Talia Smith designed a magazine masthead for a music magazine targeting teenage girls aged 13-16 interested in pop music. She drew the masthead by hand using onomatopoeia to represent the "twists" in the music industry. Through tools in Photoshop, she edited the masthead text with drop shadows and beveling to make it stand out from the page. She also overlapped the masthead with the main image to follow conventions of famous magazines. Talia edited images for her double page spread to make them brighter, with more contrast and a "glossy" magazine look. She included relevant social media sites on the front cover and used columns, font size, and pull quotes appropriately throughout the magazine

1. Music Magazine
Initial ideas, Pre Production and Photoshop skill
Talia Smith

2. This is my hand drawn masthead design.
I decided to draw my masthead because I felt I couldn’t
find an appropriate font to fit my magazines theme. I
used onomatopoeia wording for my masthead as it shows
the meaning of the magazine, it’s girly, showing ‘twists’ in
the music industry with new pop artists’ breakthroughs. It
also implies dancing and having fun through music.

3. Masthead
These are colour scheme ideas I had for my
masthead, I felt these colours would attract my
target audience of teenage girls interested in
pop music aged 13-16 the best as they’re
stereotypically girly and feminine. They have a
connotation of love, romance and cuteness.

4.  Here is the finished masthead, by using photo
shop I edited the text by using drop shadows
and bevelling the shape to make it stand out
and look like it leaps off the page, I also used
layers to make the masthead and the main
image overlap, because in many famous
magazines this is a convention they follow, it
shows that even though some of the text is
covered up it can still be recognised because
of it’s iconic text and colours, and can be
recognise din the same way a logo is.

5. This is the before and after of one of the images I included in my
double page spread. I used image adjustments on photo shop to
make the image look brighter and I used contrast to make my
models features stand out. It makes the image look more
professional and to a magazine standard. The lighting gives the
photo the ‘glossy’ magazine look which I am aiming for.

6.  The logo for the magazine I made on
photo shop I decided to put an image of a
lipstick in place of the ‘I’ to make the logo
fun and girly which fits the genre of my
magazine. I bevelled the text to make it
look more professional than just basic flat
text, it also made the logo stand out

7.  You can see here how I used columns for my text, I did this
by using a template and removing it once the text was
completed. It is part of the common conventions of a music
magazine to use columns for organisation of the text as it
makes it easier to read and look professional. Also I looked
into the correct font size carefully, most double page
spreads include small text fonts of 12pt. Using font this
small makes the subtitles and captions stand out more
also.

8. RULE OF THIRDS, models eye line
is in the top third.

9. I included the top 3 social networking sites Facebook
Twitter and Instagram on my front cover to show that
the magazine is involved in media convergence which
is a successful way of marketing.

10. To get proportions right I used the
shape tool to map out where my text
and image will go.

11. Colour Scheme – Contents Page
 I used these pastel colours because they
are feminine and girly which matches my
niche target audience, these colours are
also vibrant and positive which will make
the reader want to read on and the text
and images on the page stand out.

12.  I was going to use a single
coloured column for the
contents text but then
decided on this design
because the page was
beginning to look boring and
too simplistic with lots of
block colour so I felt this
broke the design up a bit
and was clear in indicating
the page numbers and
articles.

13.  I used an image of Lips in my masthead for the
double page spread because it matches with my
girl band’s name ‘lipstick’ and it’s girly because
it’s linked with makeup and femininity, which
links to my target audience so will be of their
interest. I altered the shape of the test to make
it look like it’s jumping off the page which makes
it eye catching for the reader.

14.  Use of columns on my double page spread follows the
conventions of a magazine, columns are useful in making
the text look organised and clear to read.

15.  I made sure to
include a pull quote
into my double
page spread text
as it stands out to
the reader on first
glance and makes
them want to read
the full article.

16. Image 1
Image 2
I changed the layout
of this part of my
double page spread
because I felt image
1 was too sharp and
didn’t look right, so I
changed it by moving
images and the
masthead around and
erasing the edges of
the image of the
model slightly.

17.  This contrasts from the
whole page design
making it stand out to
the reader well and
catch their attention
which is the desired
effect as it’s a
competition with a
chance to win a prize, an
offer readers wouldn’t
want to miss.