Critique: True/False Cover

I want to talk about the feature spread so badly because it's been such a great experience getting to work with Krista on such a big spread, but alas I will wait til next week when it will surely look 10 times different :)

So along with the feature and the iPad app, this week I also had T/F second draft covers due. My eyes are so tired of computer screens and just want to breathe outside air for like 40 hours straight. Anyways, I went with the occupy theme that was given to the feature and tried to emulate a sort of activism/protest poster kind of feel.

Sorry for the crappy phonetographer pic on this. I can't open my Indesign file on my laptop because I only have CS4 on here. Woe is me. I'll put a better one up later.

The images that kept coming to mind were Sheppard Fairey kind of posters (the OBEY Andre the Giant one) and then like old WWII propaganda type stuff. So I decided to kind of mix the two styles into one that would work for T/F (without the Nazi Germany references). I decided on the fist because it's a massively well-known symbol of protest and has been used in movements from communism to black power to today's Occupy Wall Street.

I put the text on a tilt because my graphic designer boyfriend (and very harsh critic) told me that to put text on an angled grid like that gives it more attention and power/domination on a page. I tried to get a stamped on feel on it. Then to give equal attention to the fist I had it grabbing the True/False text, like we're taking this MF over! I think it was a good amount of oomph without going overboard with imagery and such.

I added the grungy brushes that we used in the spread to give it a little more depth and visual interest, but I'm thinking now that it might be a bit much. Overall, I was actually happy with my cover this time around, which was a nice feeling of accomplishment and progression. We'll see how it pans out tomorrow :)