Cover Mockups

Introduction

After some deliberation, I decided to create two options for my final cover. The first choice was inspired by my first sketch. The second choice I created was not inspired by sketch three as I had originally planned. I decided to use sketch five because I looked through my cover images and found that sketch five would better fit the images I have taken.  Below are some more details regarding each design and how I made certain choices regarding the design and layout. Please note that these are not the final designs and will be edited. Also, a sell line will not be discussed as throughout my research I have learned that news magazines do not use sell lines as they try to be a bit more inconspicuous in gaining readers through marketing.

Cover One 

For this sketch, I decided to go with a digital design I had created for my last blog. This design ended up being a base for me as I was sure what direction I wanted to go with this design after having done not just a digital mockup but also a hand drawn sketch. The first thing I did was choose my anchor image. I needed an image to fill the circle seen in the design on the left. After deliberation, I ended up choosing a close up of a bird. The reason I chose this image despite having many other images of birds, especially those living in an environment full of litter, was because the image allows the potential consumer to look the animal straight in the eye. The deliberate eye contact can help create sympathy in the reader and convince them to look at the cover a bit more. The image has to create strong emotions because it is the only part of the cover that is not black or white. It is what the eye is first drawn to, meaning that it must be impactful. The reason I chose to have the image be the only pop of the color on the cover was to make it much more impactful as people focus on it, due to its stark contrast from the background. I positioned this image in the middle to increase its impact by ten-fold, as the eye catches it even more, making the design more effective. 

I did edit this image a bit in order to make it more effective. What I first did was crop the image so that it was zoomed in on the bird itself. The next thing I did was try to adjust the brightness and saturation. That did not work well in providing me the effect I wanted. So, I explored a bit more of Canva, the design program I am using, and used the Auto Enhance tool. This made the image not only a bit more vivid but added much more detail to the feathers of the bird, making it seem even more lifelike. I ended up liking the image after this and used it on my front cover. The color scheme of the magazine is one that is more generic, not connected to the main cover image. I decided to make this design based on two well known news magazines: Time and Newsweek. The color scheme I am planning on using is one that contains four colors: black, white, blue, and red. The main cover image and the design of the cover itself helped put forth this color scheme by highlighting the colors blue, white, and black. 

The biggest choice I made was to take an extremely unconventional approach to my magazine. I knew one potential topic I had been wanting to explore for my magazine was the tracking of a movement, especially the women's rights movement and the environmental movement. When I saw the magazine cover to the left, I got the idea to combine my favorite form of communication, written word, with design to help create a powerful cover. So, inspired by this design, I added a timeline in the middle of the cover which would have the year the movement started and this year. In the center, would be a powerful image, which in this case is the image I explained above. Finally, the background of the cover would be black with white phrases and facts related to the topic covering the entire page, creating a spotlight around the center, which would house the main cover line and subtitle. The black and white helps create a bit of chalkboard effect, something that I found intriguing. I used this design because it allowed me to push my artistic boundaries and create an impactful cover while exploring my genre even more. 

So, the first part of a magazine is the masthead. For the masthead, inspired by Time magazine, I chose to look for a short, yet powerful word. For this, I dove back into one of my favorite topics: history. Through this, I came across Latin which I discussed in my last blog. I decided to keep the same title from the original mockup because I felt that it conveyed the right emotion and worked extremely well with the cover design. I used the word nunc, which in English means now. I did this to add a layer of history and intellect, to add to the sophistication of the magazine. The font I used was also inspired by Time magazine. It was a serif font called Libre Baskerville. Next comes the most plentiful part of the cover, the words that encompass the entire page. These words are a mix of the names of people and organizations, events, and statistics regarding climate change. I decided to use real facts instead of placeholder words because I wanted to see how the design would work at its fullest extent so that I could better modify it as needed. The font I used for these words was a handwriting font called Canva Student Font. I deliberately used this font to make it look like there were handwritten words all over a chalkboard. I wanted to help create a feeling that the writing was human and written by a teacher trying to explain climate change to their students. 

