As a relay from my last update, this section of my cover construction I moved on to perfecting the more major conventions of my product with the primary attention focused upon the positioning of the main headline and accompanying sell lines. Some further alterations were made to the font size of the words to draw that important emphasis in, with the colour scheme completely reworked to suit the ever changing principles of the cover at my college lecturers expense.
In continuation from my previous cover development post there was no major alterations from the last screenshot of my cover to the one displayed above. The area I principally focused my attention upon was ensuring I had all of the sell lines and main articles text perfectly parallel to one another so that the words were positioned directly opposite its partner in a vertical fashion. To initiate this I deployed the ruler tool which can be located in the view finder bar at the very top of the photoshop document. Once it was selected it allowed me to draw rulers (either vertically or in a horizontal direction), these could be placed next to the first letter of the word so I had a clear vantage point of where to align each individual sentence to correspond with the one situated beneath. This method was used to get the main feature surrounding the artist 'Cypher' to make the wording more slicker and mainstream with the audience instantly being able to comprehend that the text orientated around the same article. Finally I also touched up my extra sell lines which topic of discussion generated around album reviews, I altered the style of font for this particular area to 'Americano' as I needed the audience to be able to distinguish the main feature from the add ons, so a simple text change could be beneficial in allowing them to easily separate these two in terms of importance. I emphasised 'album review' by encasing it in a vibrant crimson red, this kept with my chosen colour scheme and reflected an element of continuity in my product, a vital technique in order to illustrate a professional edge to my magazine. From here I would need to work on adding in more additional sell lines to offer more reading points for my readers and to manipulate the sizing of the text so the central article has a more prominent face enabling it to be identified as the most critical feature and to avoid it coming into competition with the more submissive pieces for dominance.
From here I proceeded to copy and paste into photoshop an image of a barcode I searched for on the internet, no mainstream magazine would be published without one as it couldn't be marketed due to potential shop lifting, for my cover to duplicate a real production it was crucial I included one in the structure. None of the sell lines/main feature were attended to, from looking at the Muse Q magazine which you can identify on the right hand side of my cover, I decided to add a 'Plus' section in the top right corner of my own product. Not only is this a popular, common convention used in many magazines as it details even more information to the audience to encourage them to purchase it, but it would allow me to indicate them I am suiting each of their individual needs by displaying artist who would appear inside the content, therefore they know their own music taste is being appealed to.
After seeking my lecturers advice, she suggested that for my cover to be more successful the main sell line had to be moved to the bottom left hand corner of the page. Her reasons behind this indicated to the notion that she herself found it difficult to perceive which was the main sell line and which were the accompanying this was due to them both being in close proximity to one another when the headline should be isolated away towards the central image of the model to convey the message they are related to each other. As I knew her advice to be the best, I complied to her recommendation and moved the main article so it was on the shoulder of my music artist. This editorial technique can also be seen displayed on th Noel Galagher Q cover, with the exact same positioning in visual eyeline. I used this cover as a template in aiding me to get the most effective placement for the headline, once it was situated corectly I enhanced the sizing of the aritst name to over 150pt, ultimately making it the largest piece of text on the entire product. My lecturer agreed that it was now more identifiable as the centre story compared to the remaining texts. Quickly I resumed focus upon adding more sell lines to the document, with the additon of a piece revolving around 'the fleet foxes' which I placed underneath the 'Plus' text. This would not be its final position as I wanted to have a basis of where all the other text pieces would be located before beginning the final adjustments. What is most noticeable is that I removed the masthead from view, it hasn't been permantly deleted as I have simply hidden it through the use of the eye button on the tool box. I desired it to be masked as I was concentating too much on perfecting it which was leading me to neglect all the other convnetions I had to work on.
I queried one of my fellow peers to his opinion and verdict surounding my cover, I wanted to generate a topic of discussion which would help me highlight from a neutral point of view which sections I could improve on and which could be left alone. He recommended to me that I should alternate the positioning of the album review and plus articles with his reasons relying on the fact that the 'plus' would be more appropriate located at the very bottom of the page as it acted as a continuation mechanism, alterting the readers that besides all of the articles that have been presented above it there still will be a variety of other features as well, indicating that the content is vast and interesting, moreover it will be worthwhile reading. I took his suggestion and made this necessary change, I could appreciate where he was coming from as I felt the overall look of the piece had been improved dramatically by doing so. I dragged the 'exclusive interview' box so it was above the main sell line, this implied they were directly related therefore corelated with one another, suggesting that Cypher's interview is 'exclusive' to my magazine only and not shared in any other. There was some improvements on the sizing of the additional sell lines, enhaning the visablity of the words on the cover so they were not insignifcant to read.
The 'V' from the masthead was placed back onto visual level so I could use it as a vantage point as to where its final position would be allocated and to get a feel of how its presence would impact the overall look of the cover. Although I was not in the position yet to begin altering it, I felt uncomfortable with the perception of the masthead at this current moment in relation to the style of font selected, in further steps I feel this would be an appropriate area to work on once the main body of the cover was under completion.The issue, date and price were included above the barcode (which had been flipped to a horizontal fashion to allow more manourveablity), these are vital conventions typical of any written product as they detail very valuable information to the audience; the issue number can be of importance to collectors, the date to those who wish to know the publication date and the price is universal so as to inform how much the reader will need to pay to purchase the production. Without these my magazine wouldn't even be considered for the retail shelf, in this respect it was essential for me to get them incorporated.
Ensuring I was receiving feedback at optimal points during this construction, I questioned my lecturer at multiple points to see if she could suggest any further improvements to be favoured. Whilst she regarded the cover was developing in a conventional fashion, she targeted the interview box as my next protocol to modify, her opinion on it was that she felt it didn't fit with the whole nature of the article as my artist was not famous enough to be offered the status of an 'important' interview (as he is fairly new to the industry he does not connotate the label of a famous musician in this genre like the band Muse for example). Under this circumstance she suggested keeping the box but changing the content to focus upon another topic of interest and to relocate it away from my image so it could be easily recognised as a separate feature. Her final tip was to adhere to the colour palette more effectively by changing the scheme of the centre article - she desired me to change the name of the artist 'Cypher' to the blue in the circle to connotate the continuity throughout as she felt this would appear more mainstream and professional. The blue contrasted nicely with the pale but soft blue present on his shirt, to me this emphasised and strengthened the relationship further between text and image as the connection can easily be established here that the words directly relate to the man in the photo, indicating the feature will solely affirm towards him.
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