Main Task - Music Magazine Cover Third Draft

I changed very little from my second draft to my third draft, which should hopefully be an indicator that I have reached my final draft. The first thing I changed was that I shifted the alignment of the "Plus" section of the text to the right, as this is what the covers of music magazines tend to do.
The other thing I did was try to cover up the gold button on Kerry's shoulder, as I was told that it was distracting since it looked rather prominent on the cover. I covered it up by nudging the Leanne Bell album cover upwards, which covered up half of the button. I then used a combination of the patch tool, clone stamp tool and blur tool to remove the rest of the button on Photoshop, and eventually did so to a standard I considered adequate. I also swapped around the positioning of the "The Accelerators" story with the "Leanne Bell" story, so that the album cover would be next to the relevant piece of text.
This is likely to be the final draft of my cover, so long as no one else is able to give me any ideas as to what I can change.

Main Task - Music Magazine Cover Second Draft

This is the second draft of my cover.
I noticed from the comments on the first draft that many people found the yellow/orangey text blurry and therefore hard to read, I thought this strange since in Photoshop the text looked fine. After playing around with it a bit I found that the blurriness was due not to the colour, but instead due to the file format I had uploaded the first draft as. The JPEG format that I had uploaded my first draft as is not a very high quality container; it is usually only used more because of its smaller file size. It is acceptable for things with only images (which is why digital cameras use it as their preferred format) but text is often unclear. PNG is a much better format since, despite having bigger file sizes, it allows for much much higher quality images, especially when text is used. This comic adequately conveys my point. Anyway, for my second draft I uploaded it as a PNG, so people should no longer have a problem with the blurriness of the text.
Now for actual changes. Firstly I removed the extra eye make-up I worked so hard on since despite liking it I received comments that it made it look like there were slugs under Kerry's eyes, or that it looked like she had an eye infection. Although there were other people who said they liked it, I had to admit that it was more than slightly dodgey.
Next I changed some of the artist names on the right hand side, since (as Nathan commented) "Joseph" didn't seem a suitable name, and "Wilmore" sounded too much like the surname name of a Lord. Because the new names I chose were shorter I was able to move the "Plus" section to the right, which meant that the text imposed less on the photo of Kerry.
The final change I made was including one of my album covers, since some people had said the magazine from a distance looked like it could be a women's health magazine, and so I tried to music it up. I thought the Leanne Bell cover was my best one, which is way I chose it to be the one to include. I therefore had to change the text in that section of the cover from Medusa Rider to Leanne Bell, so the album cover would be related (it would be pretty stupid for a music magazine to have a random image on the cover that is not relevant to any of the text). I gave the album cover a white frame and a drop shadow so that it would be clearer against the background image. I also tilted it slightly, so that it looks more interesting and more like something that would be on a real music magazine cover.
I am very happy with this, but am still prepared to make any further changes should the need arise (for example, if a real band called Space Grind tried to file a lawsuit against me and I had to change that particular band name).

Music Magazine Cover First Draft - Step-by-step

Throughout the design of my front cover, I made sure to save my progress regularly. I did this primarily so that I could go back and change it if I had changed my mind about something, but it also meant that I'd be able to post on my blog a step-by-step account of the cover's creation process. The step-by-step account is what you'll be reading now.

As Confucius said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." This was my single beginning step. I basically just brought the picture I'd decided to use into Photoshop, and then put the masthead design I'd made earlier onto it. I then cut out the top of my model's head and made it a duplicate layer which I placed above the masthead layer; this made it look like my model was standing in front of the magazine title. I next put some text saying "Kerry Anne" on the cover, as this is the name of model and therefore the name I was going to use for the "singer" on the front cover. I also put a barcode I found on google in the bottom right hand corner, as this is a common position for music magazines to put their barcodes.

For the second version, I first made the masthead more thick and bold so that it would stand out more. I also got rid of the "Kerry Anne" text, since I decided to focus on editing the main picture and designing the cover before worrying about adding text. Another thing I did was change the barcode to a more realistic one.