The next piece of writing on the magazine is the main cover line. The main cover line used a sans serif font. The reason I went for a sans serif font was because it is much friendlier and easier for the reader to connect with. I wanted the reader to feel the emotions that the cover is trying to convey, so I tried to make it a bit more approachable. For the subtitle and dates, I used a serif font which was a copy of Times New Roman. This created a contrast between the main cover line and the subtitle in addition to conveying an atmosphere that was sophisticated but human and full of emotions. The final piece of my design is the date. I ended up moving the date from the bottom left corner up to the top right corner because I found that it worked in a more effective manner than if I had placed it at the bottom. Plus, it made it much easier for me to maneuver the words throughout the cover. I included a date because it is essential for a reader to know what date a group of stories correlates with. Finally, I only used one cover line since this main cover line explains the theme for the entire issue making more cover lines unnecessary. In addition to this, I wanted the reader to only have one focal point that would peak their interest. 

Cover Two

For this sketch, I started with the digital design I created for my last blog. I decided to use this design as a base as I had already gone through two cycles of design, one involving drawing a design on paper with the other involving the digital design. I was sure that the digital design displayed below would be a good place to start and develop my cover from. After going through the cover images I had, I decided to use the image displayed below. I wanted to use a photograph of a landscape because I wanted to help spotlight the main cover line. I chose for the image to take up almost the entire page because I wanted to create a uniform page. I wanted to make it look sleek and the image I chose was perfectly positioned to where I could use it to take up the whole page without taking away much of the readability. I decided to have the top of the image be the top color of the background which would blend in with this image because I wanted to remove the bottom of the image without editing it. So, I positioned the image to where the bottom was not visible and added the background color to the top. This created a bit of stronger contrast between the foreground and and the background of the image. 

I did slightly edit the image before inserting it into my design. I made the color and saturation a bit softer and used a filter that made the picture's colors extremely full. This allowed me to create a bright, but slightly muted image, helping create a sleek, yet sophisticated atmosphere. I decided to use an image that highlighted the color blue because blue creates the emotion of peace and tranquility. This accentuates the main cover line, which implies that everything has fallen apart. This creates a wave of emotions that will boil down to create intrigue and curiosity as the colors and cover line are contradicting each other. For this design, I tried to create a color scheme on the cover that used some earthy light brown tones, green, blue, and white. I wanted to create an atmosphere that reminds people of nature but in a certain way where it looked sleek. For that reason, I utilized greens that look a bit similar to black and gray. In addition, I decided to use a light brown that looked similar to beige to create a formal yet down to earth feeling. 

For the entire magazine, there will be a generic color scheme that uses black, white, and shades of blue. This generic color scheme was another reason I chose a main cover image that highlighted the color blue. It helps the magazine look consistent throughout. For the masthead, I used a serif font that was on the thicker end. The reasoning behind this is related to the placement of the masthead. I was inspired by Bloomberg Business's intriguing masthead placement and decided to imitate it. When I did so, I realized that I needed a font on the thicker end, similar to that of Newsweek. I still wanted to have a sleek serif similar to that of Time magazine so I found a font that was a compromise. The font DM Serif Display allowed me to have the boldness of Newsweek with the sleek image of Time Magazine. I chose for all of the writing to be the color white because I wanted to create contrast between the peaceful white and the vivid colors in the main image. This not only would help increase the readability of the cover a bit, but it makes the writing eye-catching, since it stands about in the vivid image that consumes the cover. For the main cover line, I decided to use a serif font called Noto Serif Display Extra C. I used it's normal, not bolded sibling for the subtitle. The reason I did this was because I wanted to maintain an emotion of intellect and trust between the reader and the writer. As I did this, I realized that people might find the magazine a bit cold and extremely formal. Thus, I decided that my other cover lines would be in a sans serif font. This mixture of fonts creates trust, intellect and dependability while being friendly. Plus, sans serif fonts also signify that something is progressive and breaks tradition but is sophisticated. I wanted to convey to the reader that though the magazine respects history and is formal, it is a bit unconventional as well. Through this combination of fonts, I wanted to help make the magazine appeal to anyone who wants to learn about what is going on around them, not just upper class, educated people.

