Emulating a magazine Front Cover

I am going to use this front cover of ‘Billboard’ magazine as inspiration and emulate it using my own style choices.

I like the way the image is central and overlapping the name of the magazine. The name is still clear and stands out because of the detail used in it for example the different colours in the centre of the letters. This is a successful technique as both the image and text are drawing your attention in.

Also I like the faded colour in the background because although it is subtle it helps with the overall look of the magazine as it stops the cover looking plain and boring. It also compliments the rest of the colours used in the cover making them stand out more.
One thing I don’t like about this magazine cover is that it doesn’t have much going on and therefore this makes it look bland and as if something is missing. It could be filled with more detail or a variety of different pictures.

Step one

I found this picture on the internet and am going to use this picture to emulate the magazine cover of ‘Billboard’ above that I liked the style of. This will help with my skills on Photoshop. This is the original picture.

Step Two

I edited the brightness and contrast levels of the picture to make it look more professional and edgy.

I also cropped the picture to cut out some of the background making the picture more central and eye catching.

Step Three

I cut out and copied the head of the image so I could put the magazine name behind the image and then paste the image back on top. This is a technique used by many magazines so the image remains the main focus on the cover.

I selected a font and colours that would compliment the fun and edgy style of my magazine. I decided to have the majority of the text in red and the ‘!’ at the end in black. This makes the name stand out from behind the central image and because it is unusual it is hopefully remembered.  I enlarged the text so it spread from one edge of the page to the other. Also I slanted the text to again support the overall look of the magazine.

Step Four

I added some text to the cover. I added a headlining name. I chose to use a celebrity as many celebrities are an inspiration for young women therefore this will encourage the reader to buy the magazine as they want to find out about the celebrities story. On the cover of my magazine I decided to focus on Lauren Conrad. I made this text quite central and overlapping the central image. This means the reader can associate the picture with the name. The text is also bold and in a contrasting colour to the picture and magazine name so therefore it stands out.

 I also added the website address to the bottom of the page. This is helpful to a reader as if they like the magazine they may want to look for more information on the website.

Step Five

I then added the date price and barcode to the cover. These are key magazine conventions and so appear on all magazine covers so I therefore included them on my cover.

I formatted the barcode in the bottom right hand corner and the date and price in the top left hand corner.

Step Six

When adding the main headline I wanted to make it bold and centred so that it is one of the first things you see when you look at the magazine. This helps to decide if you are interested in the magazine because if the main headline is interesting then you are more likely to buy the magazine to read the full article.

I also added two coverlines. One in black and one in red. This helps to keep a continuous style on the magazine by only using a few colours.

This is the final design for the magazine cover that i decided to emulate.
Overall i was happy with the final design but i feel that i could use space more wisely and add some more information. I will take this into account when making my final magazine.