Designing the Front Cover

The image below this paragraph is the plan that I will be working by for the front cover. This was designed and created based on aspects of the other 3 plans I created earlier on in this project. I used the very simple creative program (MS Paint) to create the sketch so I wouldn't over complicate something that was only going to be redone in the end anyway.

Using, this as a template, I could pile over layers on top of it. View the video below for the process.

The front cover took around 2 hours to fully complete and overall i feel it looks very professional due to it's 'thought out' structure and design.

I first started masking Craig's mid shot photo, removing the background so that I could create a clear image rather than having a noisy background that would be a little too much for the magazines design. I then began adding and placing things such as the title/logo (that I decided earlier on in this project) and adding barcodes, including a QR code; a digital barcode that would lead you to a certain product, place or server if scanned via a smart phone or other similar technology (the one I have on the magazine cover would take you to my media blog here, this creates a little authenticity).

This was then followed on by me placing the other photo's I had prepared for the cover onto the piece. This would represent other featured bands/articles in this magazine. These were all edited and filtered to have an overall warm appearance to them, using the colour pallets brighter colours (yellows and oranges). They were all made to look smooth and soft against the backgrounds rather than sharp and having noise around their edges from where backgrounds were removed, replaced or distorted. This was then followed with creating a rough border in the bright yellow colour I had decided would be the main colour of the magazine's themes.

I then began working on the main imagery; the background and main article (mid shot of Craig). I made a background using cloud (and difference cloud) filters plus one of the texture photo's I took to add to the grubby appearance and style of the magazine. This was all edited to look bold, interesting and soft (as to not remove too much attention from the main imagery on the magazines cover).

When editing the photo of Craig, I used a lot of tools. I first made sure the edges had a nice, clean and sharp look to them to avoid it blending or standing out too much from the background. This was then followed by the altering of lighting and colour levels, along with adding gradients and applying layer effects such as overlay and colour dodge to ensure the image was at its full potential. Once this was done, the rest of the cover was pretty easy to create, just adding more words/writing and borders to objects to ensure everything stands out comfortably and looks professional. The final step involved adding the bands logo (a warning sign) softly in the background using layer effects against the background again. It didn't stand out too much, yet is visible still. It gives the page a little more colour and makes the space to the left of Craig not look as empty.

Final Cover Piece
(Open up the image in a new tab to view it at full size)

Click here for an even bigger, clearer version!