Front Cover Production

This was my stages of production for my front cover. There are five stages all together.

This is the first stage of production for my front cover. The background is a dim and light green colour because I don't want a white background. A white background is boring and will bore the audience. Therefore I have chosen to change the colour of the background to a colour that isn't too powerful so that it won't overpower the other features on the page. This is an advantage because the other features will easily stand out on the background.

I have use a dark green colour for my masthead. I have also used a seriff font, and I have made the title big so that it will easily catch the attentions of the audience. The style of the font makes it obvious that this cover has been created in Microsoft Publisher, and this is not a professional look for a magazine cover, and therefore I will look to change this.

Also, The bar code overlaps the masthead and this may be because the masthead is too big or because the bar code is placed in an awkward place that means I may have to either compromise the size of my masthead or move the bar code, or perhaps overlap the bar code with the masthead.

Also, the cover lines have been put onto this first draft. I have used a colour scheme that the first line of one of my cover lines is red and the other lines are green. This creates a system that the audience will understand clearly and will indicate which news stories are separate from one another. Therefore an advantage of this is that the audience will have the front cover made simple for them and they will have to put less effort into read the cover and therefore this will please the audience. However, it still isn't a style of colour scheme you would see on the front of a front cover, you would normally see an alternation of colours and therefore I need to improve this by perhaps alternating each line between the colours of red and green.

This is the second stage of production of my front cover. I have altered the masthead, by changing the font style and it also now overlaps the bar code. This font style looks a lot better than the previous style, you are more likely to see this font on a front cover than the previous style. This is a positive as I feel more confident that my front cover looks professional now. However, I still feel that this font isn't the font I want and may change it in a few stages time when I put my image onto my cover. Also with the masthead overlapping the bar code, it just doesn't look right. It looks like a clumsy mistake and therefore I will have to alter that too and make an improvement to the masthead.

The cover line colour scheme has been improved too. The alternation between red and green makes the magazine look much better than before. The change of colours every line is a professional look and makes my front cover look more like a magazine you would buy. The positive of this is the customer looking at this will obviously take more interest and be attracted to the colour scheme. However there is one issue with the colour scheme and that is I have tried to keep the start of each cover line as the colour of red and this has meant that in one instance the order of the colours going down the page is; (red, green, red, red, green). This one minor hitch is enough of a fault to annoy me and I think that it makes the front cover look pathetic that therefore I definitely want to rectify this problem. I will have to scrap keeping the start of each cover line the colour of red.

On the next stage I will look to insert the image, so that I can see how adding a large image to the page will create problems for other parts of the page and how I will find solutions to these problems.

This is my third stage of production for my front cover. I have used a green background so that the background isn't a boring white colour and I would prefer to fill the background as a different colour to make my front cover unique. I have done this in order for the audience not to be scared off by a boring background colour and to give the audience the impression I have used creativity to make a cover which won't bore the reader.

 My title font is large to capture the attention of the reader and inform them of the magazine they are looking at in order to raise awareness of the name. A negative of my title is that it is placed over the top of the image which ruins the image. The image is the greatest asset in catching the eye of the reader. So therefore the title spoils the image. Also the font style of the title doesn't look professional. You can tell that this has been designed in a simple publishing programme and the dark green doesn't stand out on a light green background as much as I wanted. So therefore this isn't a good look for attracting the audience and therefore improvements to the title include placing the image on top of the title and changing the title font style and also the colour of the title to a bold and strong colour which will stand out on a light background.

The cover lines are green and red and vary as each line of a cover line starts going down the page. The red is a bold colour which stands out on the light green colour, but the dark green doesn't particularly grab the attention of someone looking at this magazine. Perhaps the use of another bold colour that will stand out on a light coloured surface. The cover line on the image will require a light coloured cover line because of the dark blue t-shirt that the model in the image is wearing. Therefore, I will need to use a light and bright colour, perhaps white so that it clearly contrasts the dark blue colour and will stand out and be noticed by the reader.

I have inserted my image onto this draft to show how the cover lines fit in comparison to having an image on the page to consider shaping the cover lines around. This will help shape my cover a bit better.

This is the fourth stage of production for my front cover. First of all I have tried a method of making the cover lines stand out by using more colours to make it stand out. I have used the red and dark green from the previous draft and added white and black in there too. The white stands out well and works well with the dark blue colour on the image and I am happy with this improvement. However, the use of the dark green still does not work and the addition of black makes the magazine look scruffy and unorganised. The improvement I will next do will be to remove the dark green colour and replace it will a black font to see what this looks like.

The title has been improved, as the title is behind the image now, the font style and colour changed too. The font style is much more sensible and looks like a font you would see on the front of an actual cover. Also, the image is now not sabotaged and just because the image is on top of the title does not mean you can't tell what the title of the magazine is, because the title is barely even covered by the image, it only blocks a small part of a couple of characters in the title. Also the black is a great contrast from the background and catches the attentions of the reader with much more success.

I may also make the image bigger because it isn't big enough to be the main feature on the page, and although it will take up more of the page and cover more of the title, making the image bigger will catch the attentions of the reader with more success.

This is stage five of my production of the front cover. This is my final product. I have made a drastic change to the colour scheme by changing all green lines to black. I think the black lines stand out much better against the green background than the dark green cover lines. Also, the black cover lines are complimented by the dark clothing being worn by my model and the masthead and sell line are also black and compliment each other too. The only slight glitch of the colour scheme is that I couldn't use black cover line of the dark blue t shirt of my model and had to keep a white cover line and couldn't relocate the cover line to another point on the page. Therefore, The white may look out of place but it stands out and catches the attentions of the audience which is the whole reason I made the cover line white in the first instance. The black completely contrasts the light green background and the strong red is also contrasting of the background so therefore the cover lines will grab the attention of the audience.

The masthead is a large feature which doesn't overlap the bar code like in previous stages and the style of the font has a professional look to it, and also the way I have overlapped the image over the title slightly can suggest that my magazines brand name is already widely recognised and does not need to further promote the brand name and can use the image to promote the sales of the magazine.