Music magazine cover planning

When planning my music magazine I created a range of sketches with possible front cover layouts. The majority of my first layout possibilities were quite conventional and each included the basic features of  a magazine front cover to keep the cover simple but still effective and aesthetically pleasing.

Above, I sketched four different layouts that I thought would allow me to include the content I wanted whilst still being easy to read, and would appeal to my target audience. Each layout included one image of the featured artist as well as a masthead, a sell line and a range of cover lines. Although this doesnt sound like much, it keeps the page simple yet still looking professional which would appeal to my target audience. I liked each layout for various reasons. For example, the third design, on the bottom left was slightly unconvetional, featuring the masthead down the side of the magazine rather than the top, but offered a unique twist to the magazine. The bottom right layout created quite an organised look with the image and the cover lines justified to opposite sides of the page. I disliked the top right design the most because it was too simple with not enough contents, making it appear unproffesional and not very aesthetically pleasing. My design in the top left was the most conventional but I decided this was the layout I wanted my magazine front cover to have. However I decided I would like to eliminate the sell line at the bottom and replace it with a website address. In this particular layout, I like the left justified masthead and the centered image of the artist. I think the simple layout with coverlines either side of the artists allows the attention to be focused on the right aspects such as the featured artist and the magazine features (stated in the coverlines).

As well as layout ideas, I also thought of a range of cover lines to feature on the front of my magazine which would also be carried through to my contents page. Due to my tagret audience and my magazine genre, the majority of my cover lines were realted to gigs, bands, festivals etc. I decided on a few cover lines that I definitely wanted to feature on the front of my magazine including, "Harvest at Jimmys, from the acts eyes", "747, the up and coming indie band talk usking and gig venues", "Gison special" and "Darwin Deez, the michael jackson of indie rock". I then created a range of sketches with ideas for my main image on the front cover. I decided I would use a female model and then came up with a range of possible settings/poses the images could be taken in but finally decided that I wanted my image to be very simple and in the center of the magazine so that the attention is kept on the artist, giving the audience a figure to recognise.