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.
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