The Contents Page

This was my original design for the contents page. I thought of a few ideas for this page to boost the look and realism so that it would fit in among other magazines. This included the quote from the popular musician, Zayne England, and the word 'INFAMOUS' written across his glasses. Aside from these however, the whole design and layout seemed unprofessional. The white BG behind the title looks out of place with the colourful BG of the rest of the page. I also found it difficult to include the contents themselves whilst keeping the page looking good.

The word on the glasses I kept from this draft to my final page and was created in a number of steps using Adobe Photoshop.
Firstly, I selected the lenses of the glasses using the polygonal lasso tool on its (+) setting. After the lenses were selected, I filled the area with black and saved the selection. I then created a text layer, selected the font, size and colour, and typed the word 'inFAMOUS'. Next I rasterized the text layer to change it to a picture and moved it into place on the glasses. After putting it into place, I recalled the selection I made at the beginning, inverted it using ctrl+shift+i and pressed delete. This deleted all of the parts of the text that was not on the lenses and finished the effect.

This was the beginning of my final page. I decided to begin with the contents themselves this time so that they would not have to be fitted in at the end like the previous draft. I took a stylistic approach to the contents focusing on making it easy to comprehend whilst creating an original and interesting effect. The stories were created with reference to contents pages from other popular magazines, such as Q and Kerrang!.


Other magazines had taken a more formal approach to make them simple and easy to read, this seemed to be the better option than to confuse the reader with too many colours and images.

To this effect, I put it on a white background and used a structured layout for the contents.

The Front Page - Cover Lines and Finishing Touches

At this point it was time to begin adding cover lines. Continuing with the black/red/yellow colour scheme, I added the cover lines for the main story. As this would be the main pull for potential readers, wording, syntax, font and stylisation was very important. I put the text in a black box and used red to highlight the important words to provide emphasis to what's being said. The text and boxes were then tilted and moved using ctrl+T into position.

The rest of the cover lines and a strapline at the bottom of the page were then added to fill the page and create the sense of energy that a rock magazine needs to appeal to it's audience. The rest of the cover lines were created in the same way as the first but the strapline took longer. To create the strapline, I first created the circle for the 'Plus' section. This was done by using the ellipse selection tool and holding shift to create a perfect circle. I then filled the selection with red and added a drop shadow effect to the layer. The bar was created using the rectangular selection tool and filling it. I also used layer effects on the text on the strapline to embolden it further, which includes a black stroke and a slight inner light.

The Front Page - The Background

I decided not to use a natural background for the front cover. The reason for this is that I wanted to make the character of 'Zayne England' to have a feel of mystery. To do this, the character is facing away from the camera and the background is black with an ominous blue spotlight shining toward the audience. Zayne's true face will be 'revealed' later inside the magazine during his interview as the interviewer finds out who 'Zayne' really is.

This effect was done by creating a layer between the background and the other layers and adding a radial gradient to the top-centre of the page in a deep blue colour.

The Front Page - Colour scheme, Masthead and Strapline

After Choosing the font and title of the magazine the colour scheme was next on the agenda. Red black and yellow seemed to work well with each other as they contrast well and are 'loud' enough to be effective in a rock magazine. Other rock magazines have also used these colours such as Kerrang! and NME proving it's effectiveness.

I began to create the composition of the cover by adding the title and a strapline to the top of the page. The first part of the Masthead, 'IN', is filled black to highlight the conflicting element of the magazine and there is light coming from the 'O' in famous as if a spotlight was shining through the magazine to the reader. In the strapline, the word 'Win!' is highlighted in red as it is a proven marketing technique to catch potential readers' eyes. The black background worked well in contrast to the white shirt of the artist and brought out the full impact of the masthead.