Front Cover Construction

The following screenshots show the various stages of construction that occurred while I created my rough cut model of my magazine front cover.

In the programme Photoshop, I created a new document into which I inserted my background image sporting the three house colours of my magazine: red, white and blue. I then inserted my main image and used the eraser tool to erase the black background which I had used as a backdrop when taking the image in the photography studio. I then used the blur tool to soften the edges of the image so it looked more professional. I then adjusted the position of the image so that it was central on the page and changed the size of the image, leaving the right amount of background visible as I did not want to have too much unused background which would make the front cover look empty.

On the very top of the cover, I used the shape tool to create a rectangle, I adjusted the size so that it was large enough to hold text but so it was an appropriate size for a skyline. I then used the line tool to create a line that would separate the skyline from the rest of the magazine as I used the same colour of red to follow my colour scheme. I then inserted appropriate text using a font I had selected in my font research and changed the size so that it filled the skyline.  
I then created my masthead which consisted of two separate fonts that I had selected in my font research. I used an image of an eye which I used the paintbrush tool to draw over and add blue and red into the iris of the image so it matched my house colours. I organised the layering so that the text and the image was above a white box to separate the masthead from the rest of the front cover and used the line tool to create lines which also separate the masthead from the rest of the contents page. I then adjusted the size of the image and the text until they looked appropriate and fit within the white box I created using the shape tool.

I then created another white box using the shape tool and resized it so that it resembled the standard size for those on magazines which include the bar code, price and date. I inserted an image of a bar code and used the text tool to enter a date, website adress, price and issue number for my magazine. I then used the line tool to separate the box from the rest of the front cover.

I then began to create my sell lines. As I had left adequate space around my main image to include sell lines, I arranged them around the main image and organised the layering so that the sell lines around the head of the model in the image were positioned behind it as I did not want them to take away from the main feature of the image. I organised the layering of the sell lines which were to be at the bottom of the image, near the torso of the model so that they were in front of the image. I organised this complex layering in the hope that the front cover would look more professional and as though more time had gone into it. I used the same colour red to create the boxes for my sell lines as the one I had selected for my colour scheme and used the line tool to separate them from the rest of the front cover page. I then used a font that I found in my font research to create the text for my sell lines and coloured them in blue to match the colour scheme. I also coloured certain words in white as I wanted them to stand out against the blue and red.

The final part of my front cover page to be created was my main sell line which I created by using the shape tool to create two rectangles with rounded edges. I intended for my main sell line background to be white with a black outline around it to separate it from the rest of the front cover, however I was not able to use the line tool to make a curved line for the corners of my shape. I created my border by changing the colour of the second shape I had created to black and making the shape slightly larger than the first which was coloured in white. I used the rotation tool to tilt the two shapes and organised the layering so that the white shape was on top of the white, which looked as though it had a black border around it due to the black shape behind. I then inserted the appropriate text using a font I came across during my font research and used the rotation tool to tilt it so that it fitted the main sell line shape.