First draft for my front cover

1. Front Cover First Draft
By Tobias Pugsley, Ewan Emery Rich and Isaac Peebles

2. Front Cover Initial Designs
Our group also decided to draw up 3 front cover
designs. The first design was drawn by Tobi. The
design consisted of the masthead ‘ACOUSTICIAN’
sprawled across the top of the page with the main
image covering the whole page. The main image
would be of the artist ‘Oakley Alvarez’ playing a
guitar. Along the sides are two different lures (one
containing a competition and the other containing
a preview of an article inside). Below the lures is a
subheading which is links to the main image.
The second drawing was drawn by Ewan. This
includes a masthead located at the top of the page
with a banner just above it. There is also a banner
located down the bottom of the page next to the
barcode. The main image is a mix. It has half the
face of the musician ‘Oakley Alvarez’ and the other
half being half a guitar. Spread down the page are
cover lines which are being used to entice the
reader into opening up and reading the magazine.
The third and final drawing was drawn by Isaac.
This design consisted of a masthead ‘Acoustic
Music’ being placed on the top of the page with the
main image as the background. He had different
types of lures throughout the page with also a
strapline located on the bottom right.

3. • Ewan’s first draft design for
acoustician follows a very standard
colour scheme for acoustic music
using orange, red, green which we
are the more natural colours. The
layout follows the design used on
other magazines such as “acoustic”
with the artist and instrument in the
centre and the cover lines
surrounding. The font used is
Agency FB and the banner for the
page is simple, with an @ symbol to
represent the A in Acoustician.
Ewan’s Front Cover First Draft

4. Tobi’s Front Cover First Draft
Tobi’s first front cover design for the
magazine ‘ACOUSTICIAN’ is very
similar to his drawing. He has followed
the same structure as his drawing just
with only a few minor changes. One of
these changes is that there is a cover
line located on the bottom of the page.
I added this because without it the
front cover looked plain and we as a
group didn’t think that it would entice
the reader.

5. Isaac’s Front Cover First Draft
Isaac’s first front cover design for the
magazine ‘ACOUSTICIAN’ has been laid out in
a very professional manor. He has a
masthead located at the top of the page
which stands out and catches the readers
eye. Isaac has also placed lures near the
middle and bottom of the page. He has done
this to lure the reader into wanting to buy it.
Located at the very top of his front cover is a
strapline. The words ‘COMPETITION’
‘REVIEWED’ AND ‘FEATURING’ are in capitals
to make the strapline stand out above the
masthead and the language used makes the
reader want to open the magazine and start
reading it.

6. Ewan’s comparison Of Initial and First Draft
When comparing
Ewan’s drawing and
first draft it is clear
to see that there is
a large different in
design between the
first draft and the
hand drawn design.
The image is an un-
manipulated long
shot instead of the
heavily manipulated
close ups that were
the original
intentions.

7. Tobi’s comparison Of Initial and First Draft
When comparing Tobi’s
drawing and first draft you
can visually see a few
minor differences. These
differences make a big
impact on the idea of
enticing the reader. The
reason for this is because
the group decided that the
more lures, the higher the
chance of our magazine
being sold.

8. Isaac’s comparison Of Initial and First Draft
When comparing Isaac’s
drawn draft to his first draft
you can visually see a lot of
differences. The main reason
for these differences is
because as a group we
decided that some of the
things on the drawn draft
wouldn’t look very good on
the actual first edited draft so
therefore we listed things on
what needed to be changed
and edited. Located on the
left is what Isaac created from
his first draft.

9. Manipulated Image
This is an example of the group
manipulating an image. For the
first draft, the full body shot was
not edited and that was a
mistake. The ground the model
stood upon was messy and
unappealing as well as the image
itself being slightly stretched.
Although this was still a first
draft, its clear that next time
something will need editing to
improve the standard.

10. Peer Reviews:
After asking our peers for their opinions on
the cover, the main criticisms was the image
and cover lines. The style of the image,
although typical of an acoustic magazine has
a more urban background which is more
associated with that of a pop or rap genre.
As for the cover lines, Oakley Alvarez should
be the main cover line but because of its
arrangement it is not discernible.
Also is the green text that accompanies Tom
Marshton, which is not visible from its place
in the shadow.
For improvements, the Alvarez cover line will
be moved to a more prominent place, the
Marshton description will be made visible
and either a new image or a photo shopped
image will be used.

11. Peer Reviews:
Our peers gave our group some feedback
on this front cover draft as well. This piece
of work was given some structural
feedback on top of advice we had been
given on what to add. One piece of
structural feedback is that the boxes
surrounding the lure and sub-heading
look amateur and almost ‘cartoon’ like so
there for need to be replaced for
something that will make it more
appealing to the reader.
One piece of advice given was to add a
price, issue number and date onto the
front page. This is conventional on all
magazines so therefore peers wanted us
to add it to make it seem like a ‘real’
magazine.

12. Peer Reviews:
From the peer feedback, it was clear to see
that there where a few major things that
needed changing. One of these was the
green circle. This was said a lot in the peer
feedback as people believe the green takes
away the effect of the magazine. To improve
this people stated that we should play
around with different colours until we find
one that doesn’t take the effect of the
whole magazine away.
A second piece of feedback given was that
the computers and keyboards in the
background should be removed. This is
because they have no link whatsoever to the
genre ‘Acoustic’ and therefore spoil the
atmosphere created in the magazine. People
suggested removing these via photoshop.

13. The Final Front Cover
• The next major edits changed
a lot for the front cover. The
ideas used (Image, Mast head,
cover lines) were all varieties
of the first design, but were
exceptionally more impressive.
There are still some issues with
the arrangement of the cover
lines and the quality of the
image, but overall it is an
improvement