                                               

 I chose to have the main cover line and subtitle in the bottom left of the cover because the foreground helped accentuate the main cover line and subtitle. Plus, if I had placed it in the background, it would look a bit crowded, like it is fighting for attention with the masthead. Placing the masthead on the opposite corner of the magazine, I created visual contrast that leads the reader to look over the entire cover. I placed the other cover lines in the middle of the layout to the left because I wanted to draw attention to the cover lines without having them fight with the depth of the image. I wanted readers to see the depth of the image as well as the cover lines, leading to the placement displayed. I added a date on my magazine because throughout my research, no matter what magazine, one thing I have realized is that there is ALWAYS a date present on the cover. I found it extremely important to follow this convention because if readers do not know when the stories written in the magazine are from, there is no purpose for them to buy the magazine. I placed the date underneath the masthead because it did not clash with any other aspects of the cover and was easily visible. I also added a barcode to the magazine cover, much to my surprise. As I did research, I realized that I had some preconceived notions on the conventions of magazines based on my background knowledge. While researching, I realized that contrary to my earlier beliefs, many current affairs magazines had barcodes on their cover. So, as a way to make my design a bit more authentic, I added a barcode in the top right corner. The placement was based on the fact that the top right fourth of the magazine was only an image and I did not want the barcode to distract from the other aspects of the cover.  

 

For the content of the cover, I used the name "Permagni" as my masthead. It means today in Latin and was pulled from one of my designs in Blog 6. The reason I chose this masthead was because I felt that it blended extremely well with the image I wanted to create with this design. For my cover lines, I decide to use alliteration and assonance as literary devices are much more memorable to a reader. For my subtitle, I went for a dramatic, bold statement as such phrases incites curiosity in people as they wonder why such a profound statement was printed. Finally, I decided to add page numbers next to the cover lines that were not the main one because I noticed it to be a convention in many magazines and decided that it would be useful for a potential reader to know. 

My Thoughts and Conclusion

In all, I find that my two designs are at opposite ends of the spectrum. One is conventional, following almost all of the notions provided by the genre. The other is unconventional, artistic and breaking conventions in order to impact the reader. My first design is unconventional with the main image not taking up a sizable portion of the page and the whole background being words that have been wrapped around the page. My second design is conventional with a clear, page filling main image and multiple cover lines. In all, I like both designs but there are some things I would change about them. For the first design, I sincerely feel that I could use a better image as a focus so I might end up changing that. For my second design, I may adjust the fonts of the subtitle and other cover lines as they are slightly hard to see and read. I liked how my first design turned out with the words throughout the whole cover. However, I would like to fill in some gaps of black and make the dates of the timeline more visible. I like the second cover as it looks sleek but it is a bit bland, to be honest. I might edit the cover image a bit more to increase its boldness. I am not sure which design I will end up picking. I love my first design but the second design looks more polished and sleek. They are both good in their own way. So, my next step will be to edit a bit more and see if that can help me make my decision. 

Works Cited

O’Keeffe , Conor. “A Beginners Guide on How to Use CANVA.” How Great Marketing Works, 1 June 2017, https://www.howgreatmarketingworks.com/how-to-use-canva/.

Shah, Pankil. “How to Edit Images in CANVA.” Guiding Tech, 16 Oct. 2021, https://www.guidingtech.com/how-to-edit-images-in-canva/.

Rossi, Tata. “Photo Editing Tips for Better Photos.” FixThePhoto.com, 26 Jan. 2022, https://fixthephoto.com/photo-editing-for-beginners.html.