Stages of DevelopmentFront Cover construction Original Image: To start with, I inserted the image of my friend Duaine who I took

to a music studio and told to put headphones around his neck and stand in front of a microphone (musical props) to make him look like a more realistic artist:

I didnt like the background, thought it wasnt suitable to be on a front cover, therefore I decided to cut around his body using the polygonal lasso tool:

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Masthead: Next was the Masthead for my magazine which I decided previously was going to be called the Underground. For this, I wanted to grasp a unique style and font. Therefore, I went onto a site online which offered many different fonts and ended up with this:

This was a bit plain and may not grab attention which is what a magazine masthead is required to do. (Also it doesnt carry any sort of colour theme that the magazine carries on throughout the issues) Therefore I played with various effects to try and accomplish this:

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The effect I added to the masthead allowed it to carry a sort of tarmac/gravelly texture which reflected on the literal street life of the underground genre which most of the underground artists originally come from. The slow grey to black gradient and red backdrop helped carry the colour scheme of the magazine.

My next step was to play on the Underground theme. Although the London Underground tube service isnt directly relevant with underground hip-hop- the fact that most of the UKs best Underground hip-hop artists come from London, and the music genres name carries the name of the tube line, I thought it would be nice to play on this effect:

This was made by simply drawing a red circle and a blue rectangle and repositioning them. I added the same tarmac/gravelly effect on the
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Underground sign that I did on the Masthead writing. This was so as to ensure it played along with the colour scheme and joined as a whole with the writing to make one final masthead:

Inserting Caption/Flasher/Footer: I decided that on my cover I would like: A caption that went under the masthead, a flasher and a footer. I thought this was all my magazine needed on its cover, as I didnt want to make it too cramped, as this would make it look messy and unprofessional. Caption

Flasher

Footer

Caption: The use of my magazines caption REAL HIP-HOP underneath the Masthead, was an idea I had to help the promotion of this genre. Underground hip-hop pride themselves for the fact that they carry the unique hip-hop that was the prime use and core back in the early days were hip-hop was used for the oppressed to express themselves. (Not for promoting corruption and hedonistic lifestyles which hip-hop has been turned into in these modern days). [I inserted the text and added effects such as red stroke]
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Flasher: The flasher advertises a brilliant freebie which many underground fans [Especially for fans of the artist Karma (Duaine)] as it informs them of a free distribution of one of his mixtapes. This is a major seller and will hopefully bring in many customers. However, through out my research, most of the magazines placed their flashers in the left third and some didnt even adopt the flasher or rule of thirds technique at all. But, due to the angle that my image was shot, I did not want to cover Duaine/Karmas eyes or face by placing the flasher in the left third. [I added effects such as the red drop shadow and grey to black gradient]

Footer: The footer was a technique I used in the footsteps of previous magazine I had researched into. It was previously used to display artists that were featured inside the magazine. Here I displayed top underground artists which will allow me to draw in their fans and encourage them to pick up a copy and buy it- so they can read about their favourite top underground rappers. Main sell line and barcode: Now it was time to get some sell lines/cover lines on my front cover. Because the artist Karma was displayed on my front cover, I made my main cover line about him (As well as the flasher deal):

This was made by inserting the text and adding special effects such as colour overlay, strokes, inner/outer glows and drop shadows.

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The barcode is the key and essential part to any magazine. Without a barcode, the magazine can not sell. It also carries key information for the reader, as it displays the price, the issue number and the date of the issue which many regular as well as new readers always find very important and useful.

Other sell lines: The other sell line was an EXCLUSIVE sell line, which meant that it was a special story which only the Underground have been privileged to have access to:

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The EXCLUSIVE banner was a font that made it look like it had been stamped onto the page, this creative effect helped me highlight the exclusivity of the area. I added bevel texture edits, as well as a black colour overlay and white stroke. The rest of the writing was all in the same font but with different colours. The black overlay and white stroke was used for the majority of the writing, but when it introduced the artists name SiGuy, then a red colour overlay and black stroke was used. (All writing had a drop shadow effect as well) The red was used to make the artists name stand out and be bold amongst the rest of the writing. The picture on the front cover is an image of the artist that is being exclusively interviewed by the Underground by the name of SiGuy who is my Uncle Simon. For this, I inserted the original image into Photoshop, edited it separately, then imported the new edited version onto the front cover. I cropped it so only a small square of his face showed and then tilted it and made it sit behind the text. I then finished it off by adding a final stroke effect to add a sort of frame to the image.

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