Final Design - MACHINE Double Page Spread

The above image is my final double-page spread design for my MACHINE magazine that focuses on the genre of metal. I took design inspiration from my previous analysis' of double-page spreads from the existing magazine industry.

Bibliography:
City Scene

The above image is a screenshot taken from within Photoshop CS2 - the software package I utilised in order to produce the work. As you can see, I have made as much 'behind the scenes' material visible as possible.

Final Design - MACHINE Front Cover

The above image is my final front cover design for my MACHINE magazine that focuses on the genre of metal. I decided to include such bold elements as the Future Publishing logo and slogan "The United Kingdom's Best Selling Metal Magazine" to make the overall production feel much more 'real', and also to further display how typical mainstream magazines use wordplay to grab the attention of their target audience.

I used valuable information gained from analysing front covers from Metal Hammer and Kerrang! magazines to accurately gauge what my target audience is looking for when it comes to aesthetic and language qualities within the realm of magazine publishing.

Other than Soulfly and In Flames, I created all of the band titles myself; this was not only a creative process that was fun to engage in but a hyperbolic play on what I believe to be typical metal band names that get churned out of the music industry. I let the photograph of choice (of which I took myself) dictate the colour scheme - which is evidently shades of red, brown, black and white. I manipulated the stock image of the cityscape to follow the scheme, likewise.

One minor change to be noted is the shortening of the magazine name; instead of "The Machine" I decided to make it as minimalist as possible. This not only gives me as a designer more room to fill one word in with, but as a reader it will much more memorable due to it's decisiveness.

Bibliography:
City scene (background)
Future Publishing logo
Barcode image
Image of Tickets
The above list details the source location of images I manipulated in order to achieve the final design; as is evident I moved as far away as possible from relying on stock images - not created by myself - to serve as the focal point of the design, and therefore made the cover 'my own' creation.

The above image is a screenshot taken from within Photoshop CS2 - the software package I utilised in order to produce the work. As you can see, I have expanded the Layers tab to show as much 'behind the scenes' material as possible; noting the speciality language regarding magazine design such as "Masthead", "Banner" and "Headline".

Design - Magazine Logo Ideas

These are just some of the magazine name and logo designs that I have roughly created. Before I activate a poll for the general public to choose their favourite, I will be making more varied designs to make sure I have exhausted all angles of design to do with magazines covering the genre of metal. The following is a very brief explanation of each of the above four logo designs:

• #4 is my personal favourite out of the four, although the font might not the best for the job.
• #3 was inspired by Q magazine, and it would likewise be placed on the top left corner on each edition - possibly changing the rust effect to whatever suits the main photo each week.
• #2 looks a bit of a mess, but leaves a lot of room to comfortably fit sub-titles between the letters that stick out.
• #1 was inspired by the Total Guitar and Classic Rock magazine, so the chosen font might be way off, but the placement and 3D effect of the two words is more what I was experimenting with.

Photoshop Practise #2

For my second official practise at using Photoshop, I decided to focus on the layout and design of a magazine double-page spread. I chose a different genre of music - hip hop - as I wanted to try a completely different style than my actual design will house. This came about as I was focusing more on utilising certain tools in Photoshop, but not yet wanting to apply the target audience's needs to my design thoughts.

I utilised text from Wikipedia for the article, and took quotes from the official DVD the group has released. "Steadily shine in '10" is a play on the groups' famous line "Steadily shine in '99", from their hit single "Heavenly Divine". I made sure to include several integral elements to magazines such as puffs to make it look as professional as possible.

Photoshop Practise #1

The above image took approximately 30 minutes to complete; this was because I didn't plan what I was going to edit before starting, and so ended up changing my mind several times before settling on the current version. My image shows evidence of minimal skill in areas of photo manipulation (far right face and ring has been removed), as well as simply a good eye for "what looks right". The below links will direct you to the images I took advantage of to produce the piece of work.

I used this image for the far right face manipulation.
I used this image for the blood splatters.
I used this image for the moon in the background.