Flat plan - Front Cover

Before making my magazine in photoshop, I created a flat plan on the computer of what I wanted my front cover to look like.

As you can see it is quite basic, this is because I wanted a basic structure which I could play off, be creative.

Strapline - while researching magazines, the format of Vibe magazine stood out the most to me.

As you can see their strapline it quite chunky with a bright contrasting background ensuring it stands out. However I would want my strapline to stand out but to the extent of deterring the focus from the image of my artist, therefore I am going to use a black background, using the colour white (contrast beautifully with black), red (bold colour, usually symbolises urgency and it is the colour of my artist hat) and blue (to slightly calm down the remaining colours.

Masthead - I want blue to be the dominate colour on my magazine, therefore I would like my masthead to incorporate the colour blue. I also want it to stand out so I will add a gradient effect on the colour blue to also make it vibrant. 


Coverlines - I want my coverline situated around my artist (making my artist centre of focus), I also want my coverlines to be controversial to catch my target audience attention making them want to pick the magazine up. Nonetheless I am going to use the colours red, blue and black, am going boxes to emphasis certain coverlines that I believe my target audience would love to read.


Bar code/Competition - From my research I found all magazine both successful and failing have bar code, so I must include one. However to stop it from taking up space I am going to put in a rectangular box, positioned horizontally. I also want to add a competition into my magazine which many well-known magazine do as a unique selling point. Although I do not want my competition to be as ordinary as text so and so to see if you have won, but to make it more adapted to our modern technology. Moreover from my research I discovered that owners of a blackberry as of:-
2010 - 47,452
2011 - 62,600
2012 - 79,335
It has been predicted 2015 - 122,864
Overall the amount of people owning a blackberry which could scan a bar code has increased and is set to continue to be increasing, so I made up my competition based on that.


Featured Artist Album - I want to add a free giveaway inside of magazine rather on the front as a cover mount because it would take up too much, although to make my readers aware that there is a featured artist album as a free giveaway in my magazine. I will make a small box at the bottom of the magazine using the colours - black, dark red, and grey. I would add a small description of what the album is