Final Front Cover

This is the my final front cover. I changed the font because i felt that on the previous drafts it wasn't standing out enough and didn't look bold and interesting. On the left hand side, i have the blurb about the interview which is the main feature of this weeks magazine. Also i have a cover line just below that which is a totally different artist. On the right hand side i have '150 songs you need right now'. I thought that this would be a good cover line because people are interested in the charts and the tops songs etc. Then just below that i have a image of an award which is for the feature 'Award Madness', i thought that this was relevant to have on the front cover because thousands of people watch the Music Awards and would be interested in an article about it and backstage information. Also i have a list of music artist who either have interviews or there is articles about them, i thought that this would be a good thing to have so people know that there is a lot more artist inside the magazine, rather than just the O'Neill Sista's. Most of the magazines that i looked at in my research are similar to mine, they have one main image and then the main cover line and also other cover lines which are inside.

Front Cover Drafts

This was the first draft of my magazine, i wanted to use a black and white colour scheme because i thought it looked more sophisticated. I decided to have my main cover story which was to go with my main image ' O'Neill Sista's Barrel of Laughs because they are sisters in real life and there second name is O'Neill. I choose the barrel of laughs because they look like they are laughing and i thought ahead and though that for my double page spread the interview could have been about them and there 'Music Career' and how fun it is. I decided to call my magazine Pixie because i like name, and i got the inspiration from 'Pixie Lott' even though the magazine is nothing to do with Pixie herself. I decided to show what the interview would include on the front to make people more interested. Also '150 songs...' i thought that would be a good cover line to have because people love to know the top songs. Another cover line i decided to use was 'Fergie...' i decided to use that because she is a popular music artist, and people love her; so they would want to buy the magazine to read more. Also i have the bar code and the price, i think that £2.00 is a reasonable price; most magazines i looked at were around £2.00. Above the title of the magazine i have included a website, i decided to use that because i did see it when i was doing my research on 'top of the pops' magazine, however i do think that it is appropriate because most people read papers of the Internet and access magazines through the Internet so i think that it looks good and it is relevant. The bad thing about this draft  is that there is a lot of white space.

This is a second draft, and i decided to add some red into the colour scheme to mix it up a little because just the plain black and white was a bit boring. I also decided not to have 2 other smaller pictures of the 'O'Neill Sista's, i just tried it with one; that gave me a bit more room to include more text on what is inside. On the right hand side of the magazine, i added some more cover lines; these are artists that are included inside. I think that some of the cover lines are crowded and could have some more space to make each individual one stand out. I changed the font of the main cover line and also the colour to make it more eye catching, i think maybe the font is a little too big because it is more to the left rather than in the middle and i think it looks odd.

Third draft - On this one i didn't change much i was just having a play around. I moved the image to see whether it fitted there better, but i don't really like it where it is. Also i just changed the position of the main cover line, i decided to try it diagonal and i made it a bit smaller but it doesn't really look good because it is taking the importance of the main image; it just seems a bit too much around the facial area which is the most important bit.

Fourth draft - On this one i changed little bits, i decided to take away the extra image of the 'O'neill Sista's' because having more than one image of the main image gives the impression that this magazine is some sort of special edition so i just deleted it. However that created more white space so i tried to include i special feature to make people want to buy it and to fill in some space, it is relevant. I also moved the position of the bar code i thought that it would look better up there and even though it left some white space i thought that i could find something to put there which is relevant to the magazine. I decided to change the main cover line to just 'O'Neill Sista's' because having the other one took up to much room and it didn't fit that well and didn't look good no matter how many ways i tried it. The position of where i have it now isn't that good because it doesn't stand out that much; it might be the font or the size, so ill have a play about with that in my next draft.

Fifth draft - This is a rough copy of what is nearly complete. I made the 'Free inside' larger and changed the position because it makes it more noticeable and i though it looked better. Ive been thinking of changing the name because it seems too related to Pixie Lott and people might get the wrong idea, that it is based on Pixie Lott.

Few quick name ideas...

M4U - i got this idea from MTV, it stands for 'Music For You' - 'Music 4 You'. I don't really think it would look right on my magazine so i decided against that.

