Picking out my final front cover

Final front cover

The conventions

Picking apart contents pages

Picking out key the conventions of a contents page

double page spread

CHLOE

After becoming worldwide famous with ………….. hits on YouTube, Chloe Conroy seems to be “the one to watch”, at the age of 19 Chloe is hitting the charts and is already above many famous artistes such as Beyoncé. Chloe has been noticed everywhere for her unique look and spectacular voice, the public are also tabling her as a model, fans are overwhelming.

SOUND have called Chloe in to interview her and ask her how this career has blown up in such a short amount of time, public have never reacted like this. Everyone is made for CHLOE.  We are privileged she has joined us now for her first ever interview.

Chloe, wow you’ve really flown up there, how are you taking all this fame?

“Honestly, I never expected this at all I’m just a normal girl from Birmingham I don’t know how this fame has arrived at all”

When did you know you had a music talent? Who told you?

“Well, I’ve always been obsessed with music since I was little but never thought I’d get any luck with it. I found out that people at least thought my music was good when I was at school and I had a school performance I played Sandy from Grease and people kept complimenting my voice.”

When did you consider making a youtube account for your music?

“Two years ago I made the account with my friends, not really for music but just to up load funny videos (laughs) but then my friend Ellie advised me to put a video of me singing up. It took months until I actually did but I didn’t post the video anywhere so only my family and friends viewed it, but after finally posting it, I put more on and the more I put up the more views I would get.”

Where would you record these videos?

“Usually just in my room on my MacBook, I would practice the song over and over until my parents would get annoyed (giggles) but after I got over 20 thousand hits, people were commenting on my videos telling me to record in a studio. After realising I might get hope from my music I decided to go to a studio not far from where I live”

What was your inspiration?

“My music inspiration was The Kooks because I listen to them from such a young age with my brother but what lead me to performing to masses of people was my auntie who struggled through cancer but she’d try and come to every event that I had and tell me how proud she was of me.”

Oh I’m sorry to hear, what makes you feel comfortable in front of crowds of people?

“Honestly it’s how I feel about myself, some days I can be so happy with myself and my appearance which makes me feel literally more comfortable in front of people but generally it’s usually trying to forget I’m in front of people and just in my room in front of my computer making a video.”

What are you planning to do in the future? Has music always been what you wanted to do?

“Music wasn't my original plan, I wanted to be a painter (laughs) I took art, drama and English language at A level and unexpectedly got 3 B’s. From now yes music is all I see myself doing and I can’t wait to release my new album called ‘October’ in the future.”

One of my front cover attempts

With this front cover attempt I have used many of the conventions for example I have used CHLOE as a headline and several different coverlines such as DISCLOSURE, I have used these bold San-serif fonts to stand out and look unique.
I have used different colours on the fonts to highlight was is important I have also done this with the different sized fonts, this works well because it makes the word stand out and allows the audience to view that specific word first.
I have used a barcode/price and date to allow the audience to know when this issue was given and how much, this is important to put on my front cover to make the magazine look realistic and effective.

This image is very different as it has the disclosure face cover over the model, even though I liked this idea I felt that with the white lines in front of her face it didn't allow the photo to look as good as it does, also it made a barrier where Chloe the subject couldn't look straight at the camera. The audience might not find the front cover as bold without the subject looking at the camera/them.

What I did like about this front cover is that the disclosure front cover made the magazine look interesting, I liked that the coverlines fit nicely around the models face. I also liked that the image is in black and white allowing the masthead to stand out and look interesting.
But overall I don't think this is my strongest front cover because you can see lack of photography skills are shown off and no eye contact with the audience and the subject. 

Front cover attempt

Attempt at final front cover

I asked my audience out of all the front covers I had done so far which one they thought looked the best and the most professional, they agreed they thought this front cover was more appropriate because you could see the main object clearly and a lot of the conventions are shown clearly on this front cover. ...

Mock ups

This is an attempt of my magazine front cover, I dont think this cover is very good so far. I think the writing as the coverlines are too close together which will make it difficult to read. I also think that this front cover lacks text and looks very plan and boring, as my first attempt I think it is very interesting however there is a lot of room for improvement.
For example adding more text, having a better pull quote that stands out and making the front cover more unique. 

With this front cover I liked the photograph a lot I think it looks interesting but again with this front cover it lacks coverlines and information to improve this magazine I would liked to add more text, use a pull quote and make space between the coverlines,

So far I prefer these front covers

First attempt at final front cover

What I need to do next

Next after I have finished editing and choose he photo i want to use as my front cover I need to consider what headlines and cover lines I should use that match/fit my subjects image.
Using featured articles would be good, because the article could be focused on the main subject on the ront cover. This would be good when considering my double paged spread.

I want my headline to be short/very one worded but to mean/say a lot for example again i-D magazine:
.

"Graceful" very short but again makes the page look full because of the focused image. I like magazines that have little text on the front cover I think it makes the magazine have a cutting edge and makes costumers more interested in what the issue entails

experimenting with photo

I used fireworks to edit the brightness on the photo, when making the image brighter it allows the colours to become more noticeable making the image stand out and look more interesting. In this image it made the subjects eye's stand out which made the photo look more significant and bold.

Again using fireworks I adjusted the saturation of this image by doing this it made the image look slightly black and white giving the idea it was an older photo, I tried using this to make the front cover look more unique making the images look different.

Then in this I started to make the magazine look more realistic by adding the masthead and the bar-code to see what the finishing product may look like, I like this attempt because it looks more natural and young. The masthead looks interesting and matches well with the photo I have chosen because the neutral coordinate.  

I tried changing the curves in the image that adjusted the colour/lighting, I only slightly moved the curves because the photo dramaticly changed when only slightly changing the curves, the images can be come washed out or to vibrant depending on which way the line bends to, making sure the image doesn't look to edited is important.  

this image is very different because I inverted the colours which made the photograph look like this, if this was to be a front cover image it would stand out, the image looks weird and interesting which I like however I don't know if its appropriate to have as the main focused image.

Then finally I used black and white, I like this because it's simple and makes the masthead stand out and look exaggerated. This layout of front cover comes very similar to dazed and confused magazine because the masthead is very large but the image is dramatic and centre of attention.

experimenting with fireworks and photo editing websites I have produced this:

and this: