Front Cover Development

This is a selection of images to show the development of the creation of my front cover photo for my magazine. It starts with a picture taken of two unique looking people (me and Maia) posing using colloquial body language (relaxed, leaning, closed eyes, peace signs). This will connote the hippy, carefree vibes that will be present throughout my magazine.
The original photo was taken against a mostly white background and so that the camera shows the entire body. The white background also makes it easier to use the Magic Wand tool on Photoshop to delete areas in which the background would be inserted, i.e. hand-drawn hippy art, exciting colours. The full body shot shows the different and strange clothing that the stars are wearing, helping to further accentuate the hippy and alternative vibes for my target audience.

Photography Ideas

I want the front cover/images of my magazine to be plentiful and bright in colour, with lots of hippy-esque drawings and art surrounding them. This would not only add a layer of interest to my magazine, but it would also really engage my target audience, as they would be people who admire psychedelic art and the 1970's aesthetic.
The magazines pictured below portray this extremely well, with lots of variation in eye-catching colours and art surrounding the models.
My ideas for clothing are that they will represent the hippy/psychedelic genre, filled with unusuality and interesting colours; similar to that of the artists that my magazine will be representing.
Some ideas of how I will achieve this are as follows:

• I could draw psychedelic patterns & shapes on paper and scan them in so that they could be a background for my front cover.
• I could draw patterns but instead on a sheet of A4 paper, I could draw them on a wall behind my model.
• I could draw the art on a digital program such as Photoshop, and place the model in front of it.

I want my model to be someone of unique strangeness, with equally matching clothes.
I want the model to be photographed in a mid close-up style, meaning that their face to mid torso will be visible. This will mean that their costume will be somewhat visible, along with the page having enough space around the model for art and coverlines.

Name & Masthead Ideas

These are the possible names, colours, fonts and styles I will be using for the masthead of my magazine.

Names:

Other psychedelic magazines included names such as "Kaliedoscope", "Interstellar Overdrive" and "Ugly Things", which are quite alternative, somewhat strange titles; so I have chosen to go with similarly strange names.

• Psychedelia
• Hippy
• Magic/Magick/Magik
• Hippy Magic
• Joy (haha ayy)
• Peace
• Yin-Yang
• Shroomery

Colours:

Bright, colourful fonts were used in the majority of magazines similar to my genre. Some of these were accompanied by gradients and patterns. The colours used were mostly rainbow or white against a colourful background.

Fonts:

Most fonts used quite close tracking, along with a wavey, carefree, artsy style; a very 1970's look.

• Victor Moscoso Regular
• Psychedelic HM
• Cheshire Initials
• KR Shroom
• Hobo Std
• Rosewood Std

 

After some evaluation of my decisions, I decided it would be appropriate for the artsy genre of my magazine to hand draw the masthead, instead of having a fixed font that prevents the creativity I want my magazine to portray. Fonts are a barrier to our imagination and a subconscious metaphor for not revolting against the bourgeoisie, man.

This resulted in me sketching some ideas on paper and scanning them into Photoshop, with the intent of editing them and making them look exciting and colourful.