Drafting and planning / First draft analysis

This is my first formal draft of my front page! IGNORE contents page:

For the front page:

Starting with my masthead, I specifically chose a white font, firstly because it complimented the darker background, and secondly because of the things it connotes: perfection and cleanliness - the perfect magazine that enlightens you about Birmingham. I issued the masthead with an orange outline as orange connotes warmth, friendliness and happiness, it's an exciting colour and these form the rest of my magazine. I included the word Birmingham as part of the masthead because it gives the reader an ultimate and immediate knowledge that the magazine is based on the city.

Moving on to the main image, I chose to feature just one image, a medium close up on my front page because it gives the cover star a sense of power and dominance, it draws all of the attention to her. Her facial expression (direct mode of address) invites the reader, she is trying to communicate with them through eye contact and a smile. Her hair is down because I wanted to give off the vibe that she has metaphorically and physically let her hair down, making her seem easy going. The hoop earrings suggest youth, and the bright pink lipsticks suggests that she's a stereotypical "girly girl", issuing her with an image of lots of personality.

The main cover line is a pun, Leona Foster (cover star) is a promoter for Pop World, one of the biggest clubs in Birmingham, so I've referred to her as the "queen of pop", I've included a quote from her on the front page, which will help readers to understand there's an exclusive interview with her inside the magazine. Once again I used white for the font making it seem clean cut, with a black outline helping it to stand out, yet for the word pop, the varied use of orange, pink and blue gives it a real sense of popping out or standing out to the reader. I used these colours in a clever way because the actual logo for pop world is:

And the three different colours are displayed once again. 

Moving on to the other cover lines, I've only issued the reader with snippets of what to find inside the magazine, not giving too much away. These cover lines range from genres within the magazine from arts and culture, to entertainment and nightlife. The plus sign looks quite edgy, and you tend to find this element on other magazines:

 Of course, I have included the other generic conventions on my front page too such as the dateline, social networks, a bar code etc.

At the moment, I am happy with my front page but I am aware there are areas I could improve on. I could come up with a better selling line to give my magazine a sense of branding, I will also bring my cover star in front of the masthead, I will ask members of my target audience this week on how best to improve on my front page.