This document summarizes the process of designing the front cover of a magazine in Adobe Photoshop. The designer began by creating a background inspired by other hip hop magazines, alternating artist names in shades of grey. An initial central image was tested but replaced with a more suitable close-up photo of an artist in typical hip hop attire not directly facing the camera. A masthead, slogan, headline, and cover lines were added following a gold, blue, and white color scheme. Barcode, issue number, and date were added last to complete the professional look of the final front cover design.

1. Magazine Analysis: Front Cover
Firstly, I created my document in Adobe Photoshop, and began to create my background. This background
took inspiration from magazines such as XXL, whose cover lines are part of the background, and are a list of
artists that are featured in the magazine. This print screen shows me alternating the colours of the artists
names with different shades of grey, as to differentiate them, but not make them stand off too much from the
white background.
After I had finished alternating the colours of the cover lines in the
background, I then pasted my edited picture of my central image on top of the cover lines so I could get a
rough idea for how things will look on the final front cover.

2. I then created the border for my magazine, which, as I said in the final description of my magazine from the
survey, would follow the colour scheme of gold, blue & white. I decided to make the border gold as it is the
most suitable colour to draw attention to the magazine if it was on a magazine stand.
I soon realised that the original central image I had chosen wasn’t quite suitable because it did not show
enough of the artist face, and was also edited very roughly around the edge of his face. I then decided to
choose my back up image for the front cover and use that as the actual image for the front cover. This seemed
much more appealing as it follows the general conventions of the a main image in the Hip-Hop magazine genre
in the sense that his costume is suitable (snapback, jumper) and the distance of the shot is very typical (Close

3. Up), but also there is a difference (Steve Neale) in that he is not directly addressing the camera and the
audience, which is something that is usually done in this genre.
I then placed the masthead for the magazine over the central image
and right at the top of the page, something that is very conventional for this genre of magazine. This masthead
is the same one that had been chosen in the class feedback I was given from a choice of 4 fonts.
After I finished placing the Masthead, I then put just above it the
magazines slogan. I chose to put it here because it films an appropriate gap on the cover; a gap that if not filled
would have made the magazine look very incomplete. And also it then provides a double use for the ‘The’ in
the title, as it is used for ‘The Movement’ and also ‘The UK’s Number 1 Hip-Hop & Soul Music Provider’.

4. In this print screen I have added in the headline for the main image. It is the same colour as the border,
following the colour scheme and serving the same purpose to catch the eye of the target audience. Both the
Y’s in ‘Yasiin Bey’ have been made larger than the rest of the letters in the name, purely to add a sort of
symmetry to the headline.
I then added the main plug for the headline, which gives a description of the inside article and explains the
headline and the central image. It also follows the colour scheme with the white and the yellow being used.

5. In this print screen you can see that I have added some clearer cover lines to the front cover. This is to indicate
to the audience there are more specific articles about certain artists inside, rather than just the list of artists
that is mentioned in the background cover lines. These cover lines complete the colour scheme as the bring
the blue into play, the same as the slogan, which helps them to stand off the background enough, but at the
same time be part of the background and not downplay the headline and its plug.
This is my final front cover. You can see that I have added a barcode, issue number and the date of the
magazine, to give it that final and professional look. It also has made it look full, but not clustered.
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