Analysis of Front cover

The photograph which I have chose to use as the background of the front page cover is a medium/long shot of the bands drummer. I chose to do a medium/long shot because then the full length of the drummer would fit into the frame, along with the drums. When the audience looks at the drummer they automatically know what part he plays in the band. I decided to crop this photograph first before using it, this was so I could try and get rid of the other two members of the bands arms because they cause distractions from the main image. As I was cropping the image I realised that I wouldn’t be able to crop as much of the sides as what I originally planned to do because if I had, part of the drummer would have been cut of with it. To solve this I decided to crop a certain amount of then clone other the remaining parts of the arms so they can no longer be seen. I also used the clone tool else where, this was in the top left hand corner of the photograph where there was a small dark shadow which didn’t need to be there. I then changed the input tones by using the cures tool. After this I used the Gaussian blur tool to out focus the background of the photograph slightly, this makes the drummer and the drums the main focus point.

When I had finished editing the photograph to how I wanted it to look like, I transferred it to a new A4 sheet. I had to do this as I had cropped down the original photograph so it was no longer the size which it needed to be. I could only re size the photograph slightly because otherwise the parts of the top and bottom would be to long and get cut of. This meant that at the each side of the photograph (placed centrally of the page) there was a gap. I decided to colour the sides in black, I chose black because it worked well with the colours in the photograph and did not clash.

Before deciding where to place the bands name, I tried out different fonts and colours to see which ones looked more effective. The font and colour which I decided to do are DextorD and white. The font and colour both work well with the front cover. The colour of the font (white) stands out from the background which is based on mainly dark colours, this makes the bands name look very eye catching. The font works well because it is not plain and boring, which would not represent what the band is about. I decided to put the bands name in between the drummers arms and the drums. I put it in the place I did because there was nothing distracting in the photograph behind it. When I had wrote ‘The Strands’ I had the text box set out to horizontal, I then decided to rotate it slightly to see if it would look more effective. I thought it looked more effective when I had slightly rotated it because it almost matches up with the angle of the drum. Whilst experimenting rotating the text I found out that if I rotated it to much, it would no longer look as effective because it would make the text harder to read and concentrate on.

To get the bar code for my front cover I took a photograph of a magazine, then cut it out with the polygonal lasso tool. I then re sized it until it was the correct size to fit where I wanted it to go. After I arranged the bar code I used the type tool to add the price, date and issue number.


I chose to name the magazine 'Discord', I decided to use this name as it is catchy.

Origionally I thought a blue and yellow colour scheme would work well because they stand out from the dark background well, but I figured out that they would suit more of a dance magazine instead of a indie/rock magazine. I changed the colour scheme to yellow and dark purple.


I added a number of puffs on to the front cover, this is to show what main stories appear inside to get the interest of the target audience.

I have added a plug to the front cover which

is advertising a free CD when you buy a copy. This will also influence the audience to buy the magazine because they ar

e getting a freebie. I re-arranged the text a few times so I could see where it looked the most effective.