The document describes the process of designing a magazine cover for a publication focused on the R&B genre called "Bass Control". Key elements included are an image of the artist Deep Meaning, a pull quote saying "Music isn't one's voice, just one's passion", and references to other R&B artists like Drake and Usher. Feedback from peers validated font and design choices. The final cover incorporated conventions from other magazines while adding unique elements like sideway text.

1. Cover Page Magazine Construction

2. The magazine cover below is suited to the R&B Genre
and has the same colour scheme to what I would like to
construct, Red , white, blue and black.

3. This is the image I have chosen for the
cover of my magazine.

4. I used the Polygonic lasso tool in order to crop out the image of
my artist and put it on a plain white background this meant that I
could get rid of the shadows in the photograph.

5. In this you can see that there is a gap
in both his beard and his neck.

6. Below I have rectified the gap in the beard and
neck by using a paint brush and the blur tool.

7. By changing the exposure of my image I can make my artist look
far more clearer and also more appealing this can help bring in
more audience as this is going to be on my cover page.

8. The font below is the font that I have chosen to be my
masthead as this is what matches my flatplan.

9. By looking at this front cover I began to think that the masthead on my
magazine can be altered (positioning) and still look nice. So I am going
to try and use the masthead on this magazine as inspiration.

10. I tried to follow the source magazine with my masthead
and I actually believe that it works quite well.

11. Now I am going to crop these headphones with the
magnetic lasso tool and then saturate the image.

12. I have now attached the headphone graphic to the masthead and as the
headphone’s are Beats by Dr.Dre, many artists apart of the R&B genre such as
Jay Sean. Below is a
link that shows that Jay Sean uses Beats by Dr.Dre.
http://slumz.boxden.com/f87/beats-dr-dre-beats-tv-presents-jay-sean1652226/

13. According to this front cover there is writing above the
masthead to give an insight of the magazine so as this
links with R&B I will do something similar.

14. I have copied the same convention which is displayed on vibe as there was
descriptive text above the masthead to show an insight into the magazine,
however I did mine to give an insight into the genre and also the magazine
bass control.

15. Now that I have added a barcode, bass control is
now a consumer magazine for R&B.

16. The price for this R&B magazine is £3.95 so I am going to sell my Bass Control
for the same price as it’s part of the same genre and it will be in competition
of VIBE magazine.

17. I followed VIBE magazine’s price so I
can compete with their company.

18. Pull Quote ideas for magazine cover
• ‘I treat music the same way Usher treats
dance’
• ‘Music is not just my hobby, but my life’
• ‘Music isn’t one’s voice, just one’s passion’
• ‘life is a mystery, but when I sing, I receive the
answer to my questions’
• ‘Sometimes when you let go, close your eyes
and sing… It’s the best feeling’

19. Feedback on pull quote ideas.
•
•
•
•
•
Sana Kurshid : I believe that either ‘Music isn’t one’s voice, just one’s passion’ or ‘Music is not just my
hobby, but my life’ will suit the genre of R&B and what I can see your artist potentially saying.
Dawn Gallant : All of the pull quote choices are good and it’s quite difficult to identify which one out of
these 5 will be best for your magazine cover however I believe the fourth one about how life is a mystery is
slightly irrelevant to the genre, that is why I would not pick that.
Marwa Salama : Out of all the ideas my favourite would have to be ‘Music isn’t one’s voice, just one’s
passion’ plus it also stands out to me, just be reading that pull quote I am slightly intrigued and want to
know more.
Heleni Kapris : ‘Music isn’t one’s voice, just one’s passion’ is also my favourite pull quote, out of the ideas
you listed and to be honest if I did R&B I would try to steal that pull quote from you, only joking but
seriously it is a brilliant pull quote to have.
Sharna Hylton : Maneet, the ideas you have listed are hard to choose from but I am going to have to agree
on everyone else about how ‘Music isn’t one’s voice, just one’s passion’ is an extremely good pull quote
especially for this genre, it looks like you have put a lot of thought into this. However I think that even if
you used one of the other pull quotes for your magazine cover next to your artist it shouldn’t look to bad.
‘Music isn’t one’s voice, just one’s passion’ is what does it for me though and I have listened to R&B all my
life and it’s something I can see an artist such as Drake saying which in fact is good for your magazine
because if I am not mistaken your artist has some similarities to Drake.

20. Below are the fonts I have selected for my pull quote as I believe
they really suit the Genre. The pull quote I had chosen is ‘Music
isn’t one’s voice, just one’s passion’ due to the feedback I had
received by asking 5 of my friends, these 5 friends are media as
students, I have chosen them because they can critically assess
my ideas and judge wisely.
Font 1
Font 2

21. Example of font
Font 1
Font 2
Above is the fonts and colour which I have chosen and it actually works
quite well and suits the colour scheme of four. The colour of the pull
quote is red because directly above that I want to put the artist name in
big bold blue writing. The font I am going to go with is font 2 as it gives a
bigger and bolder feeling.

