Front Cover Complete

My front cover for my magazine has been influenced most my the music magazines Kerrang! and Rock Sound.


The mast head of my magazine denotes the word "OUTLAW!" in upper-case white letters with an exclamation mark or "screamer" at the end. The text is set on a black background with two skull piles on either end of the text, beneath is strapline "SAY NO TO THE MAINSTREAM" again in white upper-case letters but in a different font to the masthead. The name outlaw to me connoted rebellion and is a symbol of free will, a rogue if you like, to my target audience the name Outlaw would appeal to them, because based on my audience research i found out that my target audience likes a sense of rebellion and freedom. Similar connotations also apply to the font i chose to type in the font naem is "Distorted and Scratchy" and i think that the same connotations for the name are appropriate to the font style as well. However i chose a different font for the strapline because i wanted it to be clearly different from the masthead, to do this i made the text smaller and in a different font style, the font i chose for this was called "nightmare" and i believe that it has slightly darker connotations than the masthead's font. The connotations that are in the strapline are more horror based and - based on my audience research - this was fitting for the genre of my magazine and audience i wished to target, these connotations also apply to the skulls that are on either side of the masthead. Say no to the mainstream was chosen as my strapline because it again connoted rebellion and individualism, this phrase isn't a question or a request "please say no to the mainstream" its a demand "SAY NO" making it seem more edgy and personal. The strapline also gives off theimpression that my magazine is unique in that it focuses on new music and not the generic swill that is churned out in the mainstream, thus appealing to my target audience.At the foot of my page is a bar which has all of the features within the magazine included, it follows the monochrome colour scheme and is simple but i think adds a flavour of professionalism to my cover. What i am most pleased with about this particular features is the inclusion of two white lines which act as a dived from the black background and the white text, and i do believe that this turned out far better than i first thought. For the barcode, i decided to have it in the bottom right of the page, mainly because that is where it usually is on most magazines, but for my placement of the issue number, date, price etc i chose to put that in a box above. The box above isn't a regular square because i thought that this would look too "blocky" and i didn't want to give off that vibe on my cover, instead it has a sloped edge which i think makes it look slightly less blocky which is good for me. My magazine is priced at £2.99 which i think is reasonable for what you are getting ut of it. As well as the date and price, included in this box is a web address, a minor feature but an important one nonetheless

The main sell for my magazine is a band called Murder at Midnight (the name derived from a high school band i was in, but i digress) and them recording their new album. I chose this idea to do because i had recently seen a similar feature in Kerrang! and thought that it played well, and due to the recording studio in college, i could easily take the pictures there. The image itself is of three friends of mine posing as the trio Murder at Midnight, they don't appear sinister or angry, but more approachable and average (not in a bad way) they seem like normal people, which i think is important to my target audience because the people used on my main cover don't appear to be fake, like the models on other publications. The font for the text is the same font as the strapline featured on my masthead, but this text is in a larger font and different colour. I chose the yellow-ish colour because it stood out against the blacks and greys of the colour scheme and looks rather fitting with the rest of the cover. The screamer was added on the tag line: "RECORDING BEST ALBUM YET!" because it made it seem like it was important and connoted that they really were recording their best album yet.
The coverlines you see on the page are directly taken from my plan ( as seen in a previous blog post) i did what i planned and made alternating coverlines, reversed-out and normal etc, i am really pleased with how this worked and am glad that it is on my cover. If you look slightly closely at the coverlines you would notice that they are on an ascending slant, this is intentional, because i wanted it to seem more lively than just plain, boring straight lines and i think i have achieved this by putting them on an angle.