The Original Cover – For Reference

First of all, I removed the background from my mast head, revealing a large amount of unattractive lines. I needed to completely restart it.

My skyline needed a new font, as it was too minimalistic.

This was purely experimentation in this screenshot.

The skyline was once again altered, to a new font. A drop shadow was added in blending options, to give it some depth.

I removed the footer completely, as well as the barcode. It will be added in later.

This font works well, but seems to clash with “James Gray”. More work is needed.

I have moved the price tag, as I plan to place it next to my barcode.

I changed the mast head back to the original font, to see if I could perhaps edit it again into something more interesting.

I changed the skyline back to the old font too, for comparison purposes. The new font is definitely much more violent and striking than this one.

The background needed tweaking for readability. It might need further changing later on .

Another font change. Clearly the more extravagant fonts are the way forward.

I went back to the first font change that I thought clashed and did some work. By some clever tweaking of drop shadow, I created a very rebellious looking spray paint effect, that’s much more chaotic than before.

Exclusive is now in black, to contrast with the red and white of James Grey and Slicing Into Metal.

I moved my plug over my cover star, to make room for more content. I need a really “busy” front cover.

I removed the website address, to be added in at a later date, or moved to the contents page entirely.

The barcode is now in the centre, and larger for ease of use. The price tag is just above, in the same style as before except black for readability.

A drop shadow has been added to give the numbers some depth

I copied the article from my inspired magazine, but changed the style. Words aren’t in a straight line, because metal music is crazy and mental.

Each letter here is a separate layer. Deliberately at different heights and sizes as they are “wild”.

The paint tool has been used to make these stand out, creating cohesion with the spray paint look of the new mast head.

Plus has been rotated using the transform tool. My main aim with this new cover is to make things more frenetic. Subtle alterations can have a big impact combined.

More bands are placed here. The front cover needs to have an overwhelming amount of content.

Using the paint tool, 2 FREE ALBUMS INSIDE appears to be placed on a paint splat, creating cohesion with the mast head.

Again, even more bands have been added to the front cover. To make them stand out, I used stroke around the letters. Then using paint, placed a smear for the block quotes underneath. The spray paint look appears to be an effective style for the genre.

The skyline was a definite improvement, but not quite chaotic enough. I replaced the black lines with lightning bolts found on Google Images.

The font has been increased, for both readability and reducing the amount of empty space on the front cover.

A line underneath is for organisation. However it seems to clash and look too organised, so I will remove it later.

The font is now white, with a black stroke used to make it visible from the bright background.

The lightning bolts are more prominent now, thanks to the text being white. Previously, it was all a big clash of red.

I used a different paint effect, similar to the one found below on the feature stores.

The text now has a white stroke, as it helps it stand out further.

A new plug has been added, making the product seem more attractive to the consumer. Again, I have used the paint effect for cohesion

I moved this plug down, purely for organisational reasons. I was happy with this plug, so it has received few changes. However, it now reads “WITNESS THE CHAOS WITH THE CHANCE TO SEE SLAYER LIVE.” As the previous text was little too pedestrian for the metal genre.

The paint has been changed again, although I still feel it is not quite perfect.

Two posters are now visible to go alongside the plug. A red stroke has been placed around them so they stand out.