Creating a Skyline and Puff for Magazine Front Cover

To create a skyline for my magazine's front cover, I begin by using the Smart Shape Tool. I selected 'Rectangle Tool' under it's options and selected the colour black as that was the colour I wanted my skyline to be. I simply clicked where I wanted it to start and dragged it to the other corner, pulling it down to the width that I wanted it to be.

To make my skyline start to take shape, I needed to add text that would appeal to my audience. Normally in a skyline, it involves things such as freebies that would entice the reader to want to buy the magazine. I decided that I wanted to advertise free posters of one of the girls being interviewed and also a few celebrity models within the Emo culture. I went to the Text Tool, selected my font (Bebas Neue) and changed the colour to white so you could see it against the black background. I wanted the free posters to be bigger than the names of the actual models so that the word 'free' was the first thing you saw, so I made the text for 'free posters' bigger than the other, changing the size to 36pt. I then added the models' names, but this time in 24pt.

I felt that my skyline looked a little bit bland with just the names on and nothing separating them. I took a look at other alternative magazines that had skylines and came upon the decision that placing a small image between the celebrities names would make sense. I went back to Smart Shapes, selected 'Custom Object' and selected the star outline. I simply clicked and raged them to the size I wanted them to be and placed them between the names.

Then I wanted to add my puff. I had already decided whilst I was making my skyline that I wanted to put it overlapping the skyline and the masthead. Again, I selected the Smart Shapes Tool and selected 'Ellipse Tool' to create my circle. I selected the colour white so that it would stand out nicely against my skyline. I simply clicked and dragged it to what size I wanted it and then adjusted the placement of it a little bit with the Move Tool.

This final step was to add appealing text into it. Because there was already so much black and white going on in my masthead, I thought I better use some green text and in the same style as the masthead as there was also a lot of the same font floating around. I decided to advertise my interview again as I feel that it is one of the main traits of my magazine that would pull the read into watching it. I applied the text 'exclusive interview' in 18pt font whilst I applied the text underneath it in 11pt. I did this because I want the first thing for my audience to notice is the exclusive interview part and then who it is. It's all a way of building of suspension.

After fiddeling around with the placement of text and the puff itself, I was finally done with my skyline and puff, pretty much completing my magazine.