This document provides a log of Tesfah Watkins-Scott's process of designing the front cover for a reggae music magazine. It describes testing different background images and settling on one with circular patterns in red, gold, and green. A main image of the author's father holding a guitar was selected and refined. The masthead was designed using the font JF ROCK and replacing the letter "a" with a cannabis leaf. Cover lines of varying sizes were added to draw attention and provide information. The final design incorporated these refined elements along with a crowd layer to create an eye-catching cover appealing to the target audience.

1. Front Cover Production
Log
By Tesfah Watkins-Scott

2. This image shows one of the first backgrounds that I have thought
1st Background about using for the front cover of my music magazine. I chose this
background due to my research in reggae magazines where I found
a very effective magazine which is shown in my research which uses
a similar background. I think this particular image would be quite
effective because it looks a bit like the tropical environment with all
the sand from beaches in Caribbean where reggae originated.
However, I felt that this background didn’t really suit my main image
when I assembled my 1st attempt at the music magazine front cover.
To me with this particular background it made my actual magazine
look sort of like a poster because the colour scheme that I had
planned to use for my masthead did not really go well with this
specific background. Although I do feel that this background would
have a great effect on the target audience due to the tropical and
calm feeling however, I feel that it does not suit my particular layout
and colour scheme.
2nd Background This image is of the second image that I have thought about using for
the background of the front cover of my music magazine. I have
thought about using this kind of background because, during my
research about a video from a concert named ‘Unity’ it seemed to me
that it would be a great effect if I used my main image to look as if he
was on the stage facing the crowd just like a conventional concert. On
the other hand I feel that this specific background will be too dark to
use even with the bright lights there. Also, I feel like if I used a
background that uses at least two of the colours for my particular
colour scheme the masthead and main image I have in mind will
work very well. That is why out of these two backgrounds I prefer the
1st background because it uses at least one of the main colours I wish
to be included in my front cover which is gold (yellow).

3. 1st Attempt This print screen shows part of my 1st attempt at actually creating my reggae music
magazine front cover. At the start when I first began creating this specific front
cover I thought that it would actually turn out quite appealing to my target
audience however, with a little help from my media teacher and family members I
came to the conclusion that when this front cover would be fully developed it
wouldn’t have a huge effect on the audience so I know now that I have to make
changes.
Firstly, the three images that I had used at the bottom of the front cover I feel
present no meaning to my target audience and reggae except the Bob Marley
album cover (which isn’t a picture I have taken so wouldn’t give me any marks). The
image on the far left of the front cover of the pitch black outlined character in the
red, gold and green background I feel could have been effective if I used a better
image to turn black. For this particular image I was trying to create the iPod effect
where they black out the character with a colourful background. However I feel
that this did not work very well due to the fact that the image chosen to be blacked
out didn’t really have any meaning when made this colour because I feel that it just
looks like some sort of black figure which would make the audience struggle to
actually identify what the character is.

4. Secondly the image next to this is of my family on holiday in Jamaica in the
sea splashing around. I thought I could use this image to represent the fun
and peaceful side of reggae music and also link the image in with a major
cover line about a holiday. However, in the end I felt like this image could
actually represent any type of genre of music such as: indie, hip hop and jazz
because these types of genre’s all can be linked with fun and joyfulness. As
you can see the background of the front cover doesn’t really compliment the
main image that I have used especially with the red, gold and green lion
figures in the background which have been faded using the opacity tool.
These particular aspect of the front cover allow it to look more like a poster
than an actual magazine front cover. Lastly, the main image that I have used
for this front cover I feel doesn’t work really well in this particular position. A
conventional main image is meant to be very big and stand out from the rest
of the images however with this particular main image it looks as if it is being
overshadowed by the three images at the bottom of the page. Furthermore
the darken effect that I have used combined with the blur tool makes the
main image look very dull and un-appealing which is the complete opposite
of the genre of music known as reggae. After creating this I now know that I
need to make some serious changes in order to create an attractive and
unique magazine to receive a higher grade.

5. Crowd Effect
•The print screen above is of the beginning process of creating my reggae
magazine front cover. As you can see the image shows some sort of crowd
image placed on the bottom half of the Photoshop screen. To get the
image and also the affect that has been used, I saved a dark black image of
a crowd cheering. I then opened this image in Photoshop and then
dragged the image to my music magazine front cover. However, when I
dragged this image I thought to my self that the image would be to dark to
be on the bottom half of my magazine which would prevent me from
showing the rest of the background which I would place behind this layer.
Therefore, I played around with the different tools on Photoshop to try
and make this crowd image lighter or faded. I then found a tool called
opacity which allowed me to make the layer become less dark and more
see through when I made the percentage of the opacity smaller. I made
the opacity 87% which I think would work quite well when my reggae
front cover is finally created.

