Magazine ad process and alternative cover design

Magazine ad process

Above is an image showing the development of my magazine ad via photoshop. Firstly I developed the overall compostion of the ad and then applied my album artwork via a layer mask. The next stage was applying type and other graphical elements such as the retro rainbow pattern which was developed by layering different coloured vector rectangles together. I then went onto adding details such as the record label and distributor logo to which I also edited to fit in with the overall theme of the ad. Additionally as I was developing my ad I found some that I had some unwanted empty space to which I filled with lorem ipsum (dummy text) to serve as a place holder until I could work out what I wanted said text to say.

Finally after working I then added a distressed paper texture to age the look of the design to make it look more "retro".

When working on the ad I also slightly edited my album art to fit more with the overall theme of the ad however, I like the look of this edit that I decided to experiment with said edit and see if I could develop this into some sort of alternative cover of sorts.

Original on left, ALT on right

In the alternate cover I have adjusted the type of Burnin fever to make it more readable as well as add in a more darker atmosphere as originally planned to which I feel does a better job in drawing viewers attention towards the robots identity. The only problem I have with this alternate design is it seem a bit too dark to convey a electronic album as compared to the more vibrant look of the original. I am currently debating whether this alternative cover should serve as the main final cover or perhaps if I had the resources and time make some sort of "special edition" digipak which features like an extra track or two as well as a cover which changes when you view it from another direction which I believe is described as a lenticular cover based on this link here.

Below is how I would envision how this could look

I like how it seems like the image glitches out - this would work well in further exploring the glitch aesthetics of my music video