22. Feature
• My artist’s name is Deep Meaning so what I
will need to do is have in big bold letters just
above the pull quote to be Deep Meaning.
• Step 1 : Choosing the font
Font
1
Font
2

23. Feature Font Selection Feedback
• Randeep Sadasivan – Font 1 looks far more professional.
• Umar Malik – Font 2 looks really ugly compared to Font 1 as it isn’t
harmonious.
• Sana Kurshid – According to this genre I believe font 1 is far better and
font 2 is a bit too bold.
• Dawn Gallant – Font 1 is just perfect.
• Shamoun Butt – Deep Meaning are two big words so when it looks
massive in font 2 I don’t particularly like it so I will have to go with font 1.
• Marwa Salama – Maybe if Font 2 was smaller it might work but yes
definitely Font 1.
• MY DECISION – I have chosen Font 1 which is called progress of blue
colour which matches the colour scheme for my magazine front cover.
According to the feedback above all 6 people preferred font 1.

24. Exclusive
• Now magazine covers such as VIBE have an
exclusive, they are a type of R&B magazine so
I want to convey this convention.
This is the exclusive used by VIBE, I
also will use an excusive and it will
be something to do with another
R&B artist , either Usher or Jason
Derulo.

25. My Exclusive!
This is my exclusive, Usher’s life. Just by the first two
words I believe it draws in an audience so then I
converted it into an exclusive interview about Usher’s
life. Now Usher is a very good R&B artist and by just
mentioning his name people can identify what genre
my magazine is.
Note each line is a different font size this is so that it
looks like its to the same scale and is in line with the
word EXCLUSIVE. I have done black and white writing
for the exclusive just so that it stands out. Plus in the
VIBE’s exclusive shown in the slide prior to this the
exclusive is some what similar with a word inside a box
and in a contrast of two colours.

26. Addition
• This is what is included inside the magazine
for example +50 hot R&B singles.
• So I am going to put an addition of + 20 songs
that will blow your mind. The colour will be
red, blue etc carrying on word for word.
Something like this on my left. Actually as a matter of fact it is
exactly how I want it to look like on my magazine cover, The
font is perfect and the colour changes make this part stand out.

27. Rest of the magazine cover
•
•
•
•
On the right hand side of my artist I will have two iconic sub headings one will be an artist’s name
probably Drake.
Now Drakes name will stand out so under that I will mention his new single ‘Hold on we’re going
home’.
But it’s the other sub heading I am worried about. How can I possibly follow conventions of other
magazine covers and make something to do about my artist stand out in such limited space. Well
how about I don’t follow any conventions? Would it still look professional. Now I want the Artist in
the picture to stand out so I do not want to put any words over him.
According to me Deep Meaning is a clean artist so he should remain clean even if it is just text going
over him it could hide how clean he sings it might even give an indication that he is quite explicit.
So I have thought long and hard but if I don’t follow any conventions for this part , for this sub
heading I believe I can make my music magazine stand out and keep my artist looking clean. Now
what I will do is have the sub heading in relation to my artist to be side wards. Red and blue text
still abiding by the colour scheme and choosing one of my two fonts either Progress or STIX general.
Now what will be written on that sub heading, maybe ‘new hot single’ in big bold blue writing then
underneath that in italics my artist’s name and the name of his single.

28. Going against conventions.
I have gone against conventions and I have to say it looks
pretty good and different, which is a very good thing, not
many magazine covers do side wards writing. The fonts
and colours abide by the colour scheme and now I feel as if
my magazine is practically complete.

29. Nearly Finished
I can see two errors in my finished product so I need to rectify this in the
top near the artists collar there is a gap in between his shirt and the
collar. Then also on the bottom right I have not cropped my image to
perfection as there is still some shadow left by the artist as you can see so
now what I am going to do is fix this error and now finally complete this
front cover.

30. Smudge tool
Above I used the smudge tool to make the shirt look
complete, this was essentially very difficult to make it
work because it went wrong a couple of times.

31. Polygonic lasso tool
Over here I had used the polygonic lasso tool to eradicate a bit of my
artist’s remaining shadow in order to reach perfect cropping.

32. Finished magazine cover

33. My Magazine Cover Deconstruction
Graphic – This is an image of Beats by Dr. Dre as this is normally worn by R&B artist’s such as Jay Sean you can
easily see that this magazine has something to do with music and also as it’s linked to the masthead it could
show that further in the magazine there will be importance such as an article on beats. However it could also
be something to do with Bass Control like you can control or feel the bass these type of headphones give off.
Feature/Coverline – Deep Meaning,
this is the iconic new upcoming R&B
artist, his name is big and bold this
is so that you can identify his name
and the genre of the magazine from
a fair distance away.
Pull Quote – this pull quote is
used to bring in audiences and
also shows a true reflection on
the artist, ‘music isn’t one’s voice,
just one’s passion’ now as a
reader I would pick this up and
wonder , what does he mean ,
before I know it this magazine will
be in my trolley, so this is very
good for bringing in dissatisfied
audiences and how they want to
interpret what he means.
Plus – This shows that there
will be 20 songs that could
potentially blow your mind,
this makes the reader want to
know what are these 20
songs.
Barcode – now this shows that this is a consumer magazine
and can be purchased by members of the public, this means
that Bass Control can now compete with magazine rivals such
as VIBE.
Masthead – This masthead is covered
by the artist and is in big bold red
letters this just means that this
magazine company is well known and
the artist covering it is iconic.
Exclusive – This is used to show an
insight into the magazine via the front
cover, now this exclusive is about Usher
which means it could be a R&B
magazine.
Sub headings – now these are quite
iconic to grip in a reader or the target
audience now both ‘new hot single’
and ‘Drake’ stand out because they
both abide by the colour scheme of
blue, red, white and black. Drake is a
famous R&B artist this also implies that
this is a R&B magazine.