In my rough designs i had planned to have the background as one image (of a reggae artist). I had a large eye catching masthead. I located the selling line in the top left third above the masthead. I also had the 'model credit' in the middle of the page right. At the bottom i had opted for two kicker lines with explaining lines, and to the right the bar-code and price.
I started off by going through all the photos of my reggae artist Ollie Adewusi. I had to pick an image that was eye catching and made Ollie look cool(for lack of a better word). I went through each photo and choose my best three out of the bunch. I then re sized each image in photoshop to be A4 size (297mm x 210mm) and then placed each one on the cover. I looked at each one several times until i choose my final image.
My next step was to add one of the most important elements of the front cover, the masthead. I then typed in the title of my magazine 'One Love Reggae.' I spent several minutes looking at different fonts comparing and resizing each one. I eventually choose the one I thought fit best, Bauhaus 93. The masthead needs to be eye catching. So I decided to add some effects to the masthead and give it more of a 3D look. I first used the Bevel function and gave it a nice deep 3D appearance to make it stand out more. I then added a drop down shadow to the left. I decided to go with a two colour scheme. I used green as the primary colour, and then used the outer glow effect to make the letters surrounded with orange. I thought it was a nice touch because it gave the reggae vibe.
I then added the selling line, which was, "Lively up ya self with da latest in reggae." This shows the audience that if they are looking for a fun, lively reggae magazine they look no further. I decided to keep the same primary green colour from the masthead for the selling line. I again used Bauhaus 93 as the font.
-At this point I decided to stick to my design plan of having all the text in reggae green (plain medium/dark green)
I then added the date line in the top right third of the page in size 10.
For the model credit I just put the artist's name, Ollie Adewusi. I chose the font Lucida Handwriting to give that signature look in size 14.
When I got to the kicker lines I noticed a problem. One of the kicker line boxes would go over the artist's feet which i didn't really want. But instead of just moving it above the other kicker line i decided to change my idea completely from the original plan. I decided to add two secondary images to the bottom left third of the page. I had two images of other artist that where going to talked about in the magazine. One was an interview and the other a story about a new album. I put the page references and explaining lines on the right side of the images. I used photoshop to re size the images so they were small boxes in the bottom left third of the page. I then decided to use another kicker line. One convention of many music magazine is that they often have freebies, whether it be a free CD, posters or vouchers. So beneath the two images I put a third kicker line saying 'Free CD inside.' This is effective in catching the readers attention because before they have even turned the page they have and idea of whats in the magazine and may attract them to read it.
When I went to add the bar-code and price I noticed something I had completely forgotten to do in my rough designs, add an issue number. So I first put the bar-code in the bottom right third. Above the bar-code in size 11 I put the issue number (I choose the number 9 at random). Below the bar-code in size 14 I put the price. I decided to charge 3.00 pounds for my magazine.
Below is an image of my final front cover design
Once I had finished my front cover I then moved on to the contents page.
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