Front cover development;

I have created a flatplan design to act as a subtle guidelines of positioning and layout of me to shadow during the creation of the first front cover mock up;

I have decided I only want to use three cover lines and I want to spread them out on either sides of the page to gain a balanced out look of text to avoid a cluttered and busy look. I want the whole of my image to take up the whole of the page therefore avoiding the need for a background colour or border. As you  can see on the flatplan the outer lines look messy however this is the box I have created for the image to sit in which takes up the entire space therefore this is why the outer lines look messy as they have gone over the page's inner margins. However this could cause problems as I have edited my image using green/yellow tones and will need to find a colour for my cover lines to appear in which will stand out and contrast with the image. I want to follow the same structure of XXL's issue which features 'Nicki & Drake's Domination' therefore I am going to position 'Tyra's Domination' at the bottom of the page like you can see above. I have positioned the masthead and tag-line to the left of the page, creating more space on the right hand side for a cover-line to sit in.

Here is my first attempt of a mock up of my front cover having followed the same layout as the flatplan above:

 I felt that the creation of the image which I have shown in the post below, was too strong in colour, contrast and brightness, therefore I have reduced these tones on this image on my first design on Photoshop as you can see to the right. I have also stretched the image to a wider view to crop out as much of the white background as I could  as I felt that if I was going to use her as the entire background, a white background on just one side looked messy and ineffective. I have used grey and green for the text on the page as I felt that it worked with the colour scheme of the image and stood out upon it too. I have also outlined all the letters with black for the text to become a clearer read for the consumer. I have also kept to the same positioning and layout as my flatplan of the text on the page apart from the layout/positioning of the tag-line; initially I was going to rotate the tag-line slightly however when I tried this I did not feel that it looked right on the page and decided to keep it in the same theme of un-rotated text on the page. I have cropped the image to the point where you can hardly see her top; I have decided to do this to gain a larger focus on her headphones and 'Shh..'.  I have also added a bar code illustration at the bottom right of the page as I did not want to place it to the left as it would cover up parts of her hair. I have not positioned the 'HIGH TOPS' cover-line as close as I have the 'FEATURING' cover-line to the margin of the page; if I positioned the 'FEATURING' cover-line any further to the left it would be covering her cheek to much however if I am going to stick to this positioning of this cover-line in my final design I will need to move 'HIGH TOPS' cover-line to the margin more to gain an equal effect on either sides of the page. I also need to add the price of the magazine and the date of the issue and I aim to do this on my final design somewhere surrounding the masthead and tag-line.

 Below are three examples of font design I have created.  I have done this to experiment and see if I visually preferred a more interesting font for the title of my magazine in comparison to the original design displayed on my first attempt above (I have also used italic font for 'REDEFINING HIPHOP' to differentiate. 

I used a bevel and emboss effect on the first example, to allow the letters to appear more sharper, I have used an inner shadow effect on the second example to add emphasis on to the letters and allow them to appear in a darker and bolder grey and I have used a drop shadow effect on the last example for an exaggerated reflective shadow behind each letter. My preferred choice of font design is the first example as it appears as closer to my original design in terms of less effect. I do not wish to use any of three examples however I wanted to try them out to just experiment and see other styles. I want to stick to my original as I believe it appears as the most realistic as its a simple and follows conventions of Hiphop music magazines ensuring that I reach my target audience effectively.