Music Magazine Double Page Spread

 Here I have created the title in a unique and different way, with the text different font sizes and in two different colours. I love how this is really effective and eye catching and will draw in the readers attention. The size of the title also helps emphasize the importance of the article.

My double page spread also includes a drop cap, a caption of the article photo, page numbers, the website and the magazine company. These are all things that should be included in a double page spread. I specifically placed the page number on the right hand side of the page and ensured that it was the closest to the edge of the page as this is where the page number is supposed to be.

Ensuring to make my double page spread look as professional as possible I made the article text font size 10, as this is the font size of most articles. I made the text a grey colour, and made the drop cap and the running head in black to make it stand out more. In the article the interview questions have been put in a red font to tell the reader that these are questions, and to make the article more interesting and eye catching.
I have included the lines to make it organised and neat, giving the article a format. To ensure that the article and lines are lined up and neat I used the grid tool. The tools I used where the text tools and the shape tools to make the right hand side of the double page into the article.

For the article photo I made sure that in the photo shoot she was against a white background. I used the lighting behind the models head and from the right to light up the side of her face. This is to make her hair stand out and to also help with the effectiveness of the closeup shot.
In the article photo I used the brightness and contrast tool to lighten the image and to take away the blue tint around the figure, and to take away the rest of the blue tint I smudged it out.

This is the image that I have used for the double page spread. I chose this image as it suits my style and magazine theme.

Here is my final and completed double page spread. Compared to the other finished double page, I have sharpened and improved the resolution of the whole page, including the text and the image. I improved the Revolution title and this will be used all the way throughout the magazine as it is my house style. I used a large drop cap R and kept the backwards red word "love" and then kept the "ution" the same. I feel that this is more effective and stands out more, giving it a distinctive house style. 

I rearranged some of the layout on the double page to improve appearance. I also changed the text in the article back to it all being black font as this is easier to read. The interview questions have been made red to stand out in a more obvious way and to show the question from the answer. This difference makes the double page spread look more professional and effective. 

Overall, I am very happy with my final double page spread and can see that it links with my overall house style. 

My Magazine Double Page Spread Photoshoot

Double Page Spread Development

 Here are some existing double page spreads. These all include elements in which I want to use in my double page spread.

In the Adele double page spread, I liked the close up of the female musician and felt that it was very effective. Also, the title of the page is very eye catching as it fills at least half of the page and is used effectively with different font sizes. I will be using this style for my title.

 In this article of Guns n Roses I will be using the font style as it fits with my house style and theme.
The article appeals to me as a whole. I will also incorporate the three colour theme as it is conventional. the three colours I will be using is red, black and white as these are used on my front cover as well.
I will use the the effect of the caption included in the photo, and that will be placed on my magazine double page spread photo.

From this magazine I am going to use the style of the title as it is different and effective. This also links with my masthead of my magazine of "revolution" as it is different and rebels against conventions.
The article has 4 columns, but I will use three columns for my double page spread. I will also include a drop cap at the beginning of the article, like in this double page spread.


Overall from these images it has helped me choose and decide what will go into my double page spread.

Final Front Cover For my Magazine

 My final front cover I had to make the bar code slightly smaller as it was too prominent on the page. This needed to be sorted as this was the first thing that caught the readers attention instead of the feature article photo. This is my final product.
My music magazine suits and challenges convention of a regular music magazine as i have included a long masthead which is not conventional. However, the layout and style of the magazine is conventional. There are elements within my magazine that are conventional and unconventional.

The colour scheme is red, black and white, this is continued throughout my magazine to suit my house style. I have included cover lines that are flushed left. There is a bar code, date, issue number and website placed at the bottom for the readers benefit.

The feature article photo is a close up with direct eye contact, this makes it personal and interesting, drawing the reader in. It is a clear image with no noise, and the direct eye contact and her smile make the magazine approachable. With my model, her smile and her clothing choice with the wristbands make her look her age, and not to sexualise her like most women or girls are within the media. It shows how my magazine is made for all people, ages and genders. My magazine is for males and females from the age for late teens to people in their 20s - 30s.

The overall house style of my front cover and my magazine has been shown through colour, typography and text, and the style and genres of music.

