First Draft For Front Cover

This is my first draft for my music magazine front cover. I decided to have this photo for my front cover out of the final three sure to it being very simple and individual which connected with the music genre; indie rock. I felt that the white background worked very well in how I can easily have the text contrasting with the background with a variety of different bright and bold colours. In this case I have used a bright, blue colour for some significant text on the front cover, the bright, blue colour allowed it to stand out and therefore catch the readers eye and engage them. The text at the bottom which reads 'page 12 and 13' is overlapping the image slightly, I did this on purpose to gain to more attention to that specific section. This will then hopefully make them notice it and want to turn to these pages to find out more. One of the advertisements I used is a free competition to win tickets to see Lana Del Ray live, Lana Del Ray is a very popular artist nowadays and giving my target audiences the chance to see her live for free should fully engage them as they won't want to miss out on this once in a  lifetime offer. The masthead is in a big, black font at the top, I feel that the black contrasts really well against the white background therefore drawing more attention to it. However, not everything about this music magazine front cover it beneficial. from my target audiences opinions, I have gathered information on where I can massively improve and focus on certain areas. Nathalie Wright said "The magazine is very good and a lot stands out which is the main key for magazines, however, on the other hand, it is very simple and boring. Perhaps you could use a bit more colour to liven it up and fill in some of the gaps." I took advise from my audience and thought to improve I will use more colour, however, I don't want to use too many different contrasting colours that may confuse the reader and make my music magazine look too busy. I also feel that using too many various bright colours will also take away the vintage look, I want to pursue this as it connects well with my music genre; indie rock. Another point Nathalie made was about the blank spaces, to fill these I will add more images and more text to produce a front cover that engages the reader and makes them feel involved with numerous sections to look at and take in. 

I looked at a music magazine that covers a range of music genres such as indie rock. The Q music magazine is very similar to mine as it's almost all black and white like the image I have, now I will just look at what Q have done to make it come across more lively and how they made significant texts stand out. 
The use of colour is very important as the masthead is the only thing that really stands out by the use of colour. On the other hand they have also used a blue colour to highlight certain words such as 'beast', this may be because the word beast relates to the image of the black jaguars. Q have also used the colour ed to highlight certain words, for instance 'wicked' and 'exclusive', these are important words and draw the readers attention to that specific section. Lastly, they have written Lilly Allen across her body from one side of the front cover stretching out to the other side. This automatically tells the reader who it is in the image if they didn't already know, this benefits the magazine as Lilly Allen is a very big artist. 
Overall, I will take into consideration some of the tactics Q have used to engage the reader, I will incorporate some of these into my second draft to hopefully produce a the best possible music magazine front cover that will fulfil my target audiences needs.


Questionnaire:

I made a questionnaire of two simple questions to get feedback on my first draft for my front cover of my magazine. I asked three people all ages to a range of feedback to help me improve.

Nathalie:

1. What did you like about it? I like how the title really stands out and it is easy to tell what music genre it is.

2. What would you improve? Add more to it to fill the spaces, like more images,  interesting snippets of information including things like tour dates and competitions.

Leanne:

1. What did you like about it? I liked how it is all set out, with the image and how everything goes well together. It looks really calm which suits your music genre.

2. What would you improve? I would try and add more to fill the spaces and also add a bit more colour, maybe red? as at the moment it look quite boring.

Mike:

1. What did you like about it? I like how the colour of the text contrasts with the background, for instance, the blue on white and black on white; it really helps it stand out.

2. What would you improve? I would again add more in to fill the blank spaces by putting more short snippets of information.