Critique: Covers, again

I feel like I am stuck in a cover designer's Groundhog's Day. Every time I turn around, I am designing another cover for Vox. Despite all that practice, this week I did not feel confident about my covers. I am, however, feeling more confident about revising because I feel like I have a better sense of where to go now that I have spent a little more time thinking over the story.

Briefly, this is a double feature week, but the cover will represent the main story about invasive species, which includes carpe, hogs and a plant.

I went with two picture covers this week because I was having a hard time coming up with a typography cover that conveyed the three different part of the story and could make them into one cover. I didn't realize that the photos we were given are most likely not being used. So look at these with an open mind since they will definitely be changing.

I went with the multi-fish photo because it looks like the men are catching the fish, which fits with the story because that is essentially what is happening to help control their numbers in this region and throughout the U.S. I also stuck with the proposed headline because, while not super exciting, it does paint an image in your head. I decided to go with the tall "i" to "invade" the space of species without being too obvious.

For the second photo image, I went with the bloody fish/happy man image because I thought it had a certain amount of shock value without feeling cruel to animals. I think bloody anything automatically attracts a reader, and I thought it was something different for Vox. With the typography of the headline, I wanted to mirror the feel of the image, so I turned species sideways to be parallel with the fish. I also made the dec sideways as well because while readers had their heads turned they could go ahead and finish that portion of the front. However, I did keep invasive the right way to ground the cover.

For the final cover, you will have to use your imagination. I was going for a fun plant-inspired "logo" of sorts, which would future the title and then like cartoon-like leaves and branches would be growing out of it. Then I wanted it to be partially covered with plants. It just wasn't going as well as I wanted to, and I gave up. However, I am going to keep working on the concept and, hopefully, wow everyone at the next critique.

Coming up, I will be doing my Vox 5 cover and continuing work on the M-word magazine.