Front Cover

I decided to make the ‘G’ on the front cover large and striking, giving it a strong graphic impact and a recognizable identity from the start. This strong black and white image would be repeated each month as the backdrop for different features and cover stars, which would introduce changing colours. Cover stars would be famous enough to be easily recognised by the target audience when they saw the magazine on the shelf. The magazine would capitalise on their fame to further advertise the magazine. In order to make the ‘G’ striking and as large as possible I fitted ‘The’ into the interior space of the ‘G’, which I thought worked well visually and allowed maximum space for the large G. I also used the shape of the G to frame the persons head and focus the viewers eye on looking at the rap star who holds their eye contact.

When looking at other magazines front covers they often used grimy urban colours such as black, steel and red. I decided to conform with this convention when designing the front cover. I was inspired by the film Sin City (2005) Directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriquez. They transformed the original graphic qualities of a comic book into a film using powerful black and white images. Throughout the film there are certain features coloured red which is used to symbolise power. I feel the influence of this film is evident when looking at the front cover I have produced. I hope that the striking black and white image with subtle highlights of colour will attract my target audience and make it stand out from other products on the shelf.



For this issue I put the name of the major artists in this magazine at the top of the magazine in large, red font. This clearly showed the artists featured in the magazine at a glance. Fans would recognize these artists and be immediately interested in the magazine. The red font stands out as it is the brightest colour present on this page so you would focus on it. It is at the top of the page so when the magazine was stacked on a magazine stand these names would show over the top of the magazine underneath it so they would still be visible. These font colours and styles could be changed each month to give variety.

I put a picture of the most famous rapper featured in this month’s magazine on the front. His fame would help to sell the magazine as the target audience would want to buy the magazine in order to read about him. I went for a shot of his head and torso so he was easier to recognize as his head would be larger than a full body shot. I tried just a shot of his head but it looked odd. I turned the colours of his image to just black and white to blend aesthetically with the rest of the front cover. By doing this his outfit didn’t distract from the information on the cover. This also made the rapper continue the shape of the ‘G’ rather than simply covering it up keeping the ‘G’ easily recognizable.

 

I next put splatter paint all over the front cover to give it a feel of graffiti which is popular in the hip hop/rap culture, further associating the magazine with the target audience as well as making the magazine look less bland and instead much more aestetically pleasing.

I then put the magazine’s slogan sideways on the right hand side of the page on the ‘G’. The slogan is important to the magazine’s identity but I didn’t feel it was essential to make it too obvious. As a slogan it will appear on every cover, and the audience will become used to its format after a while. I didn’t want people reading this instead of the features in the magazine. Printing it sideways made it less readable and attracted the eye less, but gave an interesting alternative perspective, again reflecting a graffiti style. In the final stages of post production I decided to remove this slogan all together as I did not like the visual format of the page while it was included and removing it made room for more important imformation about the magazines content.

Other features I included on the front cover was the give away of two free cd's with the magazine. This is relivant to the target audience as it is a music magazine and the consumer is likely to want to hear this genre of music. Many of the magazines I looked at in research used 'freebies' to attract the buyer.

Another 'Pull' technique I use is putting an outrageous quote on the cover. This draws peoples to purchase the product as they find that quote alone interesting and want to find out what it is about. I have chosen to put the word 'you' in larger bold font as it speaks directly and personally to the audience.

I also included the internet adress for the Magazine which allowes an alternative media for viewing the publication. A recent change in the way magazines are viewed is E-magazines which allow consumers to purchase and view magazines online. Websites can also be used to advertise a product such as links posted on social networking sites allowing fans to discuss the latest issue and further the magazines recognition. Mainly young people use applications such as facebook so it is a modern way of targetting the ideal consumer.