6. Background Image
• Now the print screen above is of when I finally found my
background for my magazine after a lot of playing around with
different backgrounds and also advice from teachers and
family members. I decided to use this particular background
because, it uses all the 3 colours red, gold(yellow) and green
which are the main colours used in the reggae and Caribbean
culture as I have stated before which will be very effective to
my target audience. Furthermore, the patterns that are used
on the background like the different circular shapes I feel add a
great amount of affect to the audience because, to me it feels
like the patterns could be associated with the musical
instruments used for this particular genre such as guitars and
trumpets due to the smooth effect. When I first dragged this
background image across to my music magazine I used the
blur tool to smooth down the sharp sections of the
background which would allow the background of my music
magazine to look more calm and peaceful to the audience
which also links in with the soothing genre of music. When this
process was completed I then dragged the background layer
underneath the crowd layer so that the crowd would then be
visible whilst the background of the magazine can still be seen.

7. Main Image
•Moreover, the screen print shown presents the main image I am going to use for my
reggae music magazine front cover. The main image used I took with a digital camera
in my house and used my dad to be part of the main image as he was actually born in
Jamaica and grew up listening to reggae music so I thought he would suit my
magazine very well. I then thought to myself, what props would suit my main image
model so that It expresses the actual genre of music. I then noticed I had a guitar in
my house so I made my model hold the guitar and took a couple pictures to see how
it turned out. The first few times my model didn't really look like a reggae artist so I
told him to act like your actually playing me something with feeling. That's when I
took the final picture and then I uploaded the image to Photoshop. Once uploaded I
had to remove the background of the image so that all that would be left is just the
image of my model playing the guitar. So to do this I used the 'Magic Eraser Tool‘ and
with just one click the background of the actual photo was removed and all that was
left was the main image as you can see above. I then dragged the cropped image to
my magazine front cover, and began to play around with the image to find a suitable
place for it to look like a real magazine and be effective. I then thought that if I placed
the image to the right hand side of the magazine the prop used wouldn't really be
visible, so I then moved the image across to the left and found that it was a perfect fit
in that particular area as shown above. The image worked very well with the crowd
image shown before because, it looks as if my model is playing to the crowd and the
reader which is a great affect to use to draw in the reader because it allows the
magazine to involve the audience.

8. Masthead Production
For the production of my masthead I will be using this particular
cannabis leaf to replace the letter ‘a’ in the word ‘Beats’. I have
decided to do this because, I feel that it will allow my masthead to
look very unique but also I feel that my target audience will be able
to relate to my masthead instantly if I use this type of effect due to
the fact that a variety of reggae artists actually sing about this
particular plant in their music so it relates automatically.
1st Step
The first thing that I had to do to be successful with this effect that I wanted to
use is that I had to save the image from Google and then open the image in
Photoshop. Next, I had to find a way to get rid of the black background because I
am only interested in the leaf so I used the magic eraser tool and with one click
this was my outcome, a clean cut of the leaf with no edges missing or anything.
2nd Step
The next step that I had to take after the step above was that I had to find a way to
get the red stroke around the whole leaf. To do this I had to double click the layer
with the cannabis leaf and then click the box which next to it says stroke. Then I
had to select the red colour that I wanted and drag the size bar along until I liked
the thickness of the stroke, I decided to use size 4px because I didn’t want the
stroke to be too thick I only wanted a light stroke around the image to allow it to
stand out to my target audience.

