Draft Magazine:

Front Page:

This is the front cover for my magazine. As you can see I have started off by getting the masthead in the right place and working around that because i felt as though it was important to get that in check before moving on to the rest of the cover because this is what draws the reader's attention first and it is important to engage them early on because then you are guaranteed to get a wider readership later on. Next on the first picture, I was going to put a border around the main picture just to reference other magazines such as Loud and Quiet and also others which have used this design in the past; however I decided against it in the end because I felt as though it didn't really look original enough (however it is still something I'm interested in looking at maybe for my final draft!) and I decided to stick to the main photo taking centre stage on the cover, especially with the photo I have chosen because I wanted to fill the page with my models because they are the main focus and I don't want to detract from that at all! I found all of my fonts on '1001 Fonts' and downloaded them to my home computer, I chose this website because I thought they had the most fonts which appealed to my style more and the quirkiness of the the fonts really attracted me to the website. Some of these fonts are ones that I had found for my 'Colour Palettes and Fonts' page so this research was crucial for my magazine because I was able to find a number of fonts that I have later used. I added the addition of "The Unique Issue" in reference to i-D magazine because instead of issue numbers they tend to have certainly named issues. I have chosen to do this (and also to do issue numbers as well) is because I felt as though this is another feature on the magazine that would attract an audience because they would be curious to see why it is a 'unique' issue! I have kept the white background on the barcode because I have been doing research and the magazines that have inspired me the most (which you can see in other posts of mine) usually do this, and it still looks classy and relevant to the cover as a whole. I am quite proud of my cover, but I realise that this is still a first draft and I would like to still develop this idea further and make sure that it is up to the level that I expect of myself.

Contents Page:

This is my contents page. I have gone through quite a lot of ideas for this final design for my first draft to come out, and I still have a lot to work on to achieve a professional finish that I am wanting. I have put an effect on the main picture on this page to make it more unique and original. It adds a special effect on the white background which I think works quite well, however this is something that I might change again because I don't know whether it works for my magazine as a whole. Creating the contents page is one of the hardest parts of the coursework for me because it is so easy for it to look 'slapdash' and unprofessional; This I want to rectify because for my standards this just doesn't look right. This is a learning curve for me and since doing this page I have learnt a lot more about how Photoshop works and for my final draft I am planning to step up my game and create something that meets my standards. However I do like the fonts used (again found on 1001 Fonts) I think that they are quite different, and the layout of the text also is something that I am pleased with. I took inspiration from Clash magazine for the layout of the text as I thought that this was a good way of making the text look good and also to fit in a lot of information into a small area. I have also took inspiration from the black background in Clash and this is something again which I might change for my final draft as I want to see all my options and conclude what I want to do for my final design. Also something I realise now that I need to rectify in my final draft is the addition of the page numbers in the corner, this would have added realism and it is something that I am definitely not going to miss out in my final draft. I added a white border around the writing, this is because I have a black background and I still wanted the black writing so I had to do this to fit my design. However I like the look that this has produced and with the font style I have chosen I think the whole writing style really has worked well for the design and style of the magazine. I think what I would work on for my final draft though is the background colour and also the picture layout because it could look better.

Double Page Spreads:

This is the final design for my Double Page Spread. I am generally very pleased with his design, I think it fits into my target market easily with the unique layout of the text and also the kind of photos I have taken. Out of all the pages I have created so far, this is the one which I imagined in my mind in the first place. For this I have taken inspiration out of magazines such as The Wire, this is because I really like the way that they set out their articles because of the fact that they manage to create an interesting page, not only to read, but also to look at and this is what I wanted to achieve! I had started off, which isn't shown here, with a full image on the right hand side; I had decided that this didn't really look the way I wanted it too and so I changed it to two pictures to give, yet again, a more interesting page to look at. I have used the same fonts from both my contents page and front cover in this DPS, this is so I make sure all the components are connected together to make my magazine come together as a whole. I have tried on this piece t make sure that everything fits together and deleted and altered things that I think do not work as a collective. For example, as I said before, the full image. It just didn't work and I had to get rid of it. On the top image on my DPS, one of my models had a piece of hair falling down on her face; so for this I had to Photoshop that out and also I enhanced the photos to make them look slightly brighter so they stood out even more on the page. I chose to layout the text in this different way as well because I thought it would look slightly abstract for the reader to look at; also with the addition of the writing above the main article, to introduce the text, I like the fact that the font is different for both sections as I think it really sets apart the start of the article and the the main text. I have also added a bar across the top of the page, this is to connect the DPS to the rest of the magazine and also to show the page number. I think with this it brings the page together and makes sure that both the photos and the text are connected and look as one together.