Creating my front cover

First plan

Here is a first rough drawn sketch of the front cover. I instantly liked the design and decided to use it as a basis to creating the final version. Furthermore, I drew out how I wanted things to be arranged including the primary image, masthead, USP’s and tagline etc.

First stage

Following on from the original plan, I started creating my front cover. I added the three most important features . I put the masthead on the top, the, band name below the artists and the primary image covering the whole page. I used this picture as it was clear and fitted the whole page without having excess setting/backdrop.

Second stage

I started adding more features to the front cover such as the primary lead, ultimate selling point, barcode etc in a stereotypical format.

Third stage

As again, I added more things to my front cover. At this point I thought I was doing very well and didn’t need to make any changes.

Fourth stage

After thinking, I realised that I needed to make some changes. Firstly the masthead was not as bold as it could be so I stretched the masthead to go from the left corner to the right. Therefore I had to re-arrange the barcode, issue date and price. Lastly, the tagline was made to fit across the page in one straight line. But it was too small and had to read so I decided to make it bigger and be in two lines.

Final stage

Here is the final version. To make it look more appealing I decided to add some special effects. The USP is lined in a purple line to look good and importantly to contrast against the setting because the white blended in. I also put a purple glow on the box around the ‘free poster’ box to make it stand out and grab the attention of the reader.