Section Six: Creating the Front Cover

Today I started working on the front cover of my magazine. The front cover is one of the most important aspects as this is the first thing the customer sees and it could easily influence their purchasing decision. I had already decided to illustrate the main image and attempted to create an illustration of Corrie, as shown in previous blog posts.

I wasn't really happy with the illustration as it didn't turn out quite how I imagined however I tried to edit it with Adobe Photoshop, and make it work. I increased the saturation of colours and used the spot healing tool to alter any mistakes. One of the issues I had was that the drawing wasn't bold enough so I used Adobe Illustrator to add an outline over the top.

I was a bit happier with the drawing at this point so proceeded to add it to the cover. I applied on different colour backgrounds white, black, light, dark, bright, pastel and muted but it just didn't sit right. The truth is the image wasn't strong enough to be used on a front cover and with not much time to recreate the drawing I decided it was best to use a photograph instead.

With Corrie's permission I picked out some of her photos to try instead. I had a go at using the photo that my illustration was based off. I used a combination of the 'Quick Selection' and 'Magic Wand' tool on Adobe Photoshop to erase the background (feathering the edges so it didn't have any harsh edges) and placed in my background. Again, it just wasn't sitting right however I didn't think the background of the photo (her bed) was professional enough for the front cover of a magazine so I looked for other options.

After I experimented with a few options, I eventually settled on the image I was going to use for the contents page. The photo has a neutral background which works really well on the cover and makes it look polished and professional. It isn't as playful as I wanted but I tried add playful fonts to balance it out.

Above you can see I added the logo over the top of the image. Grey seemed to be the best colour option as it stood out from both the background and foreground, and added to the polished look. I used the eye drop tool to pick out accent colours in the photo and experimented with using them on the 'Issue Date' text. The option the looked best was a golden yellow, colour that matched the highlights of her hair.

Next I considered how I wanted to present her name. I liked the idea of having a very minimal front cover with just "Featuring" and then her name. It's a bit risky as I'm assuming most people know who she is however I don't want to overcomplicate the cover and make it look like a tabloid/gossip magazine. Minimalism tends to have a more premium feel.

I found a font on MyFonts.com called Avaline. To find it I searched the term "feminine" and was drawn to this font for it's girliness and informality. It was balanced well against the more geometric Century Gothic and is also similar to the brush calligraphy fonts that bloggers seem to use in their own blog logos.

As you can see I had a little trouble getting the text to stand out against the background. I tried changing the colour of the text, adding a semi transparent box over the top to wash out the background and having an opaque coloured box around it but neither looked right.

Eventually the best balance was white text for her name and gold text for the word 'featuring'. It allowed both to stand out well against the background and also complimented the rest of the colours on the cover.

Here is the final cover.

I think it works much better than the first cover (with the illustration) and looks like something you would really see in a shop.

Section Six: Illustrations

 Today I created some watercolour illustrations to use in the magazine.

The above illustrations are of the beauty products I want to feature in the beauty survival kit. I'm particularly proud of the nail polish bottle as (no pun intended) it looks rather polished and professional. 

When I started illustrating the products I intended to illustrate all of them however throughout the process I thought about having illustrations of a few of alternating products, as not to the fill up the page too much with imagery. I want this article to be a double page spread at most and having too many illustrations could make the article appear cramped. 

I found it particularly hard to add the typography for the brand logos on the packaging. Instead I'm going to add them digitally which should give them a similar effect to the Sally Cotterill and Judit Mallol illustrations. 

The hand written title 'The Art of Vintage' would be nice to use as well. 

Above are my experiments for the Fox & Feather article illustrations. For the title page I want to have a hand drawn logo of a fox with two feathers criss crossing underneath. The fox illustrations as pretty straight forward and I was happy on the first attempt! I think it works well as it's simplistic.

