This document describes the process of designing a magazine cover for a film magazine. The designer considered using an urban image but it did not work well. They then selected a mid-shot of the protagonist in costume as the main image. They tested different backgrounds and fonts before deciding on an alleyway image with a blue color effect and urban location text. Various design elements were added like banners, masthead, and issue details to follow magazine cover conventions.

1. Film Magazine Front Cover

2. These are some
images I
considered using
at first for the
magazine front
cover.

3. I thought of using an urban setting as it seemed more fitting from what
I’d seen on existing magazine front covers. I cropped the image to
become the correct size as well as using the content-aware tool to get rid
of objects that were in the way i.e. the signs/building seen at the centre.
When I placed the image onto the
background, it didn’t really work so I
looked for other possible images to use.

4. The main image I
decided to use
was a mid shot of
the protagonist in
costume with a
serious expression
- looking directly
at the camera.
This image didn't
come out fully in
focus however, it
was the most
suitable. I edited
the image to make
it look clearer.

5. I decided to test
out the image on
various
backgrounds. I
also tried out
different fonts for
the masthead. I
was looking for a
blueprint effect
however, through
further existing
film magazine
research, I decided
to use an urban
location as the
background.

6. I experimented with layering an image of London through the
masthead however, this didn’t really make it look like a magazine.

7. I got a different background image here of an alleyway which I was happy with. I played
around with the colours of the image effects and decided to use the blue (cyanotype) one.

8. £3.70 ($9.99 USO)
These are some of the features I found and created to
use for the conventions of my film magazine cover.

9. For all the text, I
downloaded fonts from
dafont.com and used the
text tool however, I
modified their look from
the ‘character’ section.
For the masthead, I used
the blending options to
create the bevel effect
and making it look
slightly 3D. I applied
conventions such as: the
banners, masthead,
issue number and date,
website, buttons,
title/anchorage text, sell
lines, barcode and price.