1st draft of magazine front cover

This is the first draft of my front cover. What I think that has been a success for my front cover is the house style (grey, red, black and white), which is related to the image by the T-shirt he is wearing. I also think that all the colours stand out especially the white. I find that the layout of my magazine does look like a music magazine, which is a positive, because if I challenge the codes and conventions it will look too different, and the audience might be put off it. I like the way that I gave done my barcode with the price, date and website underneath, in my opinion I think that looks professional. In my view that the plus sign that is in the bottom left hand corner is very unique and I think that there is no point of inserting any text to identify what it is because I think it is self-explanatory. I have followed the traditional codes and conventions of a magazine by putting the date and the issue number underneath the masthead. I think that the research i done before hand of front covers have extremely helped, as I had some idea of what a front cover looked like. In my view I liked how I put the left side third on the right for two reasons because it fills that empty space in background and it is very different as people usually put it on the left whereat is supposed to go. I like the way that I have positioned the artist’s names at the bottom of the page instead of the top because it looks different and unique. As there is a quote on my front cover, when the audience read my double page spread they will be able to identify that this is where the quote is from linking the front cover to the contents page. There are many things that I need to change. The hair on the image looks very edited which would make the audience very wary of my magazine as they might think it is artificial. I personally don't think my masthead is very rock and roll, I think that is more suitable for a Hip-Hop or R&B. So I am going to change the name of my magazine. Where the text says "Exclusive Interview" it clashes with the red on the T Shirt and I think that the audience will find it hard to see what it says. Although the plus sign looks good, I think I would have to change the colour, yet again because it clashes with the black sleeve on the T Shirt, I think I would change to grey, as it might clash with the background I would put a thin black outline so it stands out and it doesn't converge with the background. The sides lines need to be altered, as they are not in line, which makes it, look unprofessional. Same again that I would change the colour of the artists names as it clashes with the red text in the T Shirt.