 I like the physical anatomy of peacock feathers so I experimented with creating illustrations of them to use in the logo. I tried a few attempts of painting it with watercolour however it wasn't sitting right next to the image of the fox. I decided to draw it with a fine liner instead and I much prefer this. It ties the two elements of the fox and feathers together really well. I'm going to digitally copy and paste the feather and arrange the illustration digitally too. 

To the side of the image are some "doodles" I will be including in The Blog Space article. I picked out some of the elements from Anna's blog space (shown below) such as the arrows on the "Be You Tiful" sign and created some similar elements. I decided to go for black as there are accents of black in the photograph. I will use Photoshop to intensify the black as at the moment it's a bit "wishy washy".

Below are the illustrations I'm including in the Cry Baby review. The album artwork has a lot childish themes and elements, with clouds and raindrops also featuring a lot. I went for the bow illustration as it's quite innocent and childish which fits with Melanie Martinez's whole aesthetic. It's probably my favourite illustration out of all the illustrations I created and I think it will look great on the corner of an image as if it is "pinning" it to the page. 

I created some clouds and tears/raindrops as well. To create them I kept the paints quite watery and added drops of colour whilst the paints were still wet on the page to give a marbled affect. I wanted them to look "wet" as if they are staining the page and I am happy with the results. The purple and bluey tones fit with with the album cover which I have show below for reference. 

Cry Baby Album Cover

I also created an illustration of a birthday cupcake and candle to use in the editor's letter as well as some hand rendered lettering for The Art Child title. 

Above are my experiments for the 7 Healthy Snacks illustrations. I started off by drawing the snacks (in this case the Nakd bar) but felt something wasn't quite right. Instead I went for watercolour versions of some of the brand logos which I think will be really interesting on the spread. Again, like the beauty survival kit, I didn't want to illustrate all of the products mentioned as I want the images to  decorate the article rather than be the main focus. 

Above is my final illustration of Corrie. I did a few experiments however this was the best I could do. I previously experimented with painting on top of a digital outline (so it would have a similar quality to the Dimitrios Chonos illustration) however the paper wasn't great quality and the watercolours didn't work well on it.

Eventually I just drew a pencil outline and painted it in stages. To be honest, I'm not overly happy with the illustration. It isn't of the quality I was hoping for and I didn't get to spend as much time on it as I wanted. However, I think that the rough-round-the-edges style MIGHT work for my style of magazine. I'm going to try and digitally edit it and see if I can make it look a bit more polished.

(I also had trouble scanning it but will work around this too).

I'm going to be editing all of the illustrations digitally just to intensify the saturation and again make them a bit more polished (getting rid of pencil lines etc). Overall I am mostly happy with the illustrations.

Section Six: Editing Fox & Feather Photos

Here is how I edited the photos from the Fox & Feather shoot. Although I was happy with the general compositions I wanted to edit them so that certain aspects would stand out. The original colouring didn't do Leigh's hair justice and I wanted it to really pop against the backgrounds and her pale skin. 

The first thing I did (and always do) is edit the Brightness & Contrast. The original image was quite dull and flat, so I brought up the brightness quite a lot and upped the contrast a little too. I also played around with the 'Levels' to adjust the depth of the shadows, highlights and mid tones.

Next I altered the colour balance. Cooler tones tend to look a lot crisper and is popular in the blogging community. I increased the level of blue and magenta in the image, adding a tiny bit more red too.

To start giving the hair more vibrancy I started altering smaller sections of the image. Using the 'Quick Selection Tool' I selected the background and Leigh's skin. I used the 'Dodge' and 'Sponge' tool to brighten and desaturate the areas. I think selected the hair and sections of the waistcoat, and used the 'Sponge' tool to saturate them. This really helped the colours to "pop".

Her top looked a little creased on closer inspection of the image, so I used the 'Spot Healing' tool to take out blemishes on the clothing and a little bit on her skin (which she asked me to as she was self conscious that she had spots that day).

I then just went in and realtered some of the settings like the brightness & contrast and caturation until I was happy with the results.

I generally used the same editing methods for the rest of the images (adjusting settings accordingly) so that they all had the same style. Here are the final images I want to include in the magazine.

