Do as many sketches as you can. The first idea may not always be the best.
Or you can play around with how the title is going to be placed.
Try different approach. It could be from how to present a portrait in an interesting way.
Masthead is usually put on top of the cover, considering how magazines are displayed on the bookshelf.
Ask someone for their opinion on which design works best. In this case, the editors.
After some discussion and decision making, this design was finally chosen.
Simple
Focus point is at the character and his expression.
Easily adaptable for other issues, regardless of the theme.
It’s good to have varieties in your sketches. Even a difference in the angle of the portrait can make a huge impact.
Once you have your selected design, don’t stop working on its development.
Find some reference to help you refine your sketches.
Take the feedbacks as your consideration.
In this case, the feedback was that it doesn’t capture the facial features of Greek.
In this case, photoshop works best as you can play around with brushes and textures.
When your sketch are final, you can start working on the chosen software.