Magazine Covers

The aim of this exercise was to create replica covers of existing magazines using the program In Design. (This is the actually used in the magazine industry).

Some of the things I had to consider/alter when creating matching text:

• font size
• colour (either using the fill tool or highlighting the text and using the dropper tool select the colour off the original picture) 
• italic-ness 
• boldness/thickness
• rotation/sheering
• letter & word spacing (kerning) 

Kern

Verb:

Adjust the spacing between (letters or characters) in a piece of text

Bazaar

Here you can see I had just started laying out the text and finding fonts that were as close to the original as possible.

By this point I had to start organizing the text in layers, sending certain parts 'to the back' or 'to the front' so that they were on top of/under the correct parts. 

Photo editing using photoshop

This is the original photo I used for the cover photo. To make it more similar to the one of Jennifer Anniston I had to remove the background by carefully selecting around the parts I wanted and erasing the rest. I also had to change the colouring and contrast of the picture because the original cover is a 'warmer' photo. After this it was just a case on putting the photo in beneath the text by 'sending it to the back' and scaling the image so it was roughly the same size. 

Finished Bazaar cover

NME (New Musical Express)

Guidelines

In the picture above you can see the blue lines (guidelines) I used while constructing the replica cover. To make the guides you just drag down or across from the rules of the sides of the In Design page. 

Final NME cover

In doing this project I realized just how many things are considered during the design of covers and I feel much more appreciative of all the work that is involved. There are many marketing techniques which I also discovered that are linked very much with graphical things such as font size and the text's prominence on the page. For example the hook articles are always in bold eye catching colours so that they are highlighted and catch your attention (in the hope that you'll purchase the magazine).