Developing My Magazine's Design

 In order to create a cohesive design for my final product, I asked for help from my sister. She is currently studying graphic design at Sheffield Hallam University and often uses the programs I needed for my project.

I explained to her that I wanted a minimalistic design in regards to the text, whilst the images give the magazine more depth. She helped me create the ideas I had for the design using InDesign and Photoshop, which are both programs that I had no prior experience in.

The Front Cover

The first step of creating the front cover was choosing an image that would help the simple white text stand out. My sister informed of a website called Unsplash (Site Link), which features a collection of copyright-free photos for the public to use in different projects. This site is helpful because permission is not required for use of the photos, allowing much more freedom in regards to the choice of photo and ease of access if I ever wanted to change the photo I used. 

I then added the white border. I drew a rectangle on top of the image using the shape drawing tool. To cut out the window to reveal the image, I then used the pathfinder tools to remove the midsection. Using the text tools, I added the name of my magazine in the font 'Noto Sans' and the subtitle below it. To emphasise the contrast between the busy background, I decided to add a drop shadow to both the border and the text using the 'fx' button on the right-hand side panel. 

Earlier on my blog, I included a photo of the first front cover of my magazine. I altered this in order to make the magazine more aesthetically pleasing. The original cover was very busy when first looked at and the titles didn't stand out, making the design as a whole look very amateur. The entire magazine will be surrounding the topic of sustainability of the music industry and how different each area of it is. Because of this, I decided to remove the headlines on the original cover and leave the image to be the focus of the new one, with just a white bold title in the top centre area. 

Main Body of the Magazine

In order to create a longer magazine, I have decided to summarise my research in three different small essays. 

Each essay will focus on how artists are paid through three different avenues of the music industry: independently, through record labels and through streaming sites. By doing this, I hope to be able to be more thorough in my explanations and create a more realistic magazine .

I will also include advertisements and full-page images to give the magazine a cohesive design, whilst mirroring the variety of content found in actual music publications.