Final Cover

 Final Cover and Revisions

The final round begins as I begin to create the final cover for the magazine. I will continue to use Canva as my editing software for the cover. As I have said in the last post, (Cover Photo) I want to create a cover photo that corresponds with the conventions of video gaming magazines which are listed in my posts Conventions and Characteristics of Gaming Magazines and Designing a Magazine, as well as convey a feeling of childhood memories. I plan to do this by combining the mockup I made and using the image I have edited to my preferences. My main image consists of two toys of video game characters posed as though they were fighting. This connects to the gaming magazine genre because it contains a long shot of video game characters, but it subverts these by not using art created of the characters and using figures instead.

Final Cover Design

I feel that the final cover ended up turning out well and encompassing everything I wanted it to. I ended up making some revisions to both the main image as well as the mockup that I based this cover on, which are detailed below.

Masthead and Sell Line

The masthead I chose to use was the Press Start Squartiqa font from Canva because I felt like it clearly showed that it was a video game magazine. I chose the magazine name BEAT-UP because I felt like it was energetic, made a connection to fighting games as well as a connection to the origins of fighting games: Beat 'Em Up games. I placed it at the top of the page because it was easily readable and that is the place where professional gaming magazines placed their mastheads. For the color of the masthead, I changed it from the mockup I used because I felt that the green clashed too much with the background's green, so I changed it to black, which is much more used in video game magazines, and just made it look better and more readable. I placed the masthead at the top centered because it increased readability and was very common in gaming magazines. I included the sell line because the majority of the video game magazines I came across all had similar sell lines. I came up with a sell line that I felt fit the genre because many video game magazines have sell lines that say a specific niche that they are the best in, in my case magazines covering fighting games. I chose black for the sell line to make it easily readable. I also chose to use some wordplay in the sell line which is very uncommon, but I felt it could enhance the magazine for the target audience because "Fierce" is a term used in fighting games to describe attacks. I placed the sell line under the masthead and to the right because I felt like it made the layout of text more visually interesting to have the text for the sell line off-center.

Main Image

My main image is two toys of fighting game characters in fighting positions. Behind them is a picture of a background similar to the ones used in the game and the characters are evidently standing on a wooden surface. I chose to use my Cover Photo #3 from my post Cover Photo because I felt like in terms of potential for the final cover, #3 just had it over #2 which I felt was too faded to be the main image. Once I selected #3, I made some changes in aspects of the picture which were to increase the brightness slightly as well as increasing the contrast ever so slightly through Canva's adjust tool. I felt that by adjusting these factors I could add more of the feelings of nostalgia as well as professionalism that I described in the post mentioned before. I cropped some of the image when setting it as the background because the wooden surface took up a third of the image originally, so I wanted to cut down on that somewhat. The colors in this image are predominantly cyan/blue and orange with some green and the brown wooden surface. I used these colors in the photo because I felt that the blues and cyan conveyed a sense of intellect while the orange conveyed feelings of childlike imagination. In addition to this, blue and orange are complementary colors which helped the overall design. I placed the image as the background because having the image take up the entire page is very common in video game magazines, but usually the subjects are overlaid on top of the masthead. I chose not to do this because I felt that overlaying the two subjects over the masthead could look awkward and separate the integral parts of the main image and it wouldn't convey nostalgia in the same way. 

Coverlines

My coverlines in this are relatively simple. For my main coverline, I chose a simple descriptive title for the main article. It is placed near the subjects to be more visible and to create a connection between the main coverline and the main image. I used the Game Station Condensed font from Canva for the coverlines as well as the sell line. I used the Squada One font for my main coverline and put in black and gave it a semi-transparent shadow to make it stand out. I used the sans-serif font because I felt it expresses the intelligence of gaming magazines and is very modern video game esc. For the other coverlines I went with a very simplistic design with only a few coverlines and a descriptor with an overbar for the coverlines. The descriptor was "Reviews" and I came up with three video game titles and put them under the overbar. I placed a coverline on the left and right in the Game Station Condensed and Squada One fonts in blue and black. I felt that these additions add a little bit more to the design of the cover so it is not as bland in the upper part of the layout. This method of layout was very common in my research of video game magazines as I stated in Magazine Cover Drafts. I used white for the coverlines and the main coverline because it was easily readable, but I used cyan for "Reviews" as well as the overbar to create a connection to the main image through color. 

Miscellaneous

I added a barcode because most video game magazines are distributed and thus include a barcode to be scanned. I placed the barcode in the bottom right corner because it needed to be noticeable, but I did not want it to be taking away from the main image, so I placed it in negative space. I put the date released as a simple month and year to not clutter the layout and put the date on top of the barcode so that it could be seen but was not taking up too much space. Most video game magazines only contain the date released at most and not the issue number because after many releases the issue number becomes redundant and so I did not include my own issue number in the final cover. 

Conclusion

For my final cover I think that it is very well done. It's layout of text follows most of the gaming magazine conventions, which I talk about in Conventions and Characteristics of Gaming Magazines. The image however follows some conventions but that is due to the feeling I am trying to create through the cover. The overall bright color scheme of the image is not very common in video game magazines, but I feel like that is a necessary part of the childhood memory aspect of it. Toys are seldom used as the main image and the image is usually art of a game character or characters. I feel that since my image does still contain the key aspects of game characters in dramatic poses, it fits with these conventions somewhat but not completely. Nevertheless, I feel like my use of the image expresses exactly the kind of nostalgic feeling that I wanted and when coupled with the layout of text it also captures a very professional feeling which I also wanted. With this post I have completed my cover and feel completely confident about my choices in designing it.