Play that funky music white boy - i got this idea from a song but i don't really think this is the right one because it is a bit long for the title of a magazine and also it would be see as racist so i also decided against this one.

Base - I just got this idea from 'MTV BASE' music channel but that probably makes the magazine specific to the 'Base' genre. So i decided against this one.

Boom - This was just totally random, like when you think of some music its 'Boom, Boom, Boom' as if its exciting and loud so i thought that might have worked but it just doesn't seem right, it was a close contender though, but again i decided against this.

More Music - I got this idea from 'More' Magazine, i know it's a fashion magazine, but i decided to put my twist on it with 'More Music'. I thought this would work because it gives of the message of more and more music and i thought that people would get the idea that this magazine would give more information about the music world. So i decided that i would change my magazine name to this.

Stages of Production

Images:

These are the two images i considered using on my front cover
I decided to have a black and white colour scheme so that's why my models are wearing black and white dresses. I did plan to take a few pictures with these models, who are my cousins. But they are big fans of going out every weekend so i thought that would be a good opportunity to take some pictures whilst they were dressed up rather than getting them all dressed up just to have to take all their make up of again. These images were taken at Gill's house before they were going on a night on the town. They had a few drinks which made them more relaxed when taking the shots.

This one i like because it looks like they are dancing and they are about to laugh which is natural. The black and white dresses i think is good because they look similar. The cons are that the background isn't so good, i thought that i had taken it behind a white background but ended up having a bit of a picture in it and also the radiator.

This one is very natural and relaxed. I like the position of the picture within the white background, however i think there could have been more room around the image, there isn't really enough space to fit the masthead above their heads. Also the image is very dark.






I decided to use the first one on my front cover, although the girl on the left has her hand covering a little of her face i still think that it works because i don't like when images are airbrushed and really perfect on a magazine, i think it looks so much better when it is natural. Because of the radiator and the picture in the background i decided to photo shop the background because i did try to take the picture again but it wasn't as natural so i decided to keep this one.

I think that it looks really good with the white background and will look even better when i start to create my front cover. I decided to use these girls because they are pretty and young and i think they fit the image of a music artist.

Music Magazine - Front Cover Research

This is one of the first magazines i looked at to get ideas for my music magazine.This is quite plain, blue black and white colour scheme, which i think looks good. The main image is Taylor Swift, popular pop star. Unique selling point having her as the main image. Also her name is bold to show importance. I also think that the fonts on the right hand side look a bit lost they could have been bolder.

This is another music magazine i looked at. I think this one is better than the previous one. I love the black white and red colour scheme i think that really works. Madonna is the main image her name is in big bold text. Also there is a 'Free Inside' this makes people want to buy the magazine. It also gives lists of people inside which the magazine has interviewed, they are all popular music artists or popular t.v people so that makes the magazine more appealing to people.

This is a third magazine i looked at during my research. This one is relatively plain, there isn't too much writing on it. The main image is Mary-Kate and Ashley Oslen, popular actresses, they aren't involved in the music industry so i don't know why they are on the front cover of rolling stones, however popular music artists which are featured on the inside are named on the front cover. I think that the image fits well with the text and the masthead. The only thing i don't like is that the main image and where it says fall fashion are covering the masthead the only thing that you can actually see is 'Rolli', rather than rolling stones. I don't think it looks very good, and will defiantly not doing that on my magazine front cover.

This is the final front cover i looked at, just to show the difference in age. This one is very girly, the colour scheme is pink and yellow which are girly colours. It is also a little crowed it is too busy, there is a lot on the front cover and i think it takes it away from the main image because there is other pictures which is different to normally just having one main image. The main image is Alexandra Burke a popular pop artist which loads of teenage girls admire, and also the main cover line 'how i beat my my bullies' that is a good selling point. A lot of teenagers go through bulling and having a celebrity who has gone through the same thing, they are going to want to buy the magazine to read about it. Again the mast head of the magazine is covered which doesn't look right to me.

Final contents page - mock up.

