1. I finally decided which filter I wanted to use for my main image. I felt the “Cut Out” filter was perfect for my main image because it made the image more artistic like a painting and I felt this conveyed the message my magazine and image were trying to portray that the Soul genre is a very deep style of music and that my model is passionate about the music he is making and that he is dedicated musician. The colours would also go very well with my masthead. Gold connoting wealthy and mature; several themes I want my magazine to show.

2. I added a puff to the top my front cover – “Number 1 SOURCE FOR SOUL!” suggesting that this is the best magazine to get all the info you need on your favourite soul artists and soul tracks. I made the banner black and the font colour yellow to make it stand out from the rest of the page. Black/Yellow (Gold)/White would therefore become my main colour scheme. They are simple and sophisticated.

3. Now I’ve added my masthead. I had trouble finding the right position for the masthead because it seemed to cover the majority of my models head. So I went back to re-think about editing my masthead.

4. Eventually we ended up deleting the black box around the masthead. The type was a little bland and flat after removing the box so I added effects to it (Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Bevel and Emboss, Gradient Overlay). These effects allowed the masthead to stand out more and with the new masthead my front cover looked a lot neater.

5. I typed in my main cover line with the same font I’d been using for everything else – ‘Britannic Bold’ and coloured in the font yellow as I didn’t want the same exact colour scheme to be used for the main cover line as well as the masthead as they would clash, I wanted each to stand alone. I made the black outline by simply clicking on blending options and the increasing the Drop Shadow percentage to make it stand out more as it would be the first thing my customers see and I wanted it eye-catching – I’m trying to sell my magazine and the artist. I think that the yellow is too bright and not sophisticated enough for my target audience so I was going to re-think the colour scheme.

6. I ended up just making the main cover line black and white. It’s simple, sophisticated and I felt that it really stood out more because white is such a broad, open colour. The black outline also helped to make it more dynamic and eye-catching

7. Next came the cell lines. ‘Exclusive Interviews’ had to stand out the most since it was the title introducing the artists in my magazine so I made it yellow because I had keep to the (yellow)gold/black/white colour scheme. Customers would read the ‘Exclusive Interviews’ first then go on to read the artists. I kept the artists in white and small because they aren’t the main artist being interviewed therefore aren’t as important. To make then cell lines stand out more, I did the same thing as the masthead (Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Bevel and Emboss) etc. to make sure it didn’t melt onto the main image and look tacky, every word needed to stand out.

8. Finally, I added the extra bits like the Issue number, the date, the price, the barcode and the website address. Of course I made them small because they aren’t as important. I decided to make the web address white because having it white makes it that much more eye-catching because I still want people to visit the website and again I added the same blending options as the masthead just to make sure it isn’t overshadowed in the corner. The issue number, date and price are less important so there was no need to make it eye-catching otherwise it would detract from the rest of the front page.