Development of Front Cover

Masthead: Research

Wired Magazine

Newspaper Mastheads:

I realized that the best, smart and most effective mastheads are those that you can understand what the magazine is about straight away, visually. Both the masthead name and design relates entirely to what the magazine is about. The selling line just helps to further tie it in and summarizes the content of the magazine. A good Masthead to me is that if it is one-of-a-kind. You can differentiate it from the other magazines from the same genre but at the same time it still relates to the genre. Also, a good masthead are those fonts not just downloaded from the internet and just stuck at the top of the magazine. They should at least be tweaked and improved to suit the needs of the magazine.  

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Masthead: Name

Final Masthead: TIMBRE (pronounced as Tam-ber)

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Masthead: Designs

Designing the Masthead using illustrator. 

1. Trying out different fonts

2. Getting rid of the holes in letters 'B' and 'R'. 

3. Moving the letters around. 

4. Thinking about using woody fonts because wood to me means nature, something in a natural state. 

Acoustic to me means, real and pure. 

While Indie to me, too, means natural because due to their music being independent, it is not "distorted" by the music norms of majority of society. 

Hence, I think the element of wood would fit my Masthead well. 

5. I changed the word 'timber' inside to 'tamber' because that is the way you are supposed to pronounce it. 

6. Adding a selling line: The Indie Acoustic Magazine. 

7. Creating another design of my Masthead. 

Being inspired by the font, I changed the font of my selling line.

8. Rearranging the position of the selling line.

9. Final Masthead and selling line.

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Masthead: ReDesigning Selling Lines

I was not very happy with the look of my previous selling line so I redesigned it. 

1.

2. 

Realized that cursive font was not very good as a selling line because it was not very readable from far. 

Below are my final choices. 

3.

4. Final:

More readable than the last one and I like the simplicity. 

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Front Cover Magazine Research

I want my covers to be as simple and eye-catching like these.  Not much text, but you understand what the magazine is about. 

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Photoshoot:

Photoshoot Main Inspirations

As I said before: These photos below onwards, I think it would really suit my magazine very well because the models are my target group. Also the way they are taken are very appealing to my target group. 

However, I think I'm going for a little more fun look. My magazine is going to have a poster-style cover  because I want my customers to treat the magazine like a piece of art that they can put on the wall. 

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Masthead: Final

Even though I said the first masthead was better, as I was doing my front cover layouts the masthead below was better suited for my photos and general look of my magazine.

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Front Cover: Layout

The balloon looks to "extra".

Colours are good. 

Covering too much of the selling line. 

Too Simple and not exciting enough like the indie magazine's cover.

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Front Cover: Layout 2

Inspiration: 

Catalogue Magazine Singapore, Issue 95

For their Pride issue ( love the simple way in which they announce it with "Subject:_____") they've created a very unique image of a (fashionable) leopars/tiger by mix-and-matching different patterns and pictures. 

and 

Indie Magazine Feb 2012

Love the colors and the simplicity. 

My Front Cover Layouts:

I toned it down a little, to make the cover have a little " acoustic" feel, more natural. 

I made the borders yellow because yellow is a very vibrant color. Against the dark blue background, it 'pops'. So i thought this would make my magazine more eye catching and stand out from the stack of magazines. 

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Front Cover: Colour of Borders

RGB: 221, 244, 41

I think that the color of the borders really matters. Even though they are both yellow, I feel that they give a different vibe. The above is slightly more lime green while the one below is more yellow. I feel that the first one is better.

RGB: 243, 243, 21

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Front Cover: Research Conventions of Magazine Cover

I started comparing my magazine to the conventions, to see what else I was missing. Obviously, I'm going in an slightly different direction because of my target group. 

However, some conventions still must be kept. 

Such as: 

Masthead

Barcode

Left Third

Selling line

Dateline

Main Image

Model Credit

Cover line

Still left:

Barcode     X      

Dateline      X

Model Credit       X

My Left third, if it is not obvious, is the letter 'T'. I think the 'T' is very distinct enough to represent my Masthead, Timbre. 

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Front Cover: Typography and Conventions of Magazine Cover

INVENTORY

VOLUME 04 NUMBER 07 TAKASHI TATENO COVER

I like the above typography, very simple and classic. Makes you feel peaceful at the same time. I want my magazine to have that "feel" too. I started to add in things I was missing out: Barcode, model credit and Dateline. 

I was trying out different fonts:

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Front Cover: Researching Different Ways of Placing

I started researching on some magazines to see how they placed their stuff:

Just Issue No. on the above left hand side and bottom right hand side. No date written. 

Its blurred but date and issue on right hand side. 

Issue No, date and price on above left hand side.

Issue No, Date and Website all at the bottom. 

Text at the side. 

*ATTENTION*: REALIZED THOSE TEXT IS VERY SMALL FOR ALL. 

It should not take away the attention from the masthead and cover story. Instead to add to the appeal of the magazine.

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Front Cover: Layout 3

Experimenting with different ways of placing the barcode, date, edition, issue, model credit.

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Front Cover: Price of Magazine

I researched and found out that the average price of a magazine is about £3. 

Indie Magazine:  £7

Acoustic Magazine:  £3.3

These are already established magazines in their own industries. 

However, magazines such as:

 Betty Magazine, just recently released its third issue costs  £6.

Inventory Magazine, just recently released its forth issue No 7 costs  £12.

According to my target group, most people that would buy my magazine ranges from 23-28 years of age. This would mean that the majority would be working. As most of my target group is employed or studying full-time, I think that it would be best if my magazine costs £5.



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Front Cover: Comparing

I think the first one looks better to me, however, it looks as if there is too much white. 

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Front Cover: Layout 4

Trying to get the layout right:

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Final: Front Cover

I made the masthead a little smaller because the top looked too heavy.