g2 magazine - starting panda issue

I watched a documentary and pandas came up, and I realised how much I like pandas and how they are part of the group of animals that are very much in danger of extinction. I wanted to produce a magazine cover on this issue, perhaps just making people aware of this bears:

Researched into photographs of pandas, this one worked best:

 

blending the image with a background, and extending out the background.

Trying out different effects, colour filters, cropping image:

Blurring the background image, as if there environment is going away, disintegrating, becoming a blur...

centered, close up.

 

Centralising the panda, gives it more impact, I also added gaussian and motion blur to the background to ensure the panda is bold. I added slightly more fog to give the impression that the panda's habitat is disappearing.

 

experimenting with lowering opacity of panda,communicating fading away

 

layering scratchy mask to give authentic feel, also communicate old/worn out feel to the image? 

 

Haven't explored type and layout yet. I don't really like the typeface, I feel it makes the overall cover look a bit too nature/wildlife. Layout needs to bit a bit more contemporary/art

AFTER TALKING TO JOE. 

We decided it would be good to keep the same style running throughout my covers. We both felt like the illustrated fish seemed to have more individuality and were working a lot better than the other two. 

I have decided to keep all the covers illustrated, I'm going to approach the subjects in an illustrative way.

I produced some illustrations of pandas, experimenting with there layout and size and messages communicated through them:

I felt these were a bit too plain, there isn't much consideration into the message being communiated. 

Working with a different illustration.

This idea of the panda's head sinking, representation rates of pandas sinking.

Multiple heads, however I thought this looked too much like a bunch of pandas, it communicates as if there are loads of them... which is not really what I am trying to communicate.

Lower heads? Still not working.

 

woah, bit harsh. Will not use this one.

 

Going back to other illustration, I tried to have the image really large on one side, just to draw awareness to the animal in general. Still looks a bit pointless.

 

Just having the panda's markings

Graph imagery: