Evaluation – Question 1

When I began producing my front cover I looked at magazines such as ‘CLASH’ and ‘Notion’ I used various features from each of them so they became my style models. Although I only used a minimal amount of features from the CLASH magazine front cover I did however use it fully when producing my contents page. Because I am using these two magazines my own magazines may resemble aspects of them both but may replicate one more than the other. To show my adaptation ability I have managed to add my own house style in as well as following the magazine structure of Notion.

I used this specific Notion front cover as my style model because it featured the same amount of artists as what I had originally chosen. By having the same quantity it allowed me to replicate the shot distances by taking medium shots it also helped my magazine look similar to my style model although I had chosen a different pose for my models.

The masthead on this magazine is shown in the centre of the page above everything else, to section it off the remainder of the front cover is situated inside of a coloured box; this is to show that this is the most important thing on the page because the branding is what helps the magazine to become recognisable.

The storylines are situated at the bottom of the page in quite a small font to add emphasis on the image and band name which is written at the top of the box. Although these are not as big and bold as other magazines they are still just as important; this is done to create a more similar effect on the magazine.

There is a subheading just underneath the title which is used in replacement of a storyline for the featuring artists, that is placed there so it doesn’t disturb the image as well as making the magazine look neater.

I picked out this specific CLASH front cover because it had a similar background to the Notion magazine, I wanted both of my style models to have coloured backgrounds.

Including only artists name on the side of the front cover with no real storyline allows more room to show the featuring artist’s name, this will help to bring more attention to the magazine because it is in a bold font with a shadowing to make it more eye-catching.

The image used has been strategically placed in the centre of the magazine to allow maximum coverage, this allows the reader to have full view of the model minus the few pieces of text which cover her arm and legs.

The shot I used is a medium forward facing shot which is exactly the same length shot used on the Notion magazine, I wanted to recreate the length of the shot so it was easy to tell that I was trying to follow the style of that specific magazine. To keep it as simple as possible I didn’t want to go into too much detail with the storylines so I just briefly introduced a few of the featured artists in my magazine, by doing this it allows the reader to still have knowledge of what is going to be inside without giving too much away, this can be used sometimes to leave the reader wanting more.

Front covers are extremely similar, I chose to follow a neutral colour scheme to keep it elegant and simple because this has linked in with Indie style. I wanted a bolder masthead compared to that of my style model because I thought it made my magazine stand out more and become more eye-catching. I thought that the placing of the text was interesting and not a stereotypical magazine front cover, so I used this feature too.

In both of my style models the artists names both clearly stand out, although on the CLASH magazine Rita Ora’s name has been places at the bottom of the page whereas the Notion magazine has placed Rizzle Kicks at the top, because of this I thought placing my featuring artists name at the top of the page would better suit my magazine.

In order to capture the perfect photo I did try to take images of my two artists separately but found it was easier to take the image when both of them were in it together.

The main focus on both of my style models is obviously the image but you could redirect focus to the storylines on both. The same style writing has been used on each magazine, this made it easier for me to use this feature.