The development of my music magazine front cover. Step by step guide

Here is where I began, when creating my music magazine cover. I took an image of my main artist and edited it to give it an effect of a painting on PicMonkey.com. Straight after I inserted the same image into Photoshop and started creating my magazine cover. This is my third attempt at creating the main front cover, the last two I created did not meet the criteria of a psychedelic music magazine. I made sure the image is black and white because that way I was able to change the colours of highlights and shadows and could get them as bright as I wanted. This fits in really well with my psychedelic magazine genre. The image under shows that I have made it a lot lighter, using the filter at the top, I adjusted the colours and made it black and white. 

After adjusting the colours to black and white using filter, I inserted a vintage paper background to give it a sort of faded look, which will give the magazine cover a vintage/ old look. 

I have tried using a different image for the front cover, however I realised that this image is not suitable for the front cover, the model looks too pale and fades in with the background. For a psychedelic magazine, the model should be wearing bright clothes and the magazine itself has to be colourful and eye-catching. After trying out a different image, I realised that it's not as good as my previous photograph for the front cover. 

I have decided to use the original image, I intended to use in the first place. This image goes very well with the psychedelic rock genre, and will look a lot neater. I have used a coloured background and mixed it with vintage paper, this will give the magazine a unique sort of look. It will be easier to recognise this music magazine as a psychedelic one because of the old look, because psychedelic rock was mostly popular in the 60's/70's. Psychedelic rock still exists, but it is not as popular as it was back in the late 60's, early 70's. Psychedelic rock reached its peak in 1969, during Woodstock Festival. 

In order to make my magazine psychedelic, just like intended. I have decided to use bright colours on the cover, this is why I chose to use dark blue for the shadows of the image, and bright blue for the highlights of the image. I have tried a lot of different colours, but none of the others looked as good as the chosen colours, it also works perfectly with the masthead at the top which is bright red.

In order to create my masthead, I researched different types of psychedelic fonts to find the one I wanted to use the most, since I couldn't find any suitable fonts on Photoshop for my chosen genre. Finally I found the psychedelic font that caught my eye on dafont.com. I couldn't download the font as it was too expensive, so instead I decided to work with one letter at a time to make the masthead perfect, and because I wanted to fit two 'O's' in one line at the top. I typed in 'G' first and print-screened it, then I pasted the picture into PowerPoint and cropped it down, then I saved the letter as an image and inserted it into Photoshop. Using the magic wand tool in Photoshop, I got rid of the white background and dragged the letter onto my original product, the magazine front cover. Then I changed the size using the transformation tool and changed the colour to bright red as I thought it would be appropriate for this kind of genre, I also added drop shadow effect to the letter. I have done the same thing with every other letter in the masthead, in order to make my magazine unique and different I decided to place the letter 'O' on top of the other letter 'O', this adds an interesting effect to my magazine, making it look desirable and funky. Not only will this make my magazine look different and funky but it will also add a new edge to a psychedelic magazine, and the magazine itself will stand out from all the rest. The magazine will not be simple and boring but the complete opposite. 

To make sure the colours of each letter are the same I chose the colour first, then copied the code of the colour and changed it on all the other letters, to make sure they're accurate and they all match.

Wilf Holloway's album/ vinyl cover

For my media project, I have created a psychedelic rock magazine, on the cover of my magazine is Wilf Holloway, who is posing as an individual artist. On my front cover the main story is Wilf Holloway's new album called 'Sacred Valley'. To show what the album would look like I have created an album cover. I drew a picture on a piece of white paper and took a photograph off it. Then inserted it into Photoshop and coloured it in with various psychedelic bright colours. Then I added the text, first I found the font I liked the most on the internet and due to not being able to download it on a college computer I typed in the correct text and print-screened the page, then I inserted it into Photoshop and using the magic wand tool I got rid of the white background, I dragged the text onto my main layer and by clicking 'ctrl+t' I rasterized the text around the shape of the eye, filling in the gaps. On the cover you can see the name of the main artist, and the name of the new album coming out. To see what the album would look like if it was on iTunes, I inserted the image onto an iTunes page. And you can see here, that if the album was real, it would be sold on iTunes.

Front cover, double page spread and a contents page

Front cover, double page spread and a contents page before improvement.

The Contents page of my music magazine is not yet finished. I will have to add a couple of photographs during half term and get it finished. Though the double page spread is now complete, I also need to add a couple of details to the front cover, unfortunately I didn't have the time to do it, but I will make sure I complete it over half term. 

Final front cover, double page spread and a contents page. 

Deadline dates

• Double page spread, contents page, front cover + all production and research - 14th February
• Evaluation and all changes and updates - 11th April
• Grades are submitted - 15th May

Evaluation

The evaluation should be seen as a creative task and the potential of the format chosen should be exploited through the use of images, audio, video and links to online resources.

In the evaluation the following seven questions must be addressed:

• In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

• How did you attract/address your audience?

• What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

• Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? 

Photographs taken for the Double Page Spread

I have decided to take various photographs for the double page spread I am going to create for my psychedelic music magazine. I have chosen to take my photographs in Welton Woods because it is a nice area and would look good on a double page spread. This is the image I want to use for the final dps. 

To make sure I had a larger variety of photograph choice for my final double page spread. I took photographs of Wilf in different places and positions, in case I decided to change the double page spread and wanted to use a different image. 

I particularly like this photograph because the background is very bright and eye-catching which blends well with my psychedelic rock genre. Though because the photograph was taken from a low angle, it doesn't look  as professional as I thought it would. 

Looking back at these images I have come to a conclusion that they will not meet the psychedelic music genre, and would make my magazine look boring and dull. The area would be perfect for the magazine, however the costume of my main artist is very simple, which would make my magazine look extremely boring and would not meet the criteria. I have decided to take fish-eye lens photographs instead, because they will look a lot better for a psychedelic rock magazine. 

Double page spread mock drafts