Constructing and Developing My Front Cover

<<Initial Design
The image pictured to the left is very first draft of my magazine that I created using Microsoft Publisher. I decided that I would follow this main layout (pictured to the right) for my front cover. What I liked most about this front cover was the headline and the puffs and the image I used but after showing it to my target audience they told me that the front cover was to plain and dull even though I had used the color blue to try and add a little vibrancy to the page they said that the image was too plain and didn't jump out at them and that some of the text was hard to read.



Constructing the magazine on Photoshop

1. First things first, I created my front
cover again on Photoshop but I made
 changes to the language and wording that I
 used on the front cover.

2. Then I added a purple gradient
overlay to the masthead to make
it more vibrant and eye-catching.

3. Then I added some copy on top
of  the masthead because the gradient
in a way now counted as a banner. This
then made my magazine look more
interesting and energetic

4. I then made the image lie on
top of the image because
this was one of the codes
and conventions of maga-
zine front covers and this would
make my magazine look more
professional

5. After that I then gave all the copy on
the front cover a drop shadow effect
in order to make the copy much more
visible and easy to read.

6. Then I added adjustment layers to the image.
These layered altered the brightness/contrast, levels
 and curves of the image which made the image
look much more vibrant and energetic.

<<First Draft
After getting feedback from my target audience I decided to remake my magazine on Photoshop because it has a lot more design and editing features than Publisher does. I then decided to get more feedback from my target audience and they told me that the front cover did indeed gain much more vibrancy and the text was much easier to read but they did tell me that the cover lines at the upper left hand side of the image needed to be aligned to the left in the same way I aligned the puffs at the bottom right and that "Dubsteps'" would need to be spelled as "Dubstep's"







<<Second Draft
In response to the feedback I received from my target audience I changed the alignment of the cover lines and the punctuation in Dubstep's. But then after showing my front cover to my target audience again they told me that there was a large gap between the puffs and the serial bar, they suggested that I could fill up with the space with another puff.












<<Final Draft
I added one more puff to my magazine in response to the feedback I received from my target audience. After showing it to my target audience once again they didn't have any more suggestions or improvements that I would need to add so I could tell that this version of my front cover was the most appealing to my target audience.