Magazine Front Cover Drafts

After my two separate photo shoots had come to a finish I was left with two sets of detailed and professional looking images - one with a male model and the adjoining a female. Due to many of the photos being of a nice proposition, I felt it would be an appropriate idea to create two distinctly different magazine front covers - each of them would display a different sex artist. Therefore it would be an excellent method of visually identifying which would be the most suitably perceived as compared to the other, ultimately the one which was most dominant would be the cover gender I would select to employ as my main feature.

I used the set of images taken from my brothers photoshoot as the first draft for my main cover, out of all 50 shots I had to select from I chose a medium close up of him as I have discovered traditionally the majority of music magazines incorporate either a medium or long shot of the artist in question who will appear as the main feature for that issue. I composed several false stories and scattered them around him, I tried to avoid covering up the photograph as I feel this would shroud him, therefore drawing the main focus away from the singer who is the major selling point of the product. I attempted to include realistic names for the extra articles, using inspiration from ones i had already observed in music magazines (noticeably 'Q') , but also making up a few of my own so it would give me the literature capabilities of knowing how to present/word them when it came down to making my final production. Another marketing technique I attempted to reproduce was that of a filled shape (in this case a circle) where I could add text that related to another feature inside the product, I have seen this used often, in 'Q' specifically, and with me edging to replicate that magazine in structure as to much of my abilities as I can, I drew the shape to see how it would present on the page. Personally I was quite impressed with how it looked, it was manouvered carefully around the secondary text so they did not clash in any manner or confound with one another. Overall it draws explicit attention yes, but it avoids drawing that visual focus entirely away from the image itself which still remains largely dominant. In terms of the photo quality which was my main reason for constructing this text I am throughly impressed with how it is perceived on the page, the image is sharp and coherent with no unecessary pixilation due to the high definition of the camera i used to capture it. The pose he is adhering to does not look uneasy or nervous in any way as if he was anxious which can be expected of a photoshoot, in whole he looks dominant and confident in the way he displays his posture to the audience - they can clearly identify he is an extrovert in his manner and the way he is engaging them directly with his line of eye focus suggests he wants their immediate attention the 'all eyes on him' look. The reading public are more likely to develop a bond with the artist as it appears he is attempting to make conversation or grasp their attention, this way a relationship is created between the magazine and audience in the fact it is conveying to their personal sense of judgement, almost like it wants to get to know them and make them feel important. In this manner this draft of the cover effectively portrays that emotional connection and is more superior to look at in the notion the production is specifically made to suit the audiences needs.

In response to the draft I carried out above involving a male music artist as my central feature focus, to understand the concept of this experimentation more thoroughly I selected out of the 60 images of my female model Kate the one I perceived to be most appropriate and appealing for a magazine front cover. This was undoubtly a medium close up of her face and body to entail with the conventional wisdom surrounding the use of a cover photograph in mainstream products (which I explained above is due to them creating status for their artist by using a close up of their head and body). As what was detailed in my rationale, I proposed it would be most suitable for me to have a female singer as my main storyline for the production as in my original AS media presentation, before this necessary re-sit, I wrote a feature piece that revolved around an upcoming solo young woman in the alternative rock industry. With the article already fully edited and drafted, in my personal opinion it would have been highly appropriate to reuse it as this would save me valuable time and resources that I couldn't afford to waste with the very limited time frame I had installed to make a new magazine. Therefore I thought it would be most essential to use Kate as my primary basis for the new article. I copied and pasted the identical sell lines onto the photoshop document she was on and placed them in similar positions to what can be seen on the male draft. However I felt this composition did not compute for a variety of reasons

1. The bright colours of her T-Shirt clashed with the black and white scheme on the backdrop and text - they did not co-operate effectively together and as the multicoloured wash was equally as appealing to the eye as the black text, they both dominated over one another to the extent that it was hard to narrow focus on which element was the most important as the main feature.

2. The model was not making eye contact with the audience, in fact she is orientated away from them as if she is staring at a point of interest off screen, this can be disengaging as that personal relationship is avoided, it personifies the reader is not important and that the editors/ music artist are not interested in engaging throughly with them. For this matter I could see a decrease in reader interest.

From both of the individual drafts I created, one for a male artist and the accompanying for a female, I have concluded it would be most beneficial if I was to revolve the cover around my male model instead. This completely goes against the original rationale I had proposed before, however I understand this radical change is necessary if I want my product to be successful. I respect the sacrifice I have to make involving completely binning the woman's feature length article I had created last year, yet out of the two images the male perceives better to the audience and looks more authentic as what I would expect to see in a mainstream music magazine. After discussions with my lecturer who weighed the pros and cons of both the drafts up, she agreed at a unianamous decision that for my products to be the best they possible could be it would be in my best interests to take her advice and focus upon producing a cover revolving around a male not a female artist.