Cover Stages & Production

This was my very first cover image, however, I felt as though it was lacking character so I decided not to use it.

I decided to use a close up shot instead of a medium close up, as I felt it communicated the emotions expressed by the model and cover page more effectively.
I was still adding sell-lines around the head of my model.  This was so I could partly portray that she is the most important graphic on the page by drawing more attention to her face, which is composed centrally.

I achieved this look by accident when highlighting parts of my page, but I felt as though it gave my magazine an unusual look and made it look 'cool' as it emphasized on the idea of being unique. This inspired me to play with negative filters and experiment with my cover image a little more.

After splitting my image in half, (half negative filter) I decided changing half of the anchoring text would make it suit the house style more.

This is how the original bar-code layout of my magazine was. However, I have decided to change it to appear less 'clunky'.

This is my initial cover:
 I recently was given the opportunity to talk to the Art Director of Glass Magazine, who said that he really liked my cover and was able to guess the genre of music it belonged to. This was important as it showed that my cover page relates to the genre of music I am targeting. However, he did also give me some critical feedback, this was that the text is too close to the models head, and that the anchoring text could be pushed down or the model's head could be pushed up to allow her to be easily seen. I will be making these changes and some more corrections that I have noticed myself over the next few days. For example, the 'specs' of coloration around the anchoring text are distracting, so I will use the clone stamp to make the image have block colours around the text instead. Furthermore, I will add a layer of nearly transparent purple to white gradient over the top of the cover to make it appear less tacky/bright and to create a 'flossy but matte' finish to the page. I will also take into account the advice Ben gave me as I am currently planning on reducing the size of the sell lines, and perhaps putting my tag line at the top of the page to fill in the empty white space which the Director commented: "makes me feel like there's something missing" and is "distracting".