9. This screen shot is of when I first created my masthead using
the font JF ROCK. I automatically knew that this font would be a
1st Masthead part of my masthead due to its unique and eye catching look .
As you can see I have placed a plant leaf to represent the letter
‘a’. I have done this because this particular leaf is very popular
in the Caribbean islands and also is one of the main subject in
reggae music. I added a red stroke around the leaf as well to link
in with the colour scheme and found that this worked well.
However, the size of the font which is 36 works very well on the
magazine with the black stroke around the letters but I was
struggling to find out which colour or colours I would actually
use for the masthead. As you can see firstly I tried to use red for
the whole masthead apart from the green leaf but, I thought
that this looked to plain and also because this section of the
background was also red so it presented the masthead to be
2nd Masthead quite dull and bland so I made a few changes.
For this screen shot I ended up changing the colour of the
top half of the masthead to the colour green to see what
two colours would look like instead of one colour. Whilst
doing so I found that using two colours actually did look
more appealing rather than just one so I began to see what
the two different colours would look like. I decided to just
stick to the original three colours from the colour scheme
of the magazine so I used green and red and saw how this
looked. I felt that these colours looked much better than
my first attempt especially the green however, I still feel
unsure about the red being involved for the bottom half of
the masthead but I have decided to keep the green for the
top half because I feel it is quite bright especially with the
dark background.

10. Stroke Tool for the
Masthead
This print screen is to show how my masthead looks with the
Black stroke around each letter. I did this so that it would allow
my masthead to look appealing all together and not just the leaf
with the red stroke. The reason I used black for this particular
stroke is because, I want the masthead to be one of the aspects
on my front cover to stand out the most from other things and
with the black stroke it creates some sort of shadow effect
which makes the masthead look much thicker and bolder.
To get this stroke effect all I had to do was select the actual layer
that the masthead was on and double click the layer. Then as
the screen shot shows, a layer style box will appear showing
many types of effects for the layer and right at the bottom of the
list is the effect called ‘stroke’. Click this effect and tick the box
and then I played around with the different colours and different
width sizes of the stroke until I found the size that suited the
masthead most which was 3px.

11. Masthead
This print screen presents my final design for my
double page spread actually placed on my background
design with my main image. As you can see I kept the
cannabis leaf with the red stroke around it. I also kept
the dark green colour for the top half of my masthead
due to the eye catching effect it has with the dark black
stoke around it. The top half of this masthead will
especially stand out to the audience due to the bright
yellow colour for the lower half of the masthead. I feel
that the final design for my mast head including the
final colours that I have chosen as shown in the image
will stand out to my target audience for many reasons.
One reason for this is that I have managed to involve
the three main colours of my colour scheme when I
include the red stroke which will allow my target
audience to automatically realise what the genre of
this particular magazine is. The main yellow and green
colours used are both quite bright which may not work
in some cases but due to the dark crowd effect I feel
that the colours will stand out for the right reasons to
the audience.

12. Cover Lines
This screen shot is of the cover lines that I have used for my
final design for my music magazine front cover. As you can see
I have used many font sizes for my cover lines. The reason for
this is that it will allow the important parts of the magazine to
stand out, for instance the Everal ‘Ragga’ Watkins section of
the main cover line. I have made this part much larger
because, it presents the actual music artist which relates to the
actual theme of the magazine therefore it will allow my target
audience to know that my main image is the music artist and
the rest of the cover line will draw them in as they will want to
read more. Furthermore, I have decided to use a specific layout
where all of the cover lines are on the left hand side of the
page which will allow enough space for my main image to
stand out also. However, as you can see by the screen print I
tried to decide whether I should use a red stroke around the
cover lines for them to stand out. I feel that the stroke for the
cover lines emphasises them too much and will distract my
audience from my main image and masthead so I have decided
to change this and just keep the cover lines in a bold white
colour. Moreover, also for my cover lines I have decide that
from the first cover line gradually getting to the last the font
size will increase until the major cover line. I feel that this will
create a slight bit of suspense for my target audience because,
as they get the sense that the cover lines are increasing by size
they will be wondering what the main cover line will be and
therefore read on.

13. Final Reggae Music
Magazine Front Cover
This screen print shows my final design for my reggae music
magazine front cover. I feel that this particular design is
very eye catching and will appeal to my target audience
through the many sections of the front cover. I have made
slight changes to specific sections of my design for a few
reasons. For instance, the main image that I have used
previously I made much larger not only to be eye catching
to the audience because I am only using one image but
also, the knee area of the picture made the image look like
my model was just floating in the air so I changed this.
Furthermore, another aspect of my front cover design that
I have changed is the font size of the top half of my
masthead that I have used. I have done this to allow the
‘Reggae’ section of the masthead stand out from the rest to
allow the audience when they first see the magazine to
instantly realise that the magazine is about the reggae
music genre without confusing them. As you can see to get
my final design to perfection I used the border guide lines
to allow all my cover lines, the issue date, strap line and the
masthead to be lined up correctly to look well structured
and organised to my target audience.