Trying out different images for magazine cover

Covers

First designed cover with one image:

My original image was subject to the most change and was generally the template for the other ideas, meaning it had the most work put into it.

The main image consists of an actor looking irritated and holding their hands up while red "sound-wave-looking" shapes come out from the headphones. VU bars can be seen at the bottom, denoting the music's loud volume.

Second designed cover with another image:

This actor is farther back and is side-on facing left. The text on this cover is more eyecatching and easy to read but is also somewhat isolated from the main image. The "sound-wave-looking" shapes still emanate from the headphones but are now smaller yet more numerous. The VU bars are much bigger now to fill the empty space left under the coverlines.

Third designed cover with a third image:

This cover revolves around a completely different main coverline about 5G internet. The main image is of a wifi router, however, the object it was sitting on had to be removed since it didn't fit into the image. This does, however, make a floating router, which doesn't work very well. The main coverline had to be made vertical, which also doesn't look very good, and the VU bars don't make that much sense when relating to wifi. The "sound-wave-looking" shapes now emanate from the router, looking like wifi signals.

Final cover design

I ultimately decided on the first cover image design. This one works well because the cover image takes up most of the space on the cover, while still allowing room for text. This one was the first cover, so most of the assets were reused from this image, but they still fit this image the best. The other images just have too much empty space, and that makes them look like their missing something.

After adjusting a few things based on some feedback from my peers, I ended up adding a short selling line: "a look into modern technologies" as well as adding another coverline and moving a few elements around subtlely.

All in all, I think that the cover of the magazine turned out well. if there is anything that I would have different, I would have made a more professional background, but I couldn't find any easy solutions that looked good other than a solid color background, and it doesn't look that bad.