Magazine Cover Development

This is a presentation on the development of my magazine cover development. Using

screen shoots of the tools used on Photoshop CS3 to create our magazine cover.

Research Before developing the magazine cover me and Abisola looked into other film magazine covers and the conventions that they used. We looked at Empire magazine and there cover and spread on Inception. This helped us identify the conventions that needed to be included in our magazine. Below is an analysis of inception I conducted to give me a better idea of what our magazine needed to include.

Text slanted in towards Leonardo DeCaprio highlighting him as the main character.

Big red bold writing for the title of the film. This differs from the rest of the written text. This highlights it to the audience not only making it eye catching, but highlighting this is the main feature in this magazine. Also the colour red is used emphasises an occurring theme of the film as red symbolises danger .

‘THE MATRIX MEETS 007 ON STERIODS1’ Not only is using reference to another successful film. But uses a quote highlighting its an un biased opinion. This all will appeal t the audience enticing them to see the film.

Having his image in the foreground highlights his impotence as the main character. Tag lines including what else

features inside the magazine all to in entice the audience to buy it. Highlighting it in red to make it noticeable.

Originally me and Abi discussed using this image but we found the the quality the image was not a good enough standard for use in our magazine cover. Therefore we used the image that was taken to use for the scene in the void. When the Producer is looking of a mood board of murders he has committed and is about to commit. This was because of the camera this was shot was HD therefore more appropriate for the use in a magazine cover.

Tools usedFirstly using the Magic Wand Tool I deleted the background of the image this just left me with the individuals face to work on darkening and making more scary.

After this I used the Burn tool to burn the edge of the individuals face to make it darker. This creates a worn out old scary look to the individuals face. This was to highlight the darkness taking over this characters personality. Highlighting our theme of what existent people will go to achieve ‘success’ in ‘Fame’.

The next tool used was a conventional Horizontal Type Tool this was to add the Title, tag lines, Caption, Issue date , Website details.

As shown above is the tool used to manipulate the size, font type. This was very helpful as our font for the Magazine title and the font for the films title was different as this is a convention used often in magazines.

Too the left is the tools used to edit layers this allows you to hide or add layers. By selecting this this allows you to edit something and place all the layers on top. You can move one layer behind the other. Meaning I can have an image in the foreground or bring it to the front. This tool allows you to lock a layer meaning it cannot be selected or edited in anyway without unlocking it.

This is an image of the blending options that can be used to manipulate a range of thing within a layer. For example Drop Shadow ,Inner Shadow, Outer Glow. With these options you can edit the Opacity and Size of the Drop Shadow for example. This allows you to manipulate any layer adding any of the options shown in the image to the left.

After using the Magic Tool too select the background and separate the image from the background . I then used the Burn Tool to darken and distort his face. After this adding a white rectangle in the foreground of the image. This was to highlight the importance of this character. And to differentiate the title of the magazine.

Then using the Horizontal Type Tool to add text like the Title and Details including date, issue number , website details. Using the Blending options to blend the title into the Black Background. Also to add conventions such as Bar Code to blend it into the white background. Also adding black outline to the red writing.

Then adding taglines using the blending options to make the red outline the white writing this is because I wanted it to tie in with the magazine title. Also I used the blending options to emphasize the watched by adding Outer Glow and changing Opacity to 100% . The reason behind having ‘The Watched’ in was was to highlight it importance in the magazine . For example emphasising this is the main article that features in the magazine.

FeedbackAfter completing the magazine cover I was given feed back in lesson to what changes could be made to the

magazine cover . For example to change the background colour as she felt there was to much white in the background. Also change the shape of the image as she felt his face was too wide.

Changes made.. Selecting the image of the character. Holding down Command, Shift and ‘T’ down. Allowed me to manipulate the image of the characters face with out distorting it in anyway.

I added the Magazines tag line ‘ Enter the world of cinema’ This is because tagline is convention for all magazines. As it gives a brief description of what genre your magazine is the type of articles it prints. It was positioned directly under the masthead as this was the most ascetically pleasing .

The positioning of the cover lines were important because I had to insure that the image was not covered by them in anyway. This will highlight the importance of this character to the audience. Differentiating the Main Headline

from the cover lines because this is they main article inside. The article that going to attract the reader the mos. I did this by making this red with black outline this was the opposite to the other taglines but kept in with the colour shame.

The positioning of the barcode as I felt this was the best possible position. That would fit in with the posting of the cover lines.

Adding white noise into the background to fill some off the white space. But also relate it to the narrative-linking it to television.