Artists Name 

Here you can see the main artists name in bold. This is important because I found that one main factor that attracts customers is the main image at the front. If the main image is of an artist they like, then they’re more likely to buy it.

Attracting target audience and making my front cover bold

I often found that as many young people have crazy obsessions, the pop magazines included posters of artists such as Jessie J, Cher Lloyd,  JLS, One Direction, The WANTED etc. I also found that many of my own friends were attracted to the magazines this way. This made me feel that this is obviously an important factor and therefore I felt that the customers should notice this clearly, so I added ‘FREE JLS POSTER’ in capitals. I also felt that there are ways in which my front cover can be much more eye catching, and so I decided to add drop shadows on important parts, such as the title and main image. 

Rectangular Marquee Tool

I used the ‘Rectangular marquee tool’ to make rectangles so I could add writing on top of it. And then I added writing on top of it.

POP-A-HOLIC Title

For my front cover I wanted to have a totally different front cover. I realised that Pop magazines used totally different front covers to others. So I decided that I would use a funky title that made my magazine look unique. I downloaded a font called ‘One Direction’ that looked really different and used it.

Cutting out the Main image for front cover

When I had started getting closer to actually making my front cover, I thought of a better idea. I decided that it would make sense for the main image to somehow link with the magazine name. Whilst taking shots, I tried very hard to get a shot with the girl blowing bubble gum. I got this idea because I asked my colleagues to say the first word that came to their mind when they saw the girl blowing a bubble. Some said Pink, big, girl but the most common was the word ‘Pop’ so I thought this would work well. However, I found it difficult to actually get a perfect shot. Instead I decided I would use the tools on Photoshop and tried experimenting with the program. This is where I first used the lasso and magnetic tools. I used a simple image of my model just looking towards the camera. Then I flicked through my other shots and looked for an image with the biggest bubble. I then cut out the bubble and put it on top of the model’s face.  

 1) Cutting out girl

 

2) 'Select inverse' so i can copy the girl alone.

 

3) Pasting the bubble once its been cut out of the other picture

 

4) Selecting the bubble and placing it on top of the girls face so it looks like shes blowing a bubble. 

Images For my Magazine

It is obviously essential to have images in my magazine. I wanted to take a variety of shots so that I had a large choice. I tried to get as many different shots by changing the lighting, taking close and distant shots, horizontal shots, vertical shots etc.  Here are some of the shots I took.

'Contents' Font

One thing I found very difficult was the fonts I used. It took me a long time to find the fonts for my different magazine pages, but I had to keep in mind that somehow at the end, my pages had to work well together. I explored my ideas continuously and tried out different fonts. One website that has helped me a lot throughout this project is ‘Font Space’. I found this site very helpful as it had a variety, and this meant I had a large choice of fonts to try out.

First I felt that this was a good font to use in a pop magazine as it would normally be something girls can relate to, but then when I thought about using it on my magazine, I realised it wouldn’t work well. So I decided that this wouldn’t be a good font to use on my contents page.

I realised that the font I had used on my front cover was simple, bold and eye-catching and so I found a font that I felt may work a little better. I found that in many pop magazines, they had used a font and then experimented with it by using 2 different colours and then combining them. I felt that it would be a good idea for me to try this.

Once I did this, I tried compared it to my front cover and although I felt it was good, I still felt that it wasn’t the best.