2. Masthead
I intended to make my masthead catchy by calling it the “PAR” which is
simply “RAP” backwards. This would play with the audience’s mind as they
would have to figure out that the word “PAR” is the word “RAP” in reverse
and they would feel that the magazine is interesting for this reason. The
masthead is also design in the colour red because due to research I found
out that the colour was used effectively to create an eye-catching approach
towards the magazine. The main image would be sitting on the masthead to
show that this is a niche magazine so no one really identify the corporate
identity of the magazine unless they know it already. The black stroke makes
the mast head look more attractive as it makes the red colour come to life by
slightly coming off the page to give a bold touch to the masthead. When
researching front cover pages of hip-hop magazines, I found out that the font
was quite consistent and a bold, serious approach to it. The only font which I
was satisfying me was “impact” due to the complexity and non-ornamental
design. The black stroke makes the masthead look a lot like the masthead of
“The Source” which inspired me in using red and black. I rotated the “THE”
of the masthead 90oc anti-clockwise just to make it look quite stylish.
Because I used InDesign to construct my front cover, I was able to use the…
to know if I’m going of the page when design my masthead so I had to rotate
the “THE” to conserve space. I also made the price of the magazine and
website address sit on the masthead because it would be visible to the
reader when looking at the masthead. Some of the main image sits on the
masthead to show more of the artist to attract the audience in seeing their
favourite artistes entirely.
3. Skyline
The skyline is used to give the audience a hint as to what the magazine is
about. My skyline was written in the same font as my masthead to give
the page a degree of consistency which would attract my target audience.
Because my target audience includes youth and adults, I see my magazine
is aiming at a diverse age group. I wanted my skyline to be seen as a key
selling point so I decided to place it above the masthead at the top of my
page so it could be seen when the reader sees the masthead. I made the
stroke quite thick with the weight being 3pt to make it stand out and
come of the background which enlightens the reader due to the effect it
has. The reader would believe that the stroke used on all the text are
coming at them especially if it is quite thick.
4. Main Image
• My main image was taken in a music studio and it was of the
rapper at work, rapping through a microphone and wearing
headphones. This was done to show my target audience this
image represent the hip-hop genre as all hip-hop artists are at
this position when rapping. My target audience would attract
my target audience due to the age of this rapper being in his
mid-teens.
• Because my magazine is mainstream, consumers would
already know my corporate identity so I was able to place my
main image on top of the masthead so I could show all of the
artists features which would appeal to my target audience
more if they get to see the image entirely.
5. Cover lines, cover story
• The cover line for my magazine is my main selling point with
relevance to my main image. It is written in red the same colour as
the masthead because the colour used connotes danger, blood or to
stop which obviously would appeal to the target audience since this
is the warmest colour.
• The cover line and cover story is placed on the bottom left third to
make the main image be seen clearly and to utilise space which was
emphasised by making the font size be “58” and the cover story
making up four lines with the font size being “23”.
• The cover story is written in white because I wanted the white to
pattern with the red cover line. All the main pieces of text e.g.
masthead and cover line are red to attract the audience with the
rest of the text being white to show colour-coordination but with a
black stroke to make it seem as still important hence the reason why
I made my cover story white.
6. Supporting images
• I came across including supporting images on my front
cover because when I researching the magazines, I
realised that they all included just one image which was
the main image. I decided to place the supporting image
on the left with the caption underneath showing what
page the story linked to the photo would be on. Yet again
the caption is written in a white impact font surrounded
by strokes to soften the red approach to the page and
also the font size is quite small so the reader would
notice that the story is important but not as important
as the main image and its cover line.
7. Changes from my statement of
intent
I made several changes to my front cover of my
magazine from what I intended to make. My main
image was to either include one image of three
girls or only an image of one person with only one
supporting images. At the end, I decided to have a
main image with an artist recording from a
microphone with one supporting image of three
people. The artist in my main image is a teenager
which would attract my target audience who are
aged 15-21 as they would feel this would relate to
them. The background of magazine is a slight
greyish colour because I thought that it would be
best using either a grey or white background. The
colour white made the front cover look plain so
added grey as it could be seen as a neutral colour
My front cover page finalised with the
My intended front yet moody which relates to my genre of hip-hop
grey background
cover page without (the good, bad and the ugly). A minor change was
the grey background that I was going to align my barcode to the left of
my front cover along with the cover lines, but I
decided to put the barcode on the bottom right of
the front cover page of my magazine.
8. How I used the software's
• I used two image editing softwares whilst designing the front cover of my magazine. Adobe
InDesign CS3 which I used to design my magazine and Adobe Photoshop CS3 which I used to
manipulate my main image. The first step I took was to manipulate my main image on
Photoshop which I would then copy onto InDesign. The functions of Photoshop which
helped me manipulate my images were the crop tool which I used to crop only the
important bits of the main image, the airbrush tool to lighten the main image, using the
selection tool to take my image of the background and I used the flip tool to from right to left
to allow my supporting image to be aligned and my cover lines to be aligned on the left of the
front cover page.
• I used InDesign to design my magazine to create a professional look and feel like many other
popular magazines. The functions of InDesign that I used effectively was the pasteboard as it
allowed me to weigh up my options if I thought an image or a piece of text was suited to the
front cover page or not. I edited the text and made it stand out by using strokes and widening
the strokes to make the text stand out more. The rectangle frame tool was handy in inserting
my supporting images inside the box and the selection tool on InDesign was very useful as I
got to handle the objects in the front cover page with ease and drag them wherever I would
like to place them.
9. How I Used the software’s
Using the selection tool in
Photoshop to take the image of I used the flip tool to switch my main image from a right left so that the cover lines
the background and copy and and the supporting images could align to the left. If I did not do this, there would
paste it to InDesign be no room for the cover lines and supporting image to appear on the front cover
as my main image is quite big and I want people to see the whole image as it is
linking with an important article
10. How I used the software’s
The strokes I used to make my
masthead stand out is weighed at
4pt. Without the strokes my product
would of look like the masthead
below which would bring no spark
to the audience I am attracting as it
does not stand out and come off of
the background
The pasteboard here allows me to drag text of the magazine if I do not
like it and it allowed me to think If I should keep it on the page or not
How my masthead looked
which I did not because there was hardly any room for the cover line to
before which was quite dull
sit on.
and had no affection to the
front cover page which the
audience would not be
attracted to
