Stages in Production - Front Cover

USING PHOTOSHOP:

To control the background, i used the blur tool. It was extremely hard for me to do this successfully in order to make the whole background white because after backcombing Alice's hair, it meant that is was very hard for me to make the edges around Alice's head flawless.

Next, I needed to create a new layer of Alice's head therefore, I cropped it and used the clipping path tool to get her head by itself. This allowed me to place her head in front of the title creating a 3D effect.

Still using Photoshop, I inserted the photo behind the text and then inserted the photo of head on top to create my 3D effect. 

This was the result of the 3D effect. The use of the clipping path allowed me to make it look more realistic. I exported this as a photo so I could place it into InDesign.

Taking the idea from 'Spin' magazine, I made a design for my front cover which shows which artists are featuring inside the magazine this week. I liked this idea as using artists names allows me to emphasise that 'Sidetrack' is a music magazine. I used the font Britannia bold throughout so that my magazine would remain consistent. 

Using InDesign:

I wanted to make sure Alice's name stood out on the cover. Therefore, I created a rectangle and coloured it BLACK as it corresponded with my colour scheme and would allow it to stand out. I placed the white writing on top and used the Group tool to ensure that it would remain in the position I wanted. 

Next, I wanted to create a quote for Alice which would be seen later on in the magazine. To make this writing stand out, I made it the colour RED. As well as this, I used the effects Satin and put an outer glow on the writing. This ensured that it did not look dull and made sure it stood out on the page. 

When I had positioned the name and quote for Alice, I decided to insert the bar code in the bottom left corner and according to my previous research, bar codes are always put on the corner of a page. 

I wanted to create a circular advertisement as, being a regular reader of magazines, it is a regular feature used on many magazines. To make the feature stand out more i used the effect of Bevel and Emboss which would give it a more 3D effect.

Knowing that the tickets for the festival of Reading and Leads were soon to be out, I decided to add a competition to win tickets on my magazine. I mad the circle RED to ensure it stood out and the writing WHITE so it is clear. I wanted the words to be clear within the circle therefore used Gill Sans Ultra Bold.

Lastly, I put the issue and the date onto the magazine making it more realistic. Ensuring I used a different font, I used Hobo STD and using a BLACK font, it meant that the date and issue were clear but would not draw any attention away from the important features of the cover.