Final Magazine Task

After months of planning and preliminary tasks, we finally got to design our very own magazine cover for the genre of our choosing which in my case was an indie music magazine.

I started off by opening a new file in Photoshop with the pre chosen dimensions for my magazine, a conventional 8.4 x 10/9 inches and a sustainable 150 pixels per inch resolution. 

After that I opened the image I had finalised for my magazine cover, transforming it with the transformation tool through the shortcut Ctrl T, to fit the cover appropriately, keeping the positioning of the masthead and other elements such as the rainbow in mind. The image was a mid long shot just as I had planned but as I was adjusting it, I realised the picture had more impact a little zoomed in since it made the model's expression for prominent.  

The next step was the placement of the masthead. 'Niagra Engraved' was the font I had chosen in my planning and it worked perfectly with the look of my magazine: sophisticated. The font size is 155pt, not overwhelmingly large but still very prominent. The prominence was only aided by the font colour being white against the black background. The lack in use of rim light though added the desired effects of showing the model emerging from the shadows, a symbol for emerging out of ignorance, it also meant the model could not be moved in front of the masthead since there is no proper shape so I adjusted the picture so the picture and masthead wont overlap.

I always intended to grey scale the picture but I wanted to retain some tints of the warm lightening I had taken the picture in, striking up a less sharp yet still strong contrast with the background and shadows, showing she too, at the end of the day, is human. I managed to achieve this by duplicating the image layer and adding the black and white effect on the duplicated layer, which was on top of the original layer. I decreased the opacity of the duplicated layer to a 60%, retaining some of the colour of the original image. 

I then placed margins on my magazine cover to maintain uniformity in my text and to make sure it looks neat. I did this with the help of the shortcut Ctrl R which made the rulers appear from which I dragged the guides and placed them on 0.2 inches inches from each side.

Once it was to my liking, I started placing my cover lines. In my planning I had already decided I wanted 3-4 cover lines. I decided on the conventional number for indie music magazines, three. Placing two of them on the upper left corner, the heading of the cover lines in 'Orator Std' in 30 pt with the help of the text tool so they stand out from the rest of the typography on the cover. I decided to keep most if not all of the colour of the font on the cover so the colours of the reflected rainbow is even more striking. I decided to keep the font of the description in 'Times New Roman' in 15 pt in order to keep it simple and so it doesn't attract more attention than the heading of the cover line itself. I added the descriptions by selecting the text tool, clicking and dragging till a text box of appropriate dimensions was formed in which I typed the description.

I also placed the date of my magazine on the lower right corner of my masthead which was also in 'Times New Roman' and 15 pt. 

I used the rectangle tool to create a small white rectangle which I placed in between my cover lines to distinguish them and increase the neatness of my magazine cover. 

Afterwards, I added the second cover line. All of these were taken from the discarded ideas for the main cover line from planning.

I decided to place my main cover line on the lower right of my magazine creating a juxtaposition to the other two cover lines. I used 'Times New Roman' as the font for my main cover line in font sizes ranging from 50 pt - 96 pt making it the largest text element on the cover excluding the masthead so it's the first cover line the consumer's eyes land on. The font type for the main cover line is kept simple to match the themes of humanisation of the model. I varied the tracking of the text in the main cover line which I added on the cover with the help of the text tool to make it more aesthetically pleasing. 'Rise' is larger than stand and regroup to give it due importance, indicating that that is the most important element in this social awakening, rising against your oppressors.

Since the white of the main cover line wasn't very prominent against the pale image, I utilised the brush tool and added a black stroke in an arched shape on a new layer (decreasing it's opacity slightly so its not too strong) moving said layer under the layers with the text of the main cover line, improving it's visibility significantly while retaining the look I was going for.

I then added the description, in the same font type in 19 pt, making it significantly smaller than the heading of the cover line as to not steal it's spot light but still larger than the other descriptions, indicating it's importance. 

Using the brush tool, I extended the stroke of black so the description too would be appropriately visible.

After that I added a PNG of a bar code vertically on the lower left of my magazine, completing my L layout.

The cover looked a little bland so I decided to introduce blood red to my colour scheme, colouring 'Rise' in red since it's the most important part of the message. I also decided to make the bar code a little smaller.

Finally I added PNGs of a white ray of light and a ray of rainbow light which I adjusted and with the help of the transformation tool (Ctrl T), rotating and distorting when the need arose, making the model appear as a prism, a metaphor for diverging thought and the dullness of youth being transformed into their blooming colours. 

I adjusted the light PNGs some more to my liking and changed the date by removing the day from the date since I realised a day isn't required in a monthly magazine.

The result looks like this:

I was happy with the way that it turned out since it was more or less what I had envisioned, minimalist yet classy. The narrative of said media text also seemed clear through different elements such as body language, expression, special effects and even the typography. I hope to refine this further.