Making the Front Cover

Zachariah J. Rowell

Stage 1 - Drafting

• I started out by making three rough drafts of my front cover. It was my intention to take the one that appealed to me most and develop from it a digital mock-up.

• I selected the draft that appealed to me the most based on parallels between it and other magazine covers of real media products. I did not aim to make something exactly the same, however, so that my product could be original and unique.

This is the design that appealed to me the most.

Stage 2 – Digital Mock-up

• Following this, I went on to create a basic digital mock-up of the draft using images from the internet to give me a rough idea of how it might turn out in practice.

• I also aimed by doing this to make known any obstacles I might face when creating my final product so I could overcome them.

• This is how the mock-up turned out. I found that my favourite draft worked on paper, but in practice, seemed too unlike any other magazine cover I’d yet seen targeting my audience for it to appeal to them.

• As a result of this, I mixed elements of two different drafts to produce a rough mock-up of how my final product might look.

Stage 3 – Final Draft

• I then progressed to produce the final draft of my front cover, taking into account my findings from the digital mock-up. I also thought up a basic colour scheme.

• This is my final draft. From this I made the front cover of my final product.

Stage 4 – Front Cover (Attempt 1)• This is my first attempt at

creating the front cover of my final product.

• I found that, in taking my photos, it was easier to position two people rather than three.

• I felt that this version was too dark on the whole. The main image was supposed to highlight areas of colour that I could use in the colour scheme (such as the red shirt) but instead I thought that it just made my product look dull.

Stage 4 – Front Cover (Attempt 1)• I also thought that the black

text underneath the red text was unreadable because of the background image, and the column on the right did not blend in well with the rest of the cover.

• The barcode area I also felt was too big relative to those on other media products.

Stage 4 – Front Cover (Attempt 2)• This is my second attempt at

creating the front cover of my final product.

• I made the barcode area smaller, blended in the column on the right better, moved the competition circle down a little, and eliminated the blood red elements of the colour scheme.

• Despite addressing some of the issues I previously faced, I was still not content with this attempt.

Stage 4 – Front Cover (Attempt 2)• I felt that the image was still

too dark despite brightening it; the text underneath the quote was still difficult to read; the quote itself seemed irrelevant as a hip hop act is unlikely to want to “rock”; and the column on the right still seemed a little too murky for my liking.

Stage 4 – Front Cover (Final Version)• This is the final version of my

front cover.

• I changed the quote to something more appropriate; added a feathered white background underneath the column on the right so the text was all readable and it still blended in; adjusted the contrast and brightness of the main image so that it no longer seemed murky; and ensured that the text underneath the quote was readable.

Stage 4 – Front Cover (Final Version)• Additionally, I changed the fill

colour of the quote to a gradient and adjusted the shadow to make it more readable and bright like the main image.

• I was satisfied with this version because I felt that I had eliminated all of the issues I spotted and stuck to a rigid colour scheme.