Magazine Cover: Title Font

There were several fonts I found on dafont.com which I thought would be effective fonts for my magazines title. However, I chose 3 favourites and then asked my target audience which font they preferred.

My 3 Favourites:

1. Urban Jungle

I liked Urban Jungle because it linked well with the urban and grunge theme that I wanted to replicate in my cover as I believe it not only links to my magazine but also the social realist film my magazine cover will be promoting.

2. Blackout Sunrise

Blackout Sunrise fits in with the conventions of magazine title fonts as it is capitalised and bold. I was really fond of the boldness and also the fact that I could colour the font whatever colour I wanted to with ease, on photoshop.

3. CocoBiker
The quirky shapes that the font consists of links well with my magazines name 'MaveriK' which is derived from the word 'maverick' meaning, nonconformist and hen used as an adjective, has synonyms of unusual and irregular. The irregular style of the font not only links well with the titles connotations but is also very eye-catching despite it not being as bold as the previous 2 fonts.

After choosing 3 favourite fonts, I asked my target audience to choose their favourite. 'Urban Jungle' was the least popular because although it did have effective connotations, it simply wasn't as favoured as the opposing fonts. 'CocoBiker' was the second favourite font because although it was eye-catching and visually appealing, it wasn't as clear and bold as 'Blackout Sunrise'. 'Blackout Sunrise' was the most popular with my target audience and myself, it is both bold and eye-catching and the style means that it is easy to manipulate how I wish in photoshop.

Magazine Cover: Final Title Name

I asked multiple members of my target audience which of the Magazine Title Names they preferred. 'The Jukebox' was the least popular as my audience agreed that the name had musical connotations which is not the form of media I wanted my magazine to specialise in. 'Ink' was second due to my audience being really attracted to the draft title I illustrated in a previous post titled: 'Magazine Cover: Title Name'. However, it was the most popular due to its connotations of tattooing. 'MaveriK' was the most popular with my target audience due to it lacking connotations that didn't fit with my magazines genre: Film magazine. 'MaveriK' has connotations that link with my target audience and the word is also linguistically similar to 'movie' which will ultimately unify all aspect of my magazine.

Magazine Cover: Title Name

Before creating my magazine cover, I began to brainstorm names of which my magazine could be called as I believe the title can set the tone for the magazines cover. I came up with three favourites, and the reasons behind them are as follows:

1. The Jukebox

I liked the idea of the vintage music machine as it has vintage and indie connotations which suit the independent style I'm trying to achieve. The bright colours that real Jukeboxes use to draw attention to themselves can be replicated on my cover which will be eye-catching to my audience. One negative aspect of the name is that it has connotations that are inherently musical, which is an aspect of media, however, I want my magazine cover to be focalised around the idea of film, although, other independent film magazines like INDIE Magazine (http://indie-mag.com/) are centred around many forms of media ranging from film to music to photography.

2. MaveriK
The name is derived from the word 'maverick' which defined as an unorthodox and independent minded person which are characteristics of my target audience. I decided to use a play on words to make the word my own and to appeal to my target audience who's ages range from 16-25. Capitalising the M and the K mean that, as my magazine becomes more well established, I can abbreviate it and use the initials 'MK' which I think would be very effective if the magazine were to expand and would also increase its recognisability.

3. Ink

There is already an existing tattoo magazine named 'Inked', and so this would make me reluctant to name my magazine such a similar name, however I think the connotations that come with 'Ink' would be appealing to my target audience. I would also find it interesting to incorporate the imagery of octopi's tentacles on the cover. An idea I already have would be to have an octopus tentacle wrapped around the title, as roughly illustrated below. The connotations of 'Ink' that I think would appeal to my target audience are the connotations of permanence, the idea of leaving your mark which I believe resonates with many young people today and it also has connotations of edginess and grunge which would be an effective quality to have in an independent magazine.

The other names I brainstormed:

- Ignite
- The Collective
- Solo
- The Guild
- The Lavalier
- The Catalyst

Film Poster: Draft 1

I created a draft film poster which enabled me to visualise what I wanted my final film poster to look like. Despite the essentials being the same, PicsArt, the app I used to create my draft poster, and Photoshop, which I will be using to create my final poster, are very different. There is clear difference in quality, however, I will spend more time creating my final piece and so that is to be expected.

The primary image was an image I originally screenshot from my film trailer of my central protagonist. I included a secondary image that I blended into the poster by both decreasing the secondary images opacity and blending the picture using the 'Multiply' option. Using the 'Multiply' blend meant that the secondary image would adopt the same base colour as the rest of the poster, ultimately promoting colour coordination. I used the credits I created for my film trailer and used the 'Lighten' blend to get rid of the black background, replacing it with the grey I used for my poster. I used the colour grey as my posters background colour because when looking at Social Realist posters, they use muted colours. I wanted to conform to this convention by using a grey background instead of a black or white background because I felt that black didn't fit with my trailers themes, and white was too bright. I used a dark red which has connotations of love and also colour coordinates with my central protagonists red vest.

On my final poster I wish to improve the primary image by adding some dimension to it, the poster appeared very amateur and 2D which it evidently was, however I feel that adding some depth to the image, by perhaps creating a shadow behind it, will benefit the poster a lot. The credits also took up too much space, and so this is also something I'll alter in my final piece.

Film Poster: Research

Poster research from Millie Turner