Here I added in a bar code and a price for my magazine. I looked at my magazine and saw that there was something missing. I re-evaluated my product and knew I had to add in a bar code and price to make it more conventional and to use it as a filler.

Fourth Front Cover for my Magazine

Third Front Cover Development

Second Final Front Cover Development

Here I decided to change the style of font for the text. I knew I had to make the text more visible and stand out to the reader. I made the text bold and changed the colour of the text for some of the different pieces. 

First Final Design of Magazine Front Cover

This is the first final design of my front cover. Here is the first basic layout of my front cover. The resolution of the JPEG file is not very good, so I needed to improve this aspect. Also, certain fonts and colour`s do not match the the image or the house style. The font colour needed to be changed in certain parts of the magazine front cover. 

For effect i decided to justify the text left, and slightly misplace them so they are not inline. This breaks convention and does not make the magazine look organised. So another improvement will be to justify them left and ensure that they are in line along the left hand side of the page. 

The text needs to be more visible as it is hard to read some of the text on the page. I will find a way to improve this and ensure that everything is clear. 

Third Front Cover Picture Design



Here I began to work on this photo. I loved this photo the most out of every picture I took. The picture is clear and has no noise to the image, the lighting hits her head perfectly from behind and on the right side. However I began to experiment with placing the masthead on the image. This did not look right, so I decided to increase the brightness and the contrast on the image to brighten her face and the background. This immediately made the image look magazine front cover material and would allow me to add text to the white background.

I decided to take the picture in front of a white background and used a bright light behind the hair to make it stand out. The effect of using the white background and the lighting the hair from behind allowsme to have the perfect background and does not mean i have to cut out around the tiny detail in the lose hair.

I also loved how the masthead match the image and they both compliment each other. The lighting and the pose, will allow me to place the text where I want it to go in the right places for me to justify the text left.

This image is the feature article photo that I am going to use for my magazine front cover. 

Second Front Cover Picture Design

For my second front cover design I used a close up of my models face. I liked this photo as it stood out to me. The close up shot makes her eyes stand out, making it feel very personal.

The contrast of the light coming from the right side of her head makes her hair look as if it is glowing, and the shadow on the right side of her face makes the image and figure stand out from the page.

 Here is a screen shot of how I made and developed this front cover photo. On this front cover I used the exposure tool too increase the brightness and decrease the contrast in this image. The extra brightness on her face makes the feature article photo stand out even more making it look even more appealing. 

I did a similar technique for the masthead on this front cover. I used a Stencil STD font, and instead of using a black font I used a white font to make the masthead stand out more, but I kept the reversed word "love" in red. 

In this front cover, I love the the feature article photo, but do not like the masthead that goes with the image. I think in order for both of these to work the masthead needs to be a smaller title, with possibly on letter, like in Q magazine. 

First Front Cover Picture Design

This was my first attempt to create a feature article photo with a masthead that would fit together.

Here I have included a screen shot of making the front cover in Photo shop. In Photo shop I used the magic wand tool to cut around the top half of the image, so it could be placed in front of the masthead. I then brightened the image and increased the contrast slightly to give it a better and more professional looking effect.

I then started to use the text tool to create my masthead. The masthead title I have chosen is "REVOLUTION". I made this masthead in a Stencil STD font and made the text black. However, linking in with the title theme of revolution I then decided to put the letters (E,V,O,L) in red, and flipped them round backwards. This is so the red word spelling "LOVE" backwards, stands out within the masthead "REVOLUTION", giving it a contrast between the two completely different words, drawing in and interesting the reader.

However, I did not seem to like how this fitted together. The picture and the masthead work well together, but i chose not to use this as my front cover image.

Front Cover Photo Shoot

For my photo shoot I had to use a different model to the other person I wanted to use for my front cover. My photo shoot has to consist of close ups and mid shots, upon a white background as I wanted her hair to stand out. I used the lighting in a unique way by placing a light behind and to the right of the model. I also placed another light in front of her on the right hand side to ensure that the right side of her face stood out the most and was lit up, this helped create a shadow on the other side of her face. 

Overall, I found it really hard to try and choose which picture to use for my front cover. So i decided to experiment with all of the pictures that I wanted to use. 

