Task 2 - Making The Magazine Cover

Step 1 - Researching Other Magazine CoversThe first thing I did towards making my final magazine cover was researching into various other magazines which were closely related to the idea I originally came up with in my proposal and treatment. Some of the main covers I looked into included ‘TopGear’ and ‘Car’. Both of these had similar layouts to each other, both including clear and crisp images of exotic supercars. The titles and text were bold and easily readable. So from this I used it as a clear example and inspiration towards designing my own cover. Below included are two examples of each of those covers from the previously discussed brands. If you were to compare these covers to my own you will notice how I used them as inspiration towards designing my own.

Step 2 - Choosing the Right PhotoA part of the projects criteria was to use our own photography skills to capture a cover photo. This for myself could have been a difficult task because of the fact that it would need to be a supercar and the area that I live in doesn't often see them. Luckily, local to me, about a 15 minute drive down the road was an authorised Ferrari dealership in Lyndhurst. This meant I was able to go there and photograph some of the most modern, newest and exotic supercars.

I was there for roughly 90 minutes looking around for the best spots to get a cover photograph and considering there was at least 30 different Ferraris to choose from it was quite difficult to choose the right one. At a point during the time I was looking I realised there were a few opportunities for getting a shot with multiple cars in the picture. There were two main pictures I liked the most which are shown below;

I was quite impressed with myself given that I took these photos using my iPhone, by both the resolution and general quality of the photos. The only problem I had with the picture on the left that to me it looked slightly cheesy as it was obvious it had been taken in a showroom. I had a general idea of how I wanted the cover photo to look, this being that I would use the photoshop quick selection tool to crop around all the cars and then change the remaining background area to black and white by creating a separate layer using copy & paste. Once I did this I then played around with the brightness and contrast levels to get just the right tones to suit the rest of the cover design.

Once I’d finished adjusting the adjustments features levels I felt the image looked good enough and correct for the magazine cover photo. The end result turned from the image you see above to the image you see below. As you can see each of the cars have kept their individual colours and the surrounding areas have turned black and white.

Step 3 - Using the DraftsIn order to design the rest of the magazine cover I used a similar layout and design that I had used in a previously designed draft cover of the ‘Supercar Monthly Magazine’. This included a simple red border and the title used in that same draft as you can see from the two images below, those same features have been carried over from the draft on the left to the final design cover on the right.

In order to make the title I had to use the ‘Stroke’ feature under the blending options after rasterising the title into an imaged layer rather than a text layer. Using the size adjustment bar I could adjust the level which made it stand out more or less. Using the fill type feature I was able to change the colour, after trying a few different ones I felt that white made it stand out a lot more than any other.

Step 4 - Designing the Remaining Part of the CoverI had managed to use one of my previously designed magazine cover drafts to produce the most part of the final cover, that being the title, border etc. What was left to do was to fill the rather empty space at the bottom of the page below the bumper of the Ferrari. Firstly, something which most magazine covers have included was the barcode which I decided to place in the bottom right corner.

Given that this was likely to be the first thing to attract anyone to the cover I thought it made sense to make it the main feature of the magazine, so because of this I added a opaque black bar along the bottom of the page with a less obvious title than the main one at the top of the cover ‘Ferrari California’.

As you can see from this it seemed to suit quite well from a design aspect but I had the problem of still a few empty gaps. The first being underneath the title and opaque black bar and the area in-between the title and barcode. In order to do this I used another image I took of the same Ferrari California (shown below) and cropped around it using the same method and tools previously that being the quick selection tool, I deleted the background around it so it was neatly cropped to the outline of the car. I also added a small piece of wording to quickly describe the content a reader would find inside the magazine. After doing this, I felt happy with the final creation and the cover was completed. You can see the final cover below to the right.