Creating a Magazine Cover | GDT Week 3 - Project 3

For project 3, I was assigned to create the October 2023 edition magazine cover for a popular print magazine, with the goal of emulating the styles of the original designer, putting into practice the knowledge and skills I've been acquiring through each week of study.

According to Dictionary.com, a magazine is a publication that is issued periodically, usually bound on a paper cover, and typically contains essays, stories, poems, etc., by many writers, and often photographs and drawings, frequently specializing in a particular subject or area, as hobbies, news, or sports.

Reading magazines has some benefits:

• You can keep up with changing trends because magazines carry a package of information in a glossy and attractive way.
• You can easily concentrate on a magazine, usually, they are really easy to read.
• You can reduce your stress while reading articles of your interest, your mind will light up, and you can get inspiration and new ideas.
• You can get expert advice without paying fees if you buy a corporate magazine, for example.
• You are well informed every month because magazines actualize their content often.

Magazines are varied. There are celebrity magazines, teen magazines, entertainment magazines, pulp magazines, popular literature magazines, sports magazines, business magazines, and more. 

MY MAGAZINE COVER DESIGN

First, I have to say that I thought a lot about the magazine I wanted to replicate. There are so many great ones. So, I started thinking about what I wanted the photo on the cover to be about. As I wanted to use a photo of my own, I searched for inspiration, and after I shortened my ideas list I looked for my models. 

I chose to take a photo of my family's dogs, Gurdo & Pinke (siblings), they were the perfect models (when they were not running away seconds before I took the photos), and because I chose to photograph dogs, I looked for pets magazines, and founded some pretty cool ones but the difficult part was to find the same cover elements from the original magazine design. I finally sorted it out and chose to replicate the magazine: Dogs Monthly.

Dogs Monthly is “The UK's favourite dog magazine”.

From what I read, they started their magazine in late 2016, but it seems that they stopped in 2020. So that's one of the reasons I chose the magazine, I wanted to see what a cover for them in 2023 will look like...They still publish information on their website though.

After I brainstormed for ideas, researched the magazine, took photos, and looked for the magazine's proper dimensions, then it was time to edit.

gurdo_pinke_bulldogs on Instagram

I used Photoshop for this project, and tools like the match font to find the same or similar fonts to the originals. I also used the option searched by image in Adobe Fonts (very useful). For colors, you only need the color picker tool. The rest of the work for me was using grids to make a balanced composition, trying different font sizes, choosing the right colors, writing the info, and trying some filters on the photo.

I replicated the masthead, with a similar typeface but not exactly the same size, I burrowed the UPC code of an old issue of Dogs Monthly and edited it too.

WHAT WAS I TRYING TO ACCOMPLISH WITH THIS DESIGN?

With this piece I wanted to be able to replicate someone else's work, to learn about the designers' style and the why and how they made their choices when creating a magazine design.

I wanted to put into practice what I've been learning lately, and also wanted to give it a personal touch with the use of the photo I took.

I tried a lot to make this project look the same as the original, and in the end, I feel like I got a nice result. With practice, I'm sure I'll do better. One of the issues I had was that my laptop went black and some changes in Photoshop didn't save. So, some advice I can give, when doing a project make sure you hit the button “Save” often, and also name your layers (you can create groups too) so it is easier to move from one layer to another.

What magazine would have you replicated?