Magazine Front Cover Progression

After roughly editing the front cover image, I was able to create a mock-up magazine cover and take a screen shot of it, which is shown below. It isn't at all finished, however shows the start of my thought process and the image of my magazine front cover. The cover lines are also just drafts, but also show a rough idea of the content that I will use. I have also used band logos to add a better image to my front cover and also grab the target audience's attention on the shelf.

As it stands, I realise that I have a lot more editing work to do on the front cover of 'Launch' magazine, however this screen grab shows the first stage in the production progressions.

Reasons for Image Choice

Original Image:

I chose to edit and develop this image, as I believe it most suits my genre of music magazine. The people featured in it look passionate about their musical talent, as shown by their posture and poses, and they also are young and 'fresh-faced', so they would appeal, as a band, to my target teenage audience. Their clothing is also relevant, as they look smart and have stage presence as a result. Although the original quality of the image is fairly low, I will be able to edit this as part of the production process to try and improve this aspect.

Photo Manipulations

After choosing a photograph to edit, I was able to open the image in Photoshop. Initially, I started by cropping out any unwanted parts of the picture, creating the focus on two of the people in the image; the lead guitarist and lead singer. After this manipulation, I decided to adjust the colour 'levels', which enabled me to change the atmosphere of the picture, and create a more exclusive and 'gig' atmosphere. After this, I sharpened the edges of the picture to reduce blur and create a crisper image. This combined with adjusting the quality setting to 'high' enabled me to increase the visual quality of the photo.

I then used the Render tools to adjust the colour and lighting effects of the picture.

The first filter I tried was the 'Spotlight' light angle. I was able to change the light direction, to create a 'warmer' or 'colder' atmosphere:

I then used the RGB lights to create a completely different effect on the image, as shown by the below screen-shot:

Images taken on Planned location

After attending the gig, I was able to take many photos of them in action, for example, the guitarists, their instruments and the lead singers. I am hoping that out of the many photos I took, I will be able to find one to suit my magazine front cover. I am not entirely happy with the setting of my photos, however I will be able to edit these photos heavily using Adobe Photoshop, to create a suitable front cover image. The quality of the photos as they stand isn't as good as I would initially like, however I am able to also edit this. 
After sorting through the 50 images I took, the photos below are possible images I could use:

I think that this first image has the most potential for a front cover image, as there is a lot happening in the picture and creates that 'band' atmosphere. The poses are confident and show musicality and I think that if I crop and edit the lighting of this photo, I could use it as a potential image for my front cover.

The second image isn't ideally positioned, however I could use the lasoo tool on photoshop to cut out the guitarist and place it onto a more neutral background, which could look effective with some experimentations.

This third image is similar to the second, however shows different poses and could also be potentially edited and used.

Image Set-up Plans

I have recently been invited to a local party/gig, where 2 bands who I am close friends with are going to be playing there; 'Legal Culprits' and 'Years Apart'.
I have decided that this will be my set location for my photographs, which I will intend to use as part of my music magazine's front cover and contents page possibly.
Each band has a variety of instruments and members, so I will try to take a diverse range of shots to try and find a suitable cover image. As my planned genre is 'modern music and popular culture', I believe that my plans for photographs will be suited to the target teenage and young people audience, as they would be interested in any new acts and getting information about up and coming live bands as soon as possible. I may need to edit the pictures using Photoshop and InDesign in order to create a better setting for the photos, but I will decide on this process once I have uploaded the photos and decided on a few to edit further.

Image Manipulation

I have yet to take some photographs to use through out my magazine designs, however I have been able to experiment with some Photoshop effects on a concert photo I took last year. I used lighting effects to edit the appearance and impact of the picture, making the sky appear brighter. I also used the paint brush tool to create a motion effect on the sky. I then used the 'clear' paint brush to bring back elements of the original picture layer, creating an interesting visual effect on the photo.

The original picture:

The edited image:

I have decided that I won't necessarily use this image for the front cover of the magazine, but it would however provide a good background for a double-page spread article, so I may consider using this in the future.

