First draft of Music Magazine front cover

 

This is my first attempt  of designing my front cover. I have recently research on magazine conventions so I would know what to include making sure my magazine can survive in the market. The imaged I used is my own photography and is of a Band member. I chose this image because it is a medium shot and medium shots can feel very personal and intimate which is what I wanted to do. By having such a close up like this, it would make the reader feeling close and included in the magazine. I chose white for the majority of the text as it can easily stand out my image as my image has a lot of bright colours in it. I also chose Black as it can stand on my cover image because of its bleakness and boldness. Lastly, I used red text on ' Wicked Wicked' as it's the apart of the main story on the cover and also because it's got a short and snappy repetition, I wanted to highlight it in an alarming colour so it would interest readers. The logo was designed by me and my partner. From a previous post I have showed the original masthead (blue). I am doing the Christmas issue and i thought of changing the colour of the logo to a Christmas theme of Red and Green, I am aware that magazines wouldn't normally use a contrast like this for their masthead so I made sure when viewing the front cover I put 'Christmas Issue'. I got this idea from Kerrang! I notice that they change the colours of their heading a lot, and for Christmas they may add the Christmas theme. I wanted to be different and change the masthead for Christmas as it wouldn't be considered a safe option as the colours clash. I want to add a picture to relate to one of the subheadings on the cover, I have not decided yet. Our magazine is for ALL genres, I made this clear by having a black strip on the top of the page with different artists from different music backgrounds. I feel this is a good attempt for a first draft but I can drastically improve it by the feedback I have got.

Improvement to be made : 

•  Change the colour of black and red involved in the main story as it can we seen as too overwhelming and is difficult to read.      
• Resize some of the text, for example; 'Bella Mary', it could be made bigger to catch the eye.                                                                                               
• Maybe add an Advertisement puff to make the front cover entice the reader.

• Make the Price more noticeable.

 I appreciate the feedback I have got back and will work on it.