Section Six: Fox & Feather Photoshoot

I have hit a few bumps along the way but I've finally managed to successfully arrange and complete the Autumn lookbook photo shoot! I remembered meeting a fashion blogger called Leigh Travers,  last year, who had a very distinctive, orange hair colour which would be perfect for an Autumnal photo shoot. Thankfully Leigh agreed to do the shoot and I met up with her in Southampton earlier this week.

She mainly wears vintage clothing and naturally chooses a lot of Autumnal tones which was ideal. I gave her a few suggestions on which outfits I wanted her to bring based on her outfit posts, but also give her freedom to put some original outfits together too.

We met up in West Quay and she had brought a suitcase full of her outfits and was eager to get started. We began shooting in a nearby park as I thought having nature in the background would really express the Autumnal theme. However, once I started shooting the images weren't really "popping". There was too much going on in the background and it wasn't allowing her distinct features, and vibrant patterned clothes to take centre stage.

I didn't know the area too well but Leigh suggested the old Tudor town round the corner, as it went with the vintage theme. When I arrived I knew it was perfect! All the buildings had beautifully textured brick work that would look amazing in the background but were also muted, neutral tones that wouldn't interfere with the shots.

We ended up shooting for over three hours (we had a lot of fun!) and Leigh was so co-operative. It was a pleasure to work with her and she really put effort into making the shoot work well. I've ended up with some excellent shots that you can see below. I have highlighted the ones I then chose to take forward and edit.

After the shoot we stopped for coffee and got talking about how hard it is to find vintage clothing and I asked her about how she manages to find such good pieces. I ended up turning it into an article in itself,  called 'The Art of Vintage Shopping', so all in all it was a very productive day and I'm very happy with the results.

The name of Leigh's blog is Fox & Feather which I think already has a very autumnal vibe. I've decided to simply name the lookbook'Fox & Feather Autumn Lookbook".

Section Six: Choosing a Printer

I currently have two main options for printing the magazine. I obviously want it to look professional and like a real magazine so I have discounted a lot of the online printing services and local printing shops are extremely costly. Therefore my two options are Blurb.co.uk and the printing service at university. 

As you can see above the Blurb magazines are very professional looking and from reading reviews the printing and paper quality is excellent. I really like the look/sound of the premium magazine as it has a matte cover, which looks a lot more, well, premium. It also comes with perfect binding which I have wanted to do since I researched other magazines. I just think it looks more professional and high quality than staples. 

There aren't many customisable features with this option however I am happy with the preset features. The dimension of the magazines are 22 x 28cm which is slightly different to A4 and looks a bit wider, which I like. It will set Blogette a part from other magazines and hopefully would allow it to stand out on the shelves. 

Blurb also offers and Adobe InDesign Plug In for creating the magazine which is handy. They do offer pre made templates but I won't be using them as I want to create my own style and layout. 

Above I calculated the printing and shipping costs and times to help me make my decision.  It it does workout to be quite costly for a one off print however I am more than happy to spend this kind of money for a high quality print.

My other option (and my "back up plan") is the university printing service. The quality isn't AS good however turn around time is quite quick and the cost is lower (I also don't have to pay for shipping costs which is great).

I am going with Blurb for the time being and will use the Plug In to get started with my design. I'm aiming to send the magazine to print no later than the beginning of February and will pay the Priority shipping costs to ensure it arrives well before the deadline.

Section Six: The Editor's Letter

Below is my completed editor's letter, which I am rather happy with!

I wanted it to feel chatty and not be too long like Glamour's editors' letter was but I also wanted it to introduce the magazine properly and give an overview of what the issue includes.

I think I managed to achieve all of those things! 

Section Six: Article Update

I have now written all of the articles! I started writing them shortly after I finished all at my interviews and have just been working away at them at a steady pace. The contents list has changed a bit since my original plan but I'm happy with the finished articles and think it will be a great magazine!