Initial Flat Plan Sketches

These are some rough hand-drawn flat plans for the front cover of my music magazine. They provide a rough outline of organisation of the features, to make the creation process easier. The next stage of production will be to decide on the most professional-looking flat plan design and add the elements and colour schemes consequently.

Survey Results

After asking the students in my Media class, the results were drawn between the two following designs:

Each of these designs received 3 votes each and this was surprising to me, as they are both very different to each other.

I will now start to plans my designs for the layout of the front cover, and then decide on one of these 2 logos in order to suit my designs and masthead the best.

Feedback on Typography Initial Designs

I have decided on 6 final design ideas, which I will receive feedback on in order to make a final decision on one of them. I have developed the first design to create the 6th design, using Photoshop editing and paintbrush tools to add the star effect to it. I have chosen these 6 developed designs as I believe that all of them would suit the image of my magazine initial designs

This screen shot shows the 6 designs completed and ready to be surveyed. They are all similar in terms of colour scheme and size, however the typography styles and arrangements differ. I will use this sheet to carry out a survey of a few members of my target audience, from my Media class, in order to find out which design is the most popular and relevant to the target audience therefore.

Initial Experiments with Typography

 In order to create some initial concept ideas for my magazine's title logo, I began to create some rough designs on a blank InDesign document. I experimented with font types, sizes, colour effects, positioning and outlining in order to create some initial possible designs. The theme of red, white and black colours seems to be prominent, and this stems from my previous existing media research, and mirrors the image of NME magazine, which also uses red and white in it's logo. I am aiming to create a gender-neutral logo image, as I would like my magazine to appeal to both genders of music fans, so I am using a palette of colours consisting of blue, red, white, black and green to experiment with in the initial design stage. 

So far, I am pleased with the designs and I feel that I can develop a few of them into possible final designs. I have used my knowledge of typography editing from my preliminary task, which I have found to have made the design process for this main task much easier. I hope to create an aesthetically professional logo, relating and appealing to the target audience of my magazine. 

Music Magazine Name Decision

I have decided to name my Music Magazine 'LAUNCH'.

Out of my list of possible names, I feel that this name is the most current, lively, punchy and relevant to the magazine content I intend to include in my designs. Here is an 'Inspirations' mind map that I created to show the reasons that I chose my music magazine name.

Audience Profile Mood Board

Here is a mood board of images and text that I created to create a profile of my target audience for my music magazine, which I have decided to name 'Launch'. It gives an idea about what the teenage demographic of today are interested in and the ideal readership intended for my magazine.

The Influence of Music Magazines on Subcultures

  I made this short animated movie on xtranormal.com, in order to showcase some of the information I have found out and present some background knowledge that I have in a multimedia way; showing that I can use media in a diverse way. It talks about how youth subcultures can be influenced by music genres and magazines.

Band Website Research

In order to gain some inspiration for graphics, design and overall aesthetic image, I decided to browse on some of today's popular bands' websites, to see recent news about them and the image that the website designers have used to make the website unique to the artist and the types of graphic features that they use. Some of the artists I have looked at could be possible headlining acts for my magazine cover, or inside features as well. The bands' websites tend to promote the artist/s in the best way possible, by promoting their records and tour tickets to the fans.

If I was to design and create this magazine professionally, I would make sure that a website was created in the same image, as I have found, from research, that magazine websites heavily increase readership numbers and can receive up to 100,000 hits daily.
As part of my designs, I will incorporate a made-up website URL, in order to promote the magazine and follow the conventions of modern day music magazines.

One of the best music magazine websites, in my opinion, is the NME website. (www.nme.com) This website is highly interactive, with videos, blog updates, images, music players and such like. The image of the website mirrors the magazine appearance, which is effective and creates a corporate image.


Here are some links to the websites I had a look at and used for inspiration:

Kings of Leon - http://www.kingsofleon.com/home
Marina & The Diamonds - http://www.marinaandthediamonds.com/
Bon Jovi - http://www.bonjovi.com/
Kayne West - http://www.kanyewest.com/

Kings of Leon Screen Shot of Website - Website mirrors the theme of their new album cover - effective graphic use