This is my final contents page. I finally changed the background colour and it looks so much better. It is bright and fresh and more attractive. I decided to add more information to what would be in the magazine rather than just the page number then 2 or 3 words to sum it up. I think it looks a lot better. Also i changed the position of the images i think they look more organized. I kept the orange colour in with my blue and white and also the bit of red. Again, i still think that the orange works well to attract attention to the competition. Overall this final one is so much better and different from my first ideas. I had a play around with the fonts and colours and the images.

Mock up of contents page

This is the first mock up of my contents page, i kept the 'Wills College' and i wanted to make it look similar to my front cover. The font of what 'contents page' is written in the same font which I've used through out my stages of production. I want to have a few images on my contents to make it more interesting rather than just have a list of page numbers. I wanted to keep the blue colour scheme and this, but it looks really dark with the black background.

This is my first draft of my contents page. Again the font and style of the mast head is the same. This isn't a completed draft as i started to do this i realised it wasn't working so just started a new one. On the draft i changed the ideas of having the images on the left and decided to have the writing on the right. I wanted to included a bit of red in the colour scheme. It doesn't look very attractive and eye catching. I know its not meant to be that eye catching because its only the contents page but when i pick up a magazine i look at the front cover and the contents page. So it would help if the contents page was bright and appealing.

This is my third draft which i actually finished. I still have the black background because i thought it would look better once the writing and the images were put on. It does look nice but looks a bit dark and depressing. Also i changed the layout of my masthead; still keeping the original font and colours which I've used through out. I decided not to have the 'contents page' where it was in the previous drafts because i thought it looked abit lost. Also i decided to make my masthead a logo so it was known as 'Wills College Magazine'. It looks better tucked in to the letters makes it look more of a part of it rather than just stuck to the side underneath it. I liked the fonts on this one and the colours. Also the orange looks bright and eye catching to attract attention to one of the pages. The bad thing about what i have written on my contents about the page numbers doesnt really want people to get the magazine to go to that perticular page it looks abit plain.

My final front cover

This is my final front cover. I changed the font and the position of the 'Magazine', i decided to tuck it in underneith because it now seems more offical as a magazine and more like a logo. i think it looks a lot better and stands out more. With the cover lines i decided to break the colours up and include a red i think it makes it stand out more. Its very bold and eye catching. The colour scheme i wanted was blue and white, but then i thought it would be best to break it up and make it more interesting rather that looking all the same. I still kept my blue and white mast head and still kept my blue and white 'Wills' t-shirt in my main image. I used these cover lines because i thought what would i like to see in my college magazine. I choose the longer lunch story because everybody wants a longer lunch time so i though that people would want to pick this magazine up and read about what could happen to make the longer lunch happen. I choose the 10% off with the student card because everybody likes getting money of something, whether you're a boy or a girl. So i thought that people would like to find out which shops are included in the 10% off so therefor they would have to pick up the magazine and would be interested. Also i decided to have exclusive, why people quit sixth form because when i was thinking about going to sixth form i didn't know what to expect or what it would be like and there was false expectations so i thought that having this story included would be helpful to people not giving them false expectations and to help them decide. And finally i used showtime as a cover line just simply to make it more fun and for people to be interested on which theatre company from London was coming to town and what would they be performing. Overall i think that this is attractive and appealing to college students - Boys or Girls.

Front cover drafts

This was my first rough draft of my front cover, with my mast head and the date. The image doesn't look very good so that's why i decided not to use this one. I still want the colour scheme to stay the same but it doesn't really look right with this image.

This is the second draft. Ive changed the image to see if this would work. And it does in many ways; with the ' Wills t-shirt ', it all fits in with the colour scheme. Also i think the image is good, but it doesn't really seem fun and exciting.

But i decided that this image isn't suitable because the mast head goes across his head and it doesn't look very good. I should have taken the picture with a bit more background above his head. He is the main image and the main thing that people look at when they look at the front cover so nothing should be covering his head area. Its okay to cover bits of his arms or the some of his t-shirt with the cover lines; but not to cover the 'Wills' because that's the important bit.

This is the third draft. I have decided on having this image because i thought it looked natural and it fits well with everything. I changed where the ' magazine ' was to being under the title of the magazine as i think it looks so much better rather than being on the top. I don't really like the font that it is written in either. The cover lines are in different fonts because i was playing around with them, to find the right size/colour/font. To see which looked better and most attractive.