Final Magazine Pencil Sketches

Exsisting Front Covers

Through experimenting with long shots I found that this technique does not work with my style of magazine. I took some picutres and started to create my magazine but then decided that it does not work and stand out, showing that it looks amateurish.

I then decided to investigate more music magazines. I found that Billboard magazine had the style I wanted to use. I then began to see that close ups and medium shots were best as they were conventional.

Front Cover Development

Through photo shopping the first set of pictures I took, I found that this style does not work. The whole colour scheme of the image and the masthead does not work together. The revolution title does not link and match the feature article photo as the conventions of the image have no revolution symbolism to it.

The colour scheme of both the masthead and the image does not work together. The effect of merging a black and then coloured effect looks interesting but has no relevance. Also the feature article photo seems to look as if it is a solid block and has no three dimensional effect to it. This image looks as if it has just been put there with no real thought. The pose of the figure makes her look very triangular and solid, creating a feeling that makes the reader wonder as to why they can not seem to like this image. I asked several people to evaluate this front cover and try and figure out what is wrong. we all came to the conclusion that the shot of the image is not a long shot or a close shot, making the image look out of place.

The size and style of the masthead is too small to fit the page. working with an image to fit the size of the masthead is difficult to do with the style that I have. I concluded that I must enlarge the size of the masthead and change the colour to suit the picture.

From here I began to rethink the idea of how to plan out the front cover and researched some more music magazine layouts.      
                                                                                                               

Through looking and researching more music magazines I found that Billboard fitted the theme of my magazine. I loved the house style and the conventions. The style of the long-mid shot in this fitted what I wanted to do to create my image for my magazine.

I would have to change the style of the masthead I would now keep the word revolution all the right way and make the R stand out more in a bigger /and different font. This is so the word "evolution" within the word "revolution" would stand out more and fit in with the nature element of the evolution theme of life. Thinking about fitting the style of the image with the masthead, I found that this figure of Katie Perry suits the overall theme of the masthead as the flowers and the whole nature theme matched the title of "revolution".

I would get my model to pose in this way and in this style of fashion so my house style and theme of the magazine works and links together. The figure in this image has a more three dimensional feel to it as the pose of the figure works with different angles.

However I then changed my mind as I found that thinking about this style and type of front cover would not work This is because the style of my model and would not work with this theme. Physically I believe that this type of conventions and style o this magazine would not work for my music magazine.

Further developing my ideas, I investigated more Billboard magazines. I found this specific close up of Beyonce very eye catching and very pulling to catch the readers attention.

The big masthead of Billboard would match the style and size of my masthead of Revolution. This would work if I changed the colour of the masthead to white. Having my model pose in this way would work extremely well as her big blond hair would work in a unique way. The whole close up shot draws in the reader as she is directly looking straight ahead. this is making a more dramatic effect.

I will now begin to re design my idea for my front cover, using this style and page layout of this magazine.

Draft of image for Front Cover

Here I have experimented with different styles and effects. I used the magic eraser tool to take away the unwanted background surrounding the person. I then used a half black and half coloured filter to cove the feature article photo, this is to give a unique and unconventional effect. The face is presented in a black filter and the rest of the body is presented in colour. 

Once doing this I used the original image and used the magnetic lasso tool to cut around certain coloured features on the face. I cut out the coloured mask on the checks and around the eyebrows, her eyes and her red lips. This is so these features stand out in an unconventional way compared to the black top half of the face. 

For my masthead i have titled it "REVOLUTION" in a font called "STENCIL STD". In the word "revolution" it is has the word "love" spelled backwards. So i reversed and flipped the word love making it red so the letters are backwards to make the word love stand out more. This shows a dramatic contrast in the word revolution as love is the complete opposite to it. In producing the words in red and reversing them it shows a style off rebellion, breaking against normal conventions of a magazine. 

Also, in creating a rebellious magazine I have used bright and bold colours, and a new singer to show how people are rebelling and breaking conventions to become their own unique person. the whole house style of this magazine is of bright, bold and rebellious styles. 

I will use a better and higher quality camera and use the lighting more effectively when i retake some of my images for the front cover. this will develop and evolve in style with a more understanding house style.  

Double Page Spread Designs

Double Page Spread Designs