FINAL PRODUCTS. FRONT COVER, CONTENTS PAGE AND DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

DEVELOPMENT OF MY FINAL PRODUCT

 FRONT COVER

This was the first draft of my music magazine's front cover. In the process of creating this front cover, I did some research into existing music magazines such as Vibe magazine. In addition to that I did research into a suitable target audience for my media product and took original photos to which I used in both my fronts cover, contents page and double page spread. On this front cover I had followed general conventions of music magazine like putting the head of the model over the Masthead. On the other hand I didn't use magazine specific conventions like I did in my new and final front cover after carrying out more research into Vibe magazines. At the point that I created this front cover, I had little knowledge of Rap magazine conventions therefore elements like colour theme, background, cover lines and layout of the front cover backfired which resulted into an underdeveloped front cover for my music magazine.

However, I looked at the successful music magazines of my friends and had more analysis on Vibe magazine front covers and then realized that I had left out some key element techniques which will make my front cover more presentable and developed. Using Photoshop again, I changed the background of my magazine from brick walled to plain white background as Vibe magazine use only plain backgrounds for their magazine's front cover. I also changed the colour theme and font styles following the conventions of Vibe magazine front cover which made it look more presentable. Below is the final front cover I came up with and the Vibe magazine I used as an inspiration.

                                             

CONTENTS PAGE 

On creating the my first contents page (the image on the left),  I only did a research into contents pages in general and not a specific Rap magazine/ magazine's contents page. This made me have ideas from different magazines, some which weren't Rap magazines which I could not present on my contents page. Therefore I just displayed all the ideas that I thought of without thinking about my magazine's house style. This resulted in a contents page with images which aren't neatly laid out, too many type of font styles, sizes and colours which is not a convention of Rap magazines.

Fortunately I did more research into Rap magazine contents pages, Vibe magazine in particular. Then I realized that Vibe only uses one image and not three or four images on their contents page, this is to show that their magazine is simple but eloquent. I followed this convention by also using a single image. In addition to that I also conformed to the house style of my magazine by using the same type of font style and colour for their specific sections (same type of font style and colour for all cover lines). Below is the image of my final contents page on the left and my Vibe magazine contents page inspiration on the right.

 

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD

During the process of creating my double page spread, I did minimum research into other existing double page spreads and I then followed some of their conventions. However, I didn't follow my music magazine's house style and the layout was not presentable as some text were hard to see/read. The colour theme did not work and the main image was an unsuitable image for a double page spread because of its background.

After taking my mistakes into consideration, I did more analysis of Vibe double page spreads in order to follow their conventions and challenge few which when challenged won't disrupt the presentation of my double page spread. Furthermore, I changed the font style and colour theme to fit the house style of my magazine and also took a new image which is suitable for a double page spread. Below is my final double page spread and my Vibe magazine double page spread inspiration.