Cover Production

CONSTRUCTING MY COVER

This (top of page) is my slogan for my magazine. This appears under my masthead. Most of the text is in the ‘Bang 4 Ya Buck’ font, in a dark blood red. The word ‘UNSIGNED’, however, is in the Mistral font. The settings for this wording

is shown above left and below right.

SLOGAN

Below is my masthead. This is positioned at the top of my composition. Please, see my earlier posts to find how I

constructed this.

I changed it slightly from my original plan by add an outer glow to make it stand out against the dark, complex

background.

MASTHEAD

I have noticed from my previous research that having ‘banners’ at the top and bottom of the cover seems to be a

common trait in magazines with a similar sub-genre to mine. I decided that this would be a good element to include on

my cover, as it connotes the busy, full feel that many similar covers have.

I set the kerning at -30 for most of the text shown, as this takes away the lines between the lettering that occurs when

use my chosen font (Take Cover). However, between each band name on the bottom banner, I increase the kerning to

0, so that the bands were clearly defined and separated.

BANNERS

Scattered around this slide are the cover lines that I have included on my magazine cover. I noticed that, in the

magazines I analyzed for research, the band names were written in a different colour to the rest of the coverline. I

thought this was a really intelligent idea, as, by highlighting the name, it connotes importance.

I also read that Kerrang! uses either sex, win or free at least once on every cover, so I

used this idea, also (top left).

COVERLINES

My puff is written in white writing.I chose this because that is the colour that I have used the

highlight band names, which means, not only does it bring a sense of continuity to my cover page, but it also means that

the puff seems to connote importance as well.

I have reduced the kerning right down to -60 to make the text seem a continuous block of colour. This emphasizes the

puff.

The use of the word ‘your’ is appealing to my audience because many of them may have their own band, so this

communicates directly to them

PUFF

My splash is written in the ‘Take Cover’ font that I have used for all of my other coverlines. This adds continuity to my

cover. I also used the white font for the names, which strengthens this unity.

I have made the splash stand out from the rest of the coverlines by not placing it on a block of colour and using

three fonts colours instead of two. I think that this effectively emphasizes this element.

SPLASH

I created my barcode using a font from DaFont.com, entitled New Barcode. I added information that I have seen

commonly used in magazines with sub-genres similar to mine. I have written the issue number (I chose a high number, as this suggests that the magazine is popular

enough to last for long periods of time) and a price (based on the amount of content and the prices of my researched magazines, I chose £2.10 as the price for my magazine).

BARCODE

Here (right), is my chosen central image. I chose this specific

photograph, as I thought it connoted the style of my magazine well. I took

this photo at an aperture of f1.8 and a shutter speed of 1/50 of a second, to

let in as much light as possible, as my setting was quite dark.

I chose a stronger pose for Dan, as he is the frontman, and they are usually

positioned in such a way.

I used a copy of Alex’s face and removed the background, meaning I could place it over the masthead (a common trait of music magazines).

CENTRAL IMAGE