"Mockups and Elements"

 In the previous blog, I previewed some drafts of magazine covers that had dummy text places in them and were just some plain sketches of magazine covers that I could use and the different types of them. If you recall, some of them had different layouts from others which was one of the key reasons for having so many of them. For this, I have picked some of my top 2 drafts to show how they can be created using technology.

Draft 1

New Mockup

How did I achieve this end result?

Let's commence with the image process, for example. This image was taken in my backyard on a 40 degrees winter afternoon, making it perfect with the context that I want to write in my magazine. I used a wide-angle to have my image make space for my masthead and cover lines. I also implements the same strategy as the draft had, just inverted to match the picture. I gave most of the importance to the image rather than the context in this mockup because, in my genre, science, images can be very influential and helpful for a reader to digest what the writer may be talking about. Here I showed a plant fully dead, with a background of lush green plants, seeing that the audience may intercept this.

The next main concept was the masthead, which I wanted to give a scientific look to my audience. I wanted the concept of my genre to pop out, but not feel too fancy or out of place. So I found a font that induced the desired effect from the audience by my likings, which I thought would work well with the genre itself. I tested background colors like black and white but found it to be too bland to give my magazine a thought to, so added a light-grayish color that seemed to fit right in.

Next, I wanted to add cover lines in the right font and size. I played around to see how it would come on in the different background colors. I tried black to see if it would work but it just did not seem right, visibility and all, so I did not go with that.

So seeing that that came out drastically, I tried changing colors, but the placement did not seem correct and blocked most of my picture. since this time, I used white, the letters were visible so I thought of changing the location next, instead of trying out a different color since white was working out visibility-wise.

I thought of adding the cover lines to the left of the magazine cover since, in my draft, the cover line was on the opposite side of my masthead. I  tried his method, only to find that it blocked the tree in the background, causing it to look out of place yet again. So, because of these two trials, I came to the conclusion that any written work on an uneven colored background, does not look aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Using this unprecedented (to me) information, I had to find an alternative way to showcase the coverline.

The next tactic I used was to forget the draft and put the coverline plainly under the masthead itself. I found that this method wasn't too bad and gave an acceptable look to it even without following the draft. I put it under the masthead because there was a solid blue color, which I used to make the cover look aesthetically pleasing. I did this and received the following outcome.

So the coverline came out looking great under the masthead than anywhere else after the work implied to find that spot. I then decided to add miscellaneous attributes that other magazines would also have, such as a barcode and a teaser for what is inside. I added the barcode from a generator website and have the teaser in the white fon at the bottom right, which is the opposite side of where I placed My barcode to create balance. I did these and the cover came out looking look you would actually find it in a store, so I was satisfied with the result and proceeded to do the next mockup cover.

Final Product:

Draft 2    

Mockup

For this mockup, I used a previous draft that had something that the first mockup did not have much of; information. I wanted this layout to inform the reader as much as possible with only the front cover to show what would be inside. This required more coverlines to be added and more information, in general, to be added. The process went on and I reached the end and the finished product, as shown above. The first step was my Font selection for the masthead.

For this masthead, I instead used a font called rodeo because I thought that it would pop out to my audience and be very eye-catching. I proceeded to write my title in this font, and also kept my masthead to the left side so that I wasn't blocking the photo itself, which worked out well and had no problems whatsoever.

The next thing I wanted to do broke the rules of my draft a bit but is in other science magazines to exemplify things and pictures. I added an arrow pointing out the weed, labeling it as small but deadly, showing a slight indication that this might be included inside the magazine. I went on and labeled it in a regular sans font, and it came out looking like this, which was up to my standards.

The next part for me was quite simple, adding the miscellaneous things and some coverlines to make the magazine cover look like it had a lot of information. I added the coverline on the bottom, just like how I did on my draft, and they looked almost identical. The end result came looking like how a professional magazine would look, with the same barcode from the other magazine on the bottom right corner again. This is what the final mockup came looking like.

Conclusion

The key takeaway is that all the drafts have been digitalized into mockups to look in some way like the original draft itself. Some drafts have been tweaked in the digitalization process because I am not great at expressing the specific font onto paper. The images were chosen with careful awareness and were not randomly chosen, choosing the ones with the least problems. All of these mockups were based on my original ideas and in whatsoever noway plagiarized. Thank you.