Starting My Front Cover

These are my first attempts of making my music magazine, I obtained a font off of www.dafont.com for my masthead. The reason I chose this font is because it looks very individual and unique, this is how I would imagine the way my target audience would want to feel like and be like so this title would appeal to them. In addition the titles looks very modern and electronic-like. The reason I like it looking modern and electronic-like is because it looks up-to-date, also I imagine that my audience would have all the new and top of the range phones, mp3s, TVs, radios, music, cameras and games consoles.

The draw backs of this cover is that the photograph is so far away, the model isn't looking at the camera/audience and  I feel that this disconnects the intimacy between the magazine main image model and the viewer of the audience, I feel that this is a reason that Q is so successful because it uses well established artists (star appeal),  the artists are looking at the audience this makes it quite personal and it has a direct address which grabs the audiences attention instantly, and draws them in.

In my second attempt of the front cover I cropped the image and made it fit the screen so that the image was bigger and you could see the expression on his face also it made it look more magazine like because you don't often see a magazine with a long shot. I also edited the photo more, I put a filter on the image called paint dubs but what I found interesting and good about this effect is that it made the model stand out from its background, because the filter had less of an effect on the model as it did the background. The model still isn't looking at the audience, and this is the main reason I have chosen not to use this picture because you rarely don't have the model looking at the camera/audience in Q or NME which are both highly successful magazines.

As you can see I have put in a music related graphic, it is of two separate people holding a guitar it represents a stereotypical rock guitarist, this is part of the reason I have put it in, because my magazine audience would listen to mainly indie rock, so they would be able to identify this and the people types that the graphic represnts. Another reason I put it in is because it could be something that appeared in every issue, and when you saw a person doing it or a graphic like it, it would remind you of IDENTIFY the magazine, also it gives the magazine an original and quirky touch which my target audience it likely to enjoy.

I have chosen not to use this a my magazine front cover because of three things the photograph, the graphic and the colour scheme. I have not use the photograph of two things, the colour (grey it looks boring) and that the fact that the model is not looking at the camera. This photo is more likely to be used on a contents page of a double page spread.

Although I like the idea of the guitarist graphics it reminds me of something that should be in a children's magazine and this could effect who would read the magazine, if the audience felt that the magazine was in anyway childish they wouldn't read it which is not what I want and if the magazine were to go into production would not be something I wouldn't want to risk.

Finally the colour scheme is the biggest problem I have with the magazine, it is all grey, black and white, not only is this boring, and it doesn't grab your attention but personally I find it a bit depressing, if you were going to buy a magazine then you would buy one that had colour in it, because the one without colour suggests that it will be the same bland, boring and outdated information and pictures insides.