Production Task Two: Production Log

 For my Cover 1, I’ve decided to work with black and white image and bright red colour for cover furniture. On the main image is my friend Ben, who plays the role of the ‘rapper’ Metro Zu. You can see two drumsticks and headphones for better representation of a music related person. His custom is baggy, and stylish enough to create clearer representation of hip-hoper. The mes-en-scene is chosen with purpose to demonstrate the ‘street style’ and ‘street music’. The picture was taken outside on the street, the mes – en – scene shows that the picture was taken in England, which could reach for wider UK audience. The headline and cover-lines links back to the hip-hop industry and features nowadays popular hip-hop male artists.

You can see the process through my screenshots, which I took while working in photoshop. 

Initially, I had more than 3 pictures that I tended to use for the cover. Than had a debate between the picture above, and two lower down. 

But, eventually I've choose the black and white picture with the red masthead. 

I wanted to give representation of 'street music' and 'street life' , that's why I have draw 'graffiti' around my model (Ben), which are a slang that is normally used within rap artists or hip hop community. 

Initially, I struggled with the fonts options for the cover. I wanted to look appealing enough, but not too busy. I have been looking through more than 30 fonts overall, for the coverlines and headlines for both covers and contents’ pages.

 However, eventually I've stopped on the fonts above which worked very well with the second cover as well. 

And last but not least, I have located puff on the cover and that's my finish results of my first cover. 

For the second cover, my friends Faustina and Keiysha played the role of a hip-hop female duo. The picture was taken indoors with professional lights, and white paper as the background which can be seen as ‘professional photography’. The difference between two cover works as diversity and follows the norms of magazine production. Models on the cover are dressed in the same style with the t-shirts with numbers on, baggy jeans and sneakers which fits into the stereotypical representation of ‘hip-hop style’. Direct gaze to create tense and closer relations between audience and ‘artists’. You can follow my process through my screenshots which I took while working with the cover.

Initially, I wanted to use white color for the cover furniture, however, I thought it will look too boring, so, eventually my decision fall on not bright orange. 

You can notice, that i have draw some stars and a crown on the cover do outline the idea of 'street sound'. Crown and stars for the link to the duo(which are the models on the cover) 5ixstars! 

And as my final result, I end up with the cover above. 

Moving on, I had the same tragedy while I worked on my contents pages. 

Firstly, I started with the contents page for the first cover. Followed the same idea of 'graffiti' and street style, with the mix of collages. Is much more colorful and brighter which creates a great balanced contrast between cover and contents page. 

I couldn't decide which background to us for the contents page, initially wanted to work with the red color so create a link between cover pallet and contents page, but I've decided that white background will sit better with pictures. For the font, I have used the same fonts that I have used for the cover. 

Screenshot below is my final result. 

Further on, I worked with the second contents page, which was much harder to work with. I had much more options and ideas of how to design the page as I have a lot of pictures with the girls, there was a lot of ideas with the background pallet and chose of pictures. You can follow the process of decisions through my screenshots. 

I had a lot of samples for each contents page and worked with different background and pictures to understand which sample will look better as an outcome. 

My final result is below. 

Overall, I have tried to fit in with the initial cover's 'vibe' to create an appealing pages which could work together perfectly and uphold its style of 'hip-hop' and 'street life& style'.