Magazine Cover 2nd Draft

Side by Side Comparison

In order to improve on my first draft, I followed up on the feedback that I was given for Draft 1. The main 5 targets that I set myself were:

• Work in Photoshop to improve the edit of my cover star
• Add all necessary information by the barcode
• Use a different, better body text
• Ensure all features match colour scheme
• Remove the border from the cover

I have used more consistent body fonts in this draft in order to make the cover look more put together. I did this by sticking to fonts from the same family, which I feel made my cover look a lot more consistent stylistically.

I’ve also improved on the consistency of the colour scheme, and have now ensured that I stick to 3 main colours, as well as black and white: pinks, purples, and blues. In doing this I think that the overall aesthetic of the cover is a lot more consistent, improving its overall appearance.

I removed the border from the cover, as I felt it looked clunky, and that it didn’t work with the rest of the draft.

One of the significant changes I made to my cover from the first draft to this draft was the rearranging of the cover lines. Before, the cover line of ‘Indie 50’ was featured below the photo of my cover star, Morgana, and took up a very large portion of the page. On the contrary, the cover line of ‘Morgana’ was fairly small and next to my model’s head. I feel that this arrangement didn’t make much sense since Morgana was the cover star of the magazine, and so should be the main focus of the cover itself. To alter this, I switched the positions of these titles, and also added the line ‘Queen of Indie’ to gain the audience’s attention and interest. I edited the appearance of the logo ‘Morgana’ in order to make it more visually interesting.

I altered the pug of the magazine to say something more fitting contextually than what it was previously. As the pug’s appearance is of paper that has been burst through, I felt the word ‘Ricochet’ made more sense, as if a bullet had ripped through the paper.

The bottom of the magazine previously was plain text directly over the image of my cover star, with a drop shadow behind it. An issue with this was that the colour of the text blended into my star’s hair, and so became quite illegible at points where it crossed over. To remedy this, I placed a small block of colour over the lower portion of the cover and placed the text over this, enabling it to stand out more and be significantly more legible.

In the photo of my model, she is wearing a t-shirt with a logo of a pink heart with the word ‘milk’ written inside it. As this didn’t link with anything to do with my star image, I covered this with the line ‘Queen of Indie,’ as it didn’t add anything to the overall look of the cover.

I edited the formatting of the text above my masthead slightly, and changed it to ‘for the individualist’ as I felt it sounded better.

I increased the size of my masthead as I felt it wasn’t big enough previously, and italicized it slightly to add the home-made feel that the Indie genre is associated with.

In draft 1, I only had 2 cover lines on the magazine, so I added some extra lines and brief descriptions of their articles below them.

Targets

My main targets for the next draft of my cover are:

• Re-cut out my star’s hair in order to make it less clunky
• Add further information (publish date, issue number)
• Ensure that my fonts are still within the same family, by with slight alterations to increase variety