Planning - Front cover

For my front cover I new where I wanted certain aspects, sue to the research I did on front cover magazines. therefore when planning my front cover I new that only slight changes would have to be made.

As seen on the left, this is my first layout plan. The masthead is at the top to ensure that it will be easily seen, therefore recognised by my target market. The image will be big and take up most the page to ensure that it is the first thing the target audience will see. The slash is going across the image to ensure that it stands out from all other articles on the front cover. Although it can not be seen, articles will be placed around the image, however I am unsure at this point exactly where they will sit on the page, therefore this is the reason that they have not been placed on the mock up. The date and time is in the bottom right and corner, and in a dark colour. This is a negative against this page as it will be hard to see and readers may not even notice it.

As said before this mock up is not much different than the first, as I new where the main aspects, were going to be placed. The only major differences on the second mock up is placement of the splash. Instead of being across the picture at a slant, it is at the bottom of the picture, straight. I did this as I thought that it would enable the front cover to appear more professional, however I found that it made the front cover appear boring and didn't catch the eye of the reader, as the first one did. However the positive, of this mock up is that the date, issue and price is at the top and would be more noticeable than in the first mock up.

Therefore for my finial decision, I have chosen to use the majority of the first draft but the placement of the date, issue and price from the second mock up. The article will surround the image but depending how long they are will depend on where they will go.