Possible Front Cover Images

Here are the two images that I'll be experimenting with for my magazine cover. There were a variation of shots, however, these fulfil the criteria from my photoshoot plan. I think that the second photograph will be most effective for the magazine cover as there is space to fit coverlines and the masthead on the cover, whereas with the other close up photograph it would be difficult to place the text.



Photoshoot Plans

As my magazine is of the indie/acoustic genre, I looked at magazines such as NME to see how they portrayed female artists, as the model on the front of my cover will be female. I noticed that when they have female or solo artists on their cover, it will usually be a close up shot of their face, so they are the main focus of the cover. In the Florence and the Machine cover of NME that I looked at, she was wearing little make-up, and a plain white top so her face and hair was the main focus of the cover. I’d like to do something like this so other elements on the cover aren’t so distracting and the viewers focus on the artist. I’ve noticed that most indie artists use nature in their music videos, photo-shoots, album covers, etc, with the male indie bands using woodlands quite a lot and female indie artists using single flowers. This was shown in Katy Perry’s Billboard cover, even though she is more of a pop artist, however by using flowers it adds femininity to the frame.

Therefore on my cover my female artist will be wearing little make-up, and the hair-styling will be very simple. The model will be giving the audience a direct mode of address on the cover but in the contents and double-page spread images they will most likely be a variation of photographs, some will have direct modes of address whereas others will not. I’d like to incorporate nature into the shot, which can link to the genre of indie and also perhaps the artist that I make up. For the shoot I’m going to try a close up of the artists face and also a medium shot which could include an instrument (like an acoustic guitar) in the frame to relate to the title of the magazine ‘Strum’ and the genre that it portrays. If I’m using nature as a focus point then I will most likely use natural lighting in the shot. I will see how the photograph looks with the model looking at the camera and also not looking at the camera, to decide whether the direct mode of address works or not. The magazine should have quite a casual feel to it, therefore the photoshoot shouldn’t be too structured, I’d like the image to look natural and comfortable at the end of it rather than a fully posed image. In the close up photograph, body language won’t be too much of an issue as the artist’s face will be the only thing the viewer sees, however in the medium shot the top half of their body will have to be composed naturally to give across that carefree attitude.

Possible Masthead Title and Fonts

Evaluation of Q Magazine Re-Make

As part of our coursework task, we were required to re-make a music magazine cover. While looking through music magazine covers, I was looking for one that I could ask a friend to model for me, and when I found the Madonna Q magazine cover through Google I knew I could re-make it.

Before I took my main image I made the layout of the magazine using Adobe Photoshop CS3, and on the original cover there wasn't a huge variation of font styles, however there were changes in the colour and sizes, especially concerning the headings of different articles, for example the title of 'MADONNA!' was in a much larger font size and a bright red so I took that into account and remembered to make sure it was larger on my mock-up. On the right hand side of the cover the titles are in red and on the left hand side they are in black, so they are opposites on each side adding interest to the cover. The cover also has graphic features such as the lines separating titles on the right hand side of the cover, the incentive on the top left hand corner acting as a seal of approval to the cover and the barcode. The seal of approval was very easy to replicate as it used simple fonts and colours and both versions look very alike. With the barcode, I moved it to the bottom left hand side of the cover as there was already a text box there that I couldn't decipher due to it pixelating, so I moved the barcode there to fit better on the cover as it looked to cramped in the original space.

As I mentioned before, the fonts on the cover are quite basic and so were easy to find, the only tricky font to find was the ‘Q’ logo to act as the masthead, but my main image covers the main piece of the logo, so the font that I found in the end didn’t need to be exact as the recognisable flick in the ‘Q’ was masked by my model anyway. When it came to taking the main photograph, I found some fabric that was a colour akin to the dress Madonna was wearing, and gave my model similar make-up and hairstyle to how Madonna was styled for the magazine shoot. The main difference between the original cover and my re-make is the fact that Madonna is tanned for her shoot, whereas I wasn’t able to have a model with that skin colour.

When it came to positioning my model, we found it really awkward to get the pose exactly right, especially with the angle of her head as well as hunching her shoulders. The model had to be giving eye contact to the reader, which made it more difficult. However, once the hand was positioned correctly, the photograph looked a lot more effective. After that, I used Photoshop once more to cut the model from the original image on one layer onto the layers of the text and graphic features and then neatened it up around the edges, specifically where the model’s head overlapped the masthead. Also, my models bra straps were still visible on the photograph so I used the clone stamp to remove those to smooth the skin and make it look natural. Overall, I’m really happy with how the re-make turned out, but if I were to do it again I would probably take the photograph before making the layout because I think it would’ve made the whole process a lot easier. Also, I would’ve worked more on getting the pose exactly right to make the cover look exact.