First ideas of the LogoThe magazine I was making was about the music genre hip-hop. This genre has a really urban lifestyle of how many celebrities and people expose, and attract attention to themselves through music, fashion, and trends. This idea gave me a concept of a logo that would relate to these factors in a form of bright attractive and unique look. I chose rough ideas of how it would look like by asking classmates through a small physical questionnaire. This allowed me to come up with the idea of a typographic logo, or basic background edited logo as seen below.

The logo seen here was the first idea that came to mind. As you can see the music symbol has been placed before the letters. This was a way to show the audience that the logo was revolved around the topic music.

The second logo was a well favourite judging by the classroom questionnaire as it gave a more magazine and unique touch due to its simplicity. This is shown as the name of the magazine has been shortened down to initials and place in a round shape. This allows the logo to be more fitting on a magazine front cover and more appealing to the right audiences as its colours really stand out.

Progression of the ideas of “The Rhythm” Magazine

As seen here, I used the magic selection tool on Adobe Photoshop to make a easy selection around the CHOSEN section of my logo. This allowed me to accomplish what I wanted and to fill in a gradient affect inside the letters. This gives of a bright but yet slick colour inside the letter to make it stand out.

12 This is the gradient tool

which I used to give it the colourful finish.

I typed “the rhythm” text via PowerPoint as the chosen font was available. I then also used the reflection affect to give each letter the reflection.

Justification of logo

I chose this logo for my magazine as the name which is shortened to “T.R”, was visually a good way in which the audience see the magazine. This is because the audience would want to furtherer know what it ideally stands for, which is “The Rhythm”. This name was chosen to be in the logo as it personifies the hip-hop genre. This implies that hip hop music is very known to have a good rhythm to its instrumentals.

The round circle shape of the finished logo (which includes the magazines initials), really visually appeals to many people who sees or reads the magazine. This is a good thing as it is showing off the name of the magazine, which fits in with the genre (hip-hop)which has “rhythm”.

An example is VIBE magazine is recognisable with hip-hop due actual “vibe” people get into listening to hip hop music. This same concept was applied to my logo/name which is “the rhythm” as rhythm is something the genre hip hop has.

First drafts and versions of the magazine front cover

Before the final copy of my main magazine front cover, I had developed a draft front cover which I could not go forward with later on. This was due to the lack of lighting and exposure in the images that I took with the camera. A brief questioning was done, where I asked my classmates on the overall opinion on the magazine. The feedback was that it didn't’ have that magazine touch in terms of a macho hip-hop look. The drafts below were my drafts which I made on Adobe Photoshop and QUARK, I used these software's for both editing and assembling.

In the image below, is the process where I added an lightening effect to my image for my front cover. This effect is called the “spotlight” effect. I clicked on “filter” then “render” which then allowed me to click on “lightning effect”. As you can see in the final step, the “selection tool” then allowed me to hover a circle around the area I desired the light to be above. This was really helpful as I could adjust it to the size I wanted.

Further progression of first draft of my magazine

I then used the program QUARK, to assemble the edited image alongside with the old first draft logo. This was the first overall finish in terms of DESIGNING and placement.

Other methods and drafts for my original cover

Below are my progression and rough ideas and ways of designing a front cover. Along the time I done this I learnt a lot about adobe Photoshop and how to assemble and edit pictures with quark. These two images below were my original ideas for my first magazine front cover, as seen I blended/faded the two images below to give it a slick and smooth effect which stands both pictures out.

Final Images to choose from for magazineThe following image was taken of a fellow class mate, who I had stood in a hallway with a plain white background. This allowed the main source of the image to stand out more. As seen below, I had the class member dress in a really macho, aggressive looking outfit. This included a hooded jumper with a look that had no facial impression. This related to the genre of hip-hop and how artist/celebrities in VIBE magazines use the macho style and personality in their pictures to really symbolize what they do.

Cropped using Adobe Photoshop

Progression of First image

As seen here. It is a cropped version of my fellow classmate. I used adobe Photoshop to adjust the lightening on the image. By doing this, I went to the “image” tab. And then selected “adjustments”. From there I selected the “brightness/contrast” option which gave me the scrolling option to switch the “brightness” or “contrast” up or down. As seen here.

After I was happy with this, I furthermore added the “lightning effect” to the image which I will show in the next slide.

Use of quark for final image

The use of quark was really effective as it was a good software to merge all the final pieces together, and to construct it together. The use of quark allowed me to blend the final image with different colors in the background, along with different text box styles, fonts, and image effects.As seen here the background I chose was to make sure that the original picture stands out. I went with a black background, along side with a white gradient in a shape of a diamond to really emphasis the color and main image.

As seen below, I used the “scale” tool to move the picture on top of the black background. This really brought out the main image of the magazine as the color of the original image was more orange in terms of “brightness and contrast”

In the next slide I am going to talk about the text boxes, and use of colors.

Use of quark for text boxes and coloursAs seen here, I blended in different colors of the text in order for it to mix in with the picture and background. For example, I used the dark red background behind the text to make the text really stand out to the reader. This was done by mixing dark red, with a black background to make the text appear brighter and create exposure in the text.

Below is how I used the QUARK menu to apply different colours to the text, as well as fonts. The colors panel allowed me to choose from a selection of different colours.

Furthermore I used the measurement tool box where it allowed me to present different styles of fonts, size, and effects of the text. This allows to give my front page magazine to have a colorful and attractive finish.

Redo of my front cover After I produced my original front page design, I then decided that I want to

redo my front cover magazine. This is because I wanted to have a more professional/formal magazine look referring back to real life hip-hop magazines.

As seen here is a comparison of my magazine I changed the conventions of certain major things.

However I have kept majority of the conventions the same such as; - Barcode- Date and price- Bottom third (such as information related to the magazine.)

Change of main image to present a

more ‘hip-hop’ image by showing

most of the body.

Replacement of logo to ensure it

fits the space with the purpose of

making it look more

‘clean/tidy’

Replacement of logo to ensure it

fits the space with the purpose of

making it look more

‘clean/tidy’