First Draft Cover.

Cover 1





cover 2

I submitted two First Draft Covers as I was torn between two of the ones that I had produced, because of each of their different looks, and the fact that I wanted to use both shots preferably somewhere in the magazine.
I feel that the first cover is much darker than the second although, I feel that the image is correct to the rules of photography and the artist is almost more involved with the image, leaning into the lens slightly more. I also feel that this one has an overall 'together' feel about it, the cover lines, masthead and image all fitting together well.
On this image, I used the 'Clone Stamp' tool on Photoshop to airbrush the skin of the artist slightly, to just give a more professional look to the magazine, I also highlighted areas of the skin using the 'Dodge' tool, along with editing the lighting curves and lowering the saturation of the image.
I cropped the image before placing it, and took a section from the top of the image and manipulated it in the 'Filter Gallery' using a technique to give an artistic feel to the magazine cover. I also saturated this piece before placing it at the top of the cover. I then added another panel underneath this one, which I decided to colour just black, a black which I selected from my main image using the 'Eyedropper Tool'. I downloaded and installed my fonts and placed my masthead over the panels. I felt that a choice of white will stand out and is a classical contrast to black, I also used this on my cover lines etc.
The choice to put a border around my magazine, and the other pages inside came from some magazines that I have previously seen. I started to mess around with the positioning of the masthead and decided that I could merge it into the lines at the side, which could be considered to be the 'house-style' of the magazine, as well as the white border around the page.
I added what I thought to be minimal cover lines as I wanted the magazine to stand out and appear similar to some of the magazines that I looked at previously. The artist cover line, I wanted to stand out, making it clear that this was the main feature of the magazine and also by 'name dropping', I could increase the sales of magazines possibly. I lined up the white cover lines to the white border to give an edge house-style also.
I added a bar code for authenticity, as well as the price, Issue, and date at the top of the magazine cover. I did this in a small font to make my magazine appear professional and realistic.

The second cover that I submitted was pretty much identical although the image has changed and the artist cover line has changed and had moved slightly. I did this as the white did not show up as well on the image.
I like this image as the artist is wearing the jacket and reminds me of a 'Dazed & Confused' cover that I was inspired by at the start of the project. Although,I feel that possibly the artist may appear too distant from the cover in a way, and possibly too small. I feel that although I do like this cover as well, the first cover seems to be held together better and has an overall better aesthetic.