Front Cover Plan and Rationale

So, beginning with my planning of my music magazine, I've created the front cover, which in my opinion has a simple yet contrasting formula of a mixture of colours and features. First of all, I chose the name of my magazine to be Lights, as I wanted a theme in music which resembled the stardom of these artists. Although this is a magazine on music, and having a masthead in relevance to something like the beat of the music is relevant, it just didn't appeal to me in the way that 'Lights' did. This certain masthead is quirky, yet resembles the energy of bands in concerts and the general feel of peoples' "names in lights". The font type which I've used for this is in relation to the one used by 'Slam Dunk Festival' which I've always been drawn to. The simplicity of it is so inviting, especially the thick red outline. Another relation to the masthead is the little beam of light on the right-hand side of it, which I may/may not use; this was only to see if it would suit the style of my magazine.

Moving on to the cover model - which I'll intend to be myself as I find that it's a lot easier than having to ask others for several photographs of them as they may not be comfortable with doing so - I've made her style look rather punk-like because that’s the genre which I’ll want her band to be featured in, which I’ve called “The Small Things”. Her pose seems really down-to-earth; I didn’t want her looking seductive or mysterious as I found that these wouldn’t really blend in well with her portrayal. The camera angle is looking at her straight on and so far, I want to position it so I can capture not only from her shoulders and upward, but a lot more as this should tie in with the outfit theme. I don’t know where I’ll photograph this image so far so I’ve left the background blank. Her prop consists of a microphone, which I mightn’t use; it was help toward seeing what would look good and relevant.

In relevance to the model, she has taken the main-sell line with a solo interview of her “rise to fame and new album”, along with her band. The text of the band’s name is the same as the masthead, as I wanted to have an appealing relevance which subliminally ties the magazine cover together. As you can see, I’ve mainly stuck to the colours of red, black yellow. So for the borders of this part, I’ve made them black so they add definition to the text and stand out from the white background.

On the opposite side is another sell-line of “Download VS Sonisphere”, which basically is two festivals with reviews from the magazine and its readers, plus I’ll include a couple of relevant images on the front of perhaps the artists of these festivals or festival life. I’ve made these two images have the outline of beams of light which ties in with the Lights theme.

Lastly, on the bottom page, I’ve added reviews from the readers on the tour I created in association with my magazine. I’ve included three images which relate to the posters I’ll include in this issue as well, which will be taken from concerts I’ve been to in the past, with the style of genres relating to my magazine. I’ve made the background for this part yellow so it ties in with the light beams, subliminally overall making the whole front cover tie in rather well and have a professional outlook.