Evolution of Front Page (College Magazine)

First Draft. The colour scheme Yellow, Cyan Blue, Orange and Red was chosen. The photo of the model ("Yem"), was taken affront a white background. Firstly I edited the photo in photoshop to remove blemishes, make the hairstyle more even and smooth out the lighting on Yem's face. Then using the magnetic lasso tool and refine edges wizard I isolated Yem, allowing me to remove the original white background and make it transparent:

I then used increased the canvas size, and used the crop tool with aspect ratio 1.141:1 (to match that of an A4 sheet of paper - the size of the magazine). I then created an additional layer beneath the layer of the model and used the Radius Gradient tool to create an orange gradient as the background, this created a nice effect similar to a four point lighting effect.

I then used the text tool with font Arial Black to make the Mast Head Title (GRAD), which I then rasterised. I then made a selection using the text, and:

1. Created a mask on the orange background layer;
2. Created a layer behind the background, filled it with black and made a mask with the logo in, then gaussian blurred it, and shifted it down and to the right (10, 10) pixels. (This was to give an inner shadow effect, which makes the magazine cover look slightly 3D and pop)
3. And finally I made a blue linear gradient behind the black layer

Together this created:

< These Layers |  

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And finally I put the photos together to create the basic front page. The front page was partly inspired by Photographer Lucia Giacani's shoot for Vogue Italia: