Developing My Cover Page

 

Originally I had planned on sticking with this design for my cover page, but upon further research of magazine conventions seen in black hair and beauty/skin publications, like Essence, Ebony, and Black Beauty & Hair I decided that my draft did not exactly meet the standards of my magazine genre. For one I felt the cover looked washed out and empty, which is the exact opposite of black hair and beauty/skin magazines. So I partially scraped the cover page, only leaving behind the taglines, masthead, main image, anchor text, cover lines, buzz words, and barcode.

The masthead was bleak and camouflaged, and while I tried to do a monochromatic look for the main image the pink on-pink background had a camouflage effect as well. So therefore, I replaced the main image's background with the original back drop and filled "Lux" in with a neon green color to draw attention to the masthead. I also brightened the blues and yellows into a neon color to brighten the page.

At this point the cover had an excess amount of free space along the taglines and cover lines that made the page looked barren. I referred  to my tagline and cover line research,  and found that the words were sparse compared to what is usually found in black hair and beauty/skin magazines, so I began to fill in the empty spaces with content. After filling in the empty space along the sides of the page with more taglines and cover lines the page still didn't appear visually appealing. I blurred the background of the main image so that the text on the page became easy to read and allows the image to become the center of attention. I also added and neon blue and green shadows behind the cover lines to add color to the page and make the title stand out. These slight changes made a huge difference in the appearance of my cover page as it looked more realistic and adheres to the conventions of magazines.