The document describes the process of designing the front cover of a magazine. It discusses choosing colors and images that will catch readers' attention, such as a darker purple masthead and a photo of a smiling band. Plugs and headlines are added around the cover to draw readers in with questions and highlights of exclusive content. The layout is refined over multiple iterations, adjusting sizes, colors and positioning of elements to ultimately mirror the style of an inspiration magazine cover.

1. I began my magazine by making my masthead which was originally a
lighter purple but I changed to a darker purple as I believed it would
catch the eye of a buyer easier than a lighter colour would. This darker
colour also will stand out more from my background which is going to
be an off-white / grayscale colour. The banner at the top should also
catch the reader’s attention as the yellow will and dark grey will also
stand out from the light background and also stands out from the purple
of the masthead. The use of the imperative ‘must’ and exclamatory
sentence will also catch the attention of the reader and hopefully make
them curious as to what songs they ‘must’ download.

2. I then went on to add my image to my front page which features a two-
piece band. I chose to use this photo as it portrays a light-hearted feel to
my magazine and looks like a pleasant image as both models are happily
smiling. The image shows the duo are very close as one of the models
has been pictured with their arm round the other. I chose to put the
models in scarves to portray their different personalities. The model on
the left is more loud and outgoing with a colourful scarf and the model
on the right is the more laid-back of the two with a plain black scarf. The
models also stand out from the background. I have made the image
slightly overlap the masthead as this a common convention of many
magazines. I cropped the original background from the image. I also
added vibrancy and brightened the image to make the skin brighter of
the models and for them to stand out better as the image was quite dark
to begin with. I also zoomed into the image and using the necessary
tools I managed to make the teeth white of the models. I also slightly
contrasted the image so that the model on the left’s scarf stood out
more. I have also added the necessary barcode at this stage.

3. I have now added a plug the front of my magazine ‘with exclusive
Beyoncé track’ I have used an arrow to grab the reader’s eye and make
the read what the arrow leads to. I have chosen to put ‘exclusive’ in
purple capitalised letters in order to stand out from the background and
emphasise that this track is exclusive to my magazine. The purple
colouring also matches the colour scheme of my magazine. I have put
‘Beyoncé’ In gold letters to show she is a significant artist and this track
is an important reason to buy the magazine. I have then chosen to
underline track which is in black letters to further emphasise this plug.

4. I have now added further plugs to my magazine in order to draw the
reader in and get the attention from them from the shop shelf.
Matching the colour scheme, I have added a yellow circle background
to ‘Top festivals to go to this year’ I have chose to capitalise ‘Top
Festivals’ and ‘This Year’ as they are the main words I feel summarise
the article which is going to be included in the magazine. The
sentence is also exclamatory in order for it to catch the reader’s
attention. I have also added the rhetorical question in purple (again
to match the colour scheme) and cause curiosity within the reader.
The artists I have chosen to feature in this plug: Kanye West and The
Weeknd also show the genre of my magazine to be RnB/Pop. I have
then added a black rectangle show a change of plug. I have chosen to
put ‘Everyone’s mad for …’ in golden letters to present the band as
the special guests to my magazine. The ellipsis creates tension and a
pause for the reader. ‘The other Side I have then chosen to make
exclamatory again and capitalised in order to really grab the reader’s
attention and stand out from the rest of the front cover. I want this to
be one of the first items the reader sees on the cover.

5. I then chose to further emphasise ‘The other side’ with a white
underline which is different from the black underlines I have
previously used. I used this so the underline would also stand out from
the model’s clothing. I have then added another rhetorical question to
summarise another article within the magazine. Then ‘plus!’ has again
been made exclamatory and capitalised to catch the reader’s
attention. I explicitly put the ‘plus’ in red colour to really stand out
from the background and be the only red writing on the page. The
word ‘plus’ emphasises on the fullness of my magazine making people
want to buy it. ‘VIP interview’ has also been capitalised in order to
stand out. The colour gold has been used to catch the importance of
the article and relate back to the word choice ‘VIP’.

6. I have now decided to change the image on the front of
my magazine as the magazine that was my inspiration only
had one model on the front cover. This image I can make
bigger and will stand out more to the buyer. I decided to
have my model wearing headphones to explicitly portray
that my magazine is of the music genre. My model is
posing in the same way as Lana Del Ray on my inspiration
magazine. The image is still slightly overlapping the
masthead as this is a typical magazine convention. My
model is wearing a stripy top to convey her musical and
interesting personality.

7. This is my finished front cover with my new model
and some of the plugs moved around and
changed. I believed it was important to have plugs
on both sides of my model as this is how my
inspiration magazine is laid out. I also added more
red to my colour scheme to stand out from my
model’s stripy top and also as it is a bold primary
colour it will grab the reader’s attention. I now can
argue that this front cover looks a lot more like my
inspiration magazine. I have also moved the image
again slightly to overlap the masthead more and
take up more space on the front cover.

8. Here I have just added a moved a couple of aspects of
my front page. I have made ‘Meghan Seery’ slightly
bigger as I believe it needs to stand out more as it is
the main text on the page. I have also added an extra
pull to the page ‘Sponsored by beats UK’ which again
has a pastel yellow background to match the colour
scheme and stand out from the light background. I
also added this plug about ‘beats’ to relate back to my
image in which my model is wearing headphones. I
have also made the website smaller as I believe it was
too big before and made it red to again make it stand
out slightly more and match the colour scheme.