Joseph Porter
AS Media
Front Page Construction
Construction
The first thing I did when constructing my front page was create a new file to work from, I did this by going to File > New. This brought me to the window shown above, from here, I chose an appropriate but memorable name. Photoshop comes with useful presets that allowed me to select the exact measurements for A4 paper.
Next, I needed to create a subtle gradient for my background, to do this, I created a new layer to allow for versability later on, and applied a gradient overlay in the effect panel. From here, I selected a subtle grey colouring to my gradient and selected the strength.
My next task was to work on the title of my magazine. I started by using the text tool to place a large "Defiant" in the top left of the page, I set this to black and made it's font size 57pt. I then re-used the text tool, however, I used a smaller font size and positioned the "magazine" to the bottom left of the name.
In order to make my title stand out from the background, I added a drop shadow effect and a stroke with two lines either side to give it flair.
Page furniture is an important part of my magazine, I found an image online that followed my house style and proceeded to save it to my harddrive. From here, I used File > Place to insert it into my image as a new layer. Next, I added many effects to bring out the colours in the image such as adjusting the brightness and contrast.
Finally, I used the transform tool (cmd+t) in order to rotate and place the image into the perfect spot, eventually copying and pasting, repeating the process below.
Now that I had established a suitable background, it was time for me to import my main artist onto my front cover. I did this by using the place tool again within the file menu, importing the band as one image. Next, I needed to make the back three members larger as they had little impact on the page, I did this by using the magic select tool on the toolbar, and then seperating them into their own layer and transfoming them to make them larger. Finally, I added a drop shadow to the band to make them appear as if they had a spotlight on them and adjusted the brightness bringing out the colours of the tattoo
I planned to make the band's name the largest piece of text on the page due to it's importance of grabbing the reader's attention when on a shelf. I therefore used the text tool to add N17 and placed it infront of the band, however, I positioned it so that it was towards the bottom of the image and therefore did not obscure the band's outfit or expression. I also positioned it so that it covered up the edge of the main band member's tattoo, which had crumpled and therefore did not look realistic.
Next, I added a black background to the text so that it could be easily seen on top of the artists legs, and added a white stroke to make it stand out, I placed this behind the main artist name in order to show their prevalence within my magazine. I also added a drop shadow to the main artist name in order to give the effect that it is floating above the image, therefore adding depth.
At this stage I felt that the bottom of the page seemed empty, so I decided to add a featured artists section. Firstly, I used the shape tool to add a black box, I then rasterized this layer and added effects that seperated it from the rest of the cover such as a stroke.
Next, I used the text tool and added 4 artists that spanned across the width of the cover with alternating colours as an indicator of where each band began and ended.
The next stage consisted of many layers due to the intricacies of adding cover lines to my front page. I used the text tool in order to add all of my titles in first, I did this first due to the larger priority of the titles allowing me to space out my cover lines efficiently. Many unique fonts were used within these titles to give each title it's own personality, however, I added the same black stroke effect to each in order to seperate them from the changing background.
Additionally, I used the fill tool to make white backgrounds for each description, following the outline of the text perfectly. Finally, I placed the text within the white background, changing font size depending on the connoted importance of the words to the reader.
The final stage that I needed to add to my front cover was the barcode and a competition feature. I began by rotating a black shape object into the top right of the cover, next I placed multiple pieces of text with Babas Neue font and a stroke of varying colours on each to allow the reader to distinguish them
from each other and contribute to the house style. I placed a random barcode from the internet and a custom QR Code that directed the user to this website. Above this I placed an 'Impact Label' piece of text that contained both the price of the magazine and issue date, this was above another white box which allowed the text to easily be viewed.