This I did for a bit of fun; I used the colour replacement tool to make Kerry's eyes red. I found it quite effective as it definitely made her appearance scarier, but I knew that it was not the kind of thing the one should seriously include on a music magazine's front cover.

This is the third version I made. The most noticeable change is the black header bit, which I added as I have seen it on many music magazines. I found it useful aesthetically as it meant my magazine looked more music-like, and I also found it useful content-wise as it allowed me space to include more information about what's inside the mag. Separating the black box from the background is a small silver-coloured line, which I put there as it matches the silver colour of the masthead's outline. In regards to the masthead, I changed it by applying a drop shadow and mucking about with its other settings slightly so it looked clearer and therefore more professional.

In this fourth version I had hidden all the things on the cover apart from the main picture, so that I could cut out the background. I decided to cut out the background so that I could apply another better one, rather than having the random wall that was in the photo's original background. On many music magazine covers I looked at a coloured background had been applied, so I thought I could create something similar to these covers by adding in a background colour myself. Obviously at this point I had yet to cut out the background completely. I used to lasso tool to do the main section of cutting, and when it got to the finer details I used the eraser tool with a very small and soft brush setting.

In the fifth version I showed again the layers that I had previously hidden. I'd finished cutting out Kerry but the edges of the picture still looked sharp and jagged, making it clear she was cut out, so I rectified that later on. I chose to use a yellowy orange background for the moment as that was the colour of the wall used as the actual background and so I felt it fit the picture quite well. It is also not overly obtrusive to the eyes, though I did feel that it looked quite ugly. I also actually added something to the black heading. I used white text, because white always looks good on black, and included a picture of the "three middle-class schoolboys" in question. As you may remember, this was actually one of the pictures from the first session of photo taking so I am glad I was able to use it. I put a small white frame around the picture so that it would be clearer against the different things it is in front of.

For this sixth version I had changed the colour settings of the main picture slightly, so that Kerry looked less pale. I also spaced out the text in the header section better, so that it properly filled out the space. I added in a month and price as they are aspects needed on music magazine covers just as much as barcodes. I used the font Oceania as it was the same font used for the masthead, and it therefore helped to create a sense of house style.

This is probably the point at which the biggest (or most obvious) changes took place. For this seventh version I got rid of the ugly yellowy orange background and replace it with white. I then used the gradient tool and dragged a white and black gradient inwards from the outside edges of the cover, which made the outer parts of the cover black fading into white at the centre. This gave the effect of a picture taken with a light shining on a white background, where the black parts are the shadow. I made this effect more obvious by going on Filter > Render > Lighting Effects... and then applying a spotlight effect with the angle pointing downwards. This made it look like a light had been shining directly on Kerry's face when the picture was taken, and this gave the picture a much more studio-like quality. I also moved the "Kerry Anne" text to the left and put it across two lines, as in its previous position it felt like it was taking up too much space and therefore limiting what else I could include on the cover.

For the eighth version I applied a much more even gradient to the background since previously it looked kind of random, with the bottom left hand corner having a lot less black than the bottom right hand corner. I moved the whole image of Kerry to the right slightly so that her name was not obstructing her face so much. I also put the lure ("I'm done with the band...") underneath the name, to show it was said by Kerry Anne. However, what was by far the biggest change I made did this time was the addition of make-up. I wanted to make Kerry look more "rockish" and thought a good way to do this would be by adding more obvious make-up. I looked up on youtube a variety of make-up application tutorials, eventually finding this one and this one, both of which proved to be extremely useful. Female musicians often have bright red lipstick and I managed to, with the help of the first video, create what I thought to be a pretty good effect. I applied also a black eye-liner effect using the second video; I chose black as it is gothic and "rockish", which is the effect I wanted to create.

