold font used on the logo made it stand out so that it is  easily recognisable to buyers.There are so many features that made the magazine outstanding and this inspires me to use such features for my own magazine front cover. This includes the free b's and the main cover line.I discovered that the content of the NME magazine was solely focused on music. I am however considering to include fashion in my magazine because r&b music is highly associated with fashion and 'swagg'.

Working on my front cover for the sixth form prospectus has enabled me to develop the essential skills needed to use Photoshop. The front cover that i have been working on is now complete and i now look forward to creating my own music magazine. Creating my own magazine front cover and contents page is going to be much easier because i am now familiar with the different tools in the Photoshop programme. I have learnt the simplest skills which seemed to be quite hard at the beginning and the hard skills too. For instance editing an image seemed very hard to start with. I attempted to edit the image several times but it seemed impossible. I discovered that this was due to the fact that i wasn't selecting the specific layer that i was going to edit. To edit an image in Photoshop i have to work with layers and select a specific layer to edit a certain image.



When editing an image, i discovered that the image size has to be the correct size therefore i have to consider the pixel dimensions so that my picture isn't wider than the number of pixels that i can display my computer monitor. I struggled with image sizing because i could not decide on the right size and this shows on the way the pictures on my front cover appear. The image size has to be precise. For instance, if i choose a small image size when editing, it will appear distorted when i change its scale to fit a larger space. Similarly, If i select a very large image size when editing, the image will appear crammed up on my front cover when i scale it. Hopefully when i create my own magazine, i will size my pictures precisely so that it looks flawless.


I have also learnt to use different tool on the programme including the crop tool. I can use the crop tool to crop out any unwanted parts of the image I'm working on so that they are completely eliminated. I used this tool to crop out the bin that was on the front of the main school entrance picture. I also used it to eliminate the many books and bags that were on the table for the picture i took in the library. As a result the picture only focuses on the two people studying and the computers behind them which is exactly how i wanted it to look. I have also learnt to apply different colour filters to make the colours on my pictures look more vivid. i look forward to using these on my music magazine because I shall be using a lot of bright colours.


Below is my completed school prospectus front cover.