This is the final list of articles:

• What’s in my bag: uni edition
• The Blog Space
• How to Balance Blogging & Uni
• The Fresher’s Beauty Survival Kit
• Fox & Feather Autumn Lookbook
• The Art of Vintage Shopping
• How I Became a Full Time Blogger
• Do’s & Don’ts of Hosting a Meet Up
• #thegirlgang
• The Art child
• Flat Lay Photography Masterclass
• Gluten-Free Pesto Pasta Salad 
• 7 Healthy Snack Ideas
• Blogette Book Club
• Feature review: Cry Baby
• Blog doctor

This is also the order that I want the articles to be in. I have decided not to separate them into categories as there are not lots of articles in one category (for instance, there is only one beauty article) and some of the articles are applicable to more than one category (.i.e. The Blog Space could be classed as blogging, lifestyle and interiors/home).

Instead I have ordered them so that articles that are related to each other or are of a similar nature appear next to each other. I have also put the university based articles at the beginning of the magazine, as this is the main theme this month.

I want to separate the articles on the contents page into 'Classics', 'Features' and 'Extras'. I have decided I want the articles to appear in numerical order therefore 'Classics' will be What's in My Bag: Uni Edition and The Blog Space (which are recurring series), 'Features' will be from How to Balance Blogging & Uni to The Art Child and 'Extras' will cover the rest.

The extras are things that might be featured every month but also might vary. For instance, Meg, who I recruited as the "health editor" wants to possibly do some workout articles in future issues however in this one she has only done food related articles.

I have also wrote up a review for the album Cry Baby by Melanie Martinez. I felt the magazine was lacking reviews of any kind, and reviews are standard content that bloggers expect to see. The beauty survival kit already "reviews" beauty products so I didn't want to add a beauty review and the fashion section was already quite lengthy.

I decided to review this album as it's a very creative and unusual album. Melanie has almost created her own genre of music with the album, and at just 21 years old she is a great role model for my target audience and is very popular with that audience. I also though it'd be interesting to express some of the creative themes through illustrations on the pages and there is a lot of room to make this spread creative.

In regards to the What's in My Bag post, I had quite a bit of trouble putting this together. My vision for the post was to have a "collage" of different bloggers' uni bags with a short comment underneath, a small photograph of the blogger and links to their blog and social media pages. However, after contacting around 20 student bloggers I only got responses from 3 and only 2 sent me their photos in time. Also the two photos as you can see below do not match up. I appreciate the effort Megan went to in the first image however it was taken on her phone and the image quality is considerably lower than in Pippa's photo. I made the decision to just feature Pippa's photo and make the article just about her. She has submitted a larger paragraph describing what's in her bag and why she thinks the contents helps her in her university life.

Megan's Photo

Pippa's photo

Another article I had issues with was the book club. Again, I had contacted a wide range of bloggers and had put a lot of appeals on social media. I wanted to pick a book that people had already read as that would mean they would only have to send over a quick review, making them more likely to take part. On the social media appeals I asked for people who had read either  #GirlBoss (which was very popular in the blogging community not long ago, so I assumed a lot of people would have) or Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling as both are "girl power" books.

I had a lot of applicants and from the responses, decided to go with the Mindy Kaling book. I asked everyone back at the start of December if they could get their reviews (one short paragraph and a rating out of 5) over to me by the start of January. Even after prompting, I only received two reviews out of the six I had planned.

To rectify the issue I searched for blogs that had already reviewed the book, contacted the authors and asked for a snippet/summary of the review to use. This proved to be much more successful and I now have five excellent reviews and an image to include in the post! I was going to take my own photo for this post but the photograph below (from surface87.com) was too good not to include and the owner (Aurelie) thankfully gave me permission to use it.

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So those are articles! Hopefully future issues will contain a lot more content but for a first issue I think this is an appropriate amount. Also some of the articles such as the lookbook will span across multiple pages which I have taken into account. I know from previous projects that the final number of pages must be a multiple of four so I have taken that into consideration too and will probably have somewhere between 72 and 84 pages (including the front and back cover).