In this ninth version I only changed a little. I compressed the "Kerry Anne" text and the lure below it, so that they were spaced out less vertically. I also changed the drop shadow settings on the lure, making it so that the shadow was actually directly behind the text. This compression and drop shadow editing made the text easier to read, and it also looked better purely in terms of aesthetics as well. The only other change I made was to cut out Kerry's head as I had done earlier and put it over the masthead again.









And here is my tenth, and final, version of the front cover. Here I added all the text to the cover, which wasn't too hard since I had decided on most of the band/singer names and their stories beforehand. I put all the band/singer names in red, as this highlighted that they were more important than the accompanying text. To be honest I have no idea why I chose to use for the accompanying text the same particular yellowy orange colour I had earlier deemed too ugly to use for my background. Regardless, I think it works quite well, and I believe it compliments the red text quite nicely.



It is likely that there will be further changes for me to make, but this is only my first draft so I have the time. Also, I apologise for the hideous layout blogger has deemed fit to impose on this post. I tried my best to sort it, but to no avail.

Main Task - Music Magazine Cover First Draft

The is the front cover for my music magazine. Once I decided on a main picture for my cover out of the ones most recently posted I began to add aspects to it that would make a music magazine. The image shown is actually my 10th stage of production, and it feels good to have progressed so far from just a picture. To the picture itself I applied lighting effects and added make-up using Adobe Photoshop (compare it to the raw image shown in the last blog post). I also added text about the cover girl and also about other bands that will appear inside the magazine. As well as this were components essential for a magazine, such as the barcode, the date and the price. One can also see that I used the masthead that I decided upon earlier.
I will talk later about the different processes involved in the cover's creation in detail, along with pictures showing the different stages I went through and choices I had to make.

Magazine Photos - Third Attempt

For my third attempt at photo-taking I decided to take pictures of each of the three girls form the last photo-shoot by themselves. This way I could incorporate the last set of pictures with any I took this time, since I felt I didn't have enough good shots to use on a front page, contents and double-page spread. I mainly did medium close-up shots, as I decided that this was what I wanted to do for my cover. Also, I applied some effects to certain photos, since I have been experimenting more in Photoshop lately. Here is a selection of the photos:

 

 

 

Magazine Photos - Second Attempt

The following photos are, as one could deduce from the title, my second attempt at taking photos for the music magazine. Like last time I am only including a selection, since there were some that were either extremely similar or extremely bad.
And now, the differences in this set of pictures from the last. Firstly: I used girls. I did this because I had access (bad choice of words) to girls who looked a lot more mature and therefore better suited to be in a band, as opposed to my friends who do just look like teenagers messing about. Also these girls are more attractive than my friends, which means that the potential audience of my magazine will like them more and also I'll have less work to do on Photoshop. Another major thing that I changed was the setting; previously I had gone for the garage band look but this time I used a white background which gave the whole thing a more professional feel. The clothes the girls were wearing were better than before, but still not really perfect. They looked very good and cool individually, but had little coordination all together.

Magazine Photos - First Attempt

Below are photos taken from the first set of pictures I took to possibly include in my magazine. I organised after school one day to gather three of my friends at another friend's house. I asked them to bring their own clothes, ones which would give the impression of them being in a band, and I got them to do a variety of different poses in my friend's garage. In the first few pictures everyone is still wearing their suits, as I thought it would be interesting to experiment with more than one set of costumes. In some shots they are holding/using instruments, in others not.
Overall these pictures didn't turn out all that well, though that should be forgiven as this was my first try. The main reason for my failure is probably the setting, since a garage (despite the popularity of garage bands) is probably not the best place to take photos for a professional music magazine. Another problem is likely that that friends I used didn't look enough like they were in a band. One of them (Jonny - the boy with glasses and a hat) looked actually quite suited to be a musician; the other two did not. Also a problem was that their clothes weren't really coordinated enough, so even if each of them looked like rock stars they wouldn't have looked like they were in a group. I tried to take all these factors on board and improve on them when taking my next set of photos.
Also, please forgive the somewhat deranged layout of the photos; Blogger makes it exceedingly difficult to post multiple pictures in any sort of sensible order.