Front Cover Deconstruction

Masthead: I chose against putting a masthead on my front cover. This is quite an usual decision to of made with music magazines, as many of them have mastheads. However, the classical music magazines that I looked at didn't have one, so I decided to follow this trait. In the space where the masthead would normally go I have put little details, like the website and the issue date and number. I have also included a puff, which states that the magazine is the biggest in the UK. I quite like the effect of all of this, without the big block of masthead. I think that it makes it appeal more to the older realm of target audience.

Font for Title: This is a font which I downloaded off of http://www.dafont.com/ under the Calligraphy section. I really like this font. I personally think that the style of the writing shows immediatly that it is a more sophisticated magazine, and therefore of the Classical Music genre. I was originally planning on carrying this font throughout the front cover, but I decided that it looked to crowded and difficult to read. I then decided to choose a classic font for the rest of the front page.

The freebie Badge: I decided that I would add a badge to place the freebie/competition in, so that it would stand out more. I chose the colour blue to make the sphere as it is completly different from the rest of the colours on the page. This way it will be one of the first things that people look at when they see my magazine. This is magnified by the fact that is placed in the area of the magazine which instantly draws the attention from the eye of the reader.

Background Colour: I chose to use light grey as the background for my magazine for many reasons. I like that it is quite pale, which also follows in the line with the other classical music magazines I analysed. I think that it means that it doesn't wash out the rest of the colours on the magazine. I also didn't want to choose a white background like many other magazines of the same genre, because it makes the whole magazine appear very empty and spacious.

Other Typefaces: For the rest of the fonts on the front cover I have chosen to use the font Verdana. This was already downloaded onto Gimp as a default font. I liked this font because it is very basic, which balances out the complicated font that I used in the main title. I chose to place the title of the article alongside the picture, unlike in my designs. This was because when I placed it above the picture, it didn't show up as well as it did beside it. I also made the main part of the article title in Verdana Bold and the rest in plain Verdana.