Magazine covers use eye-catching designs, prominent mastheads and consistent house styles to attract readers. They feature additional details like price and publication date in small print. Movie magazine covers advertise main articles through subheadings in bold, feature famous people to appeal to different audiences, and use images reflecting the publication's style and buzzwords to grab attention. They also include banners summarizing the magazine's contents and anchorage text overlapping images to preview stories.

1. Sorcha McVeigh
Codes and Conventions of Film
Magazine Covers

2.  Eye catching
The front cover must be eye catching as it is the first thing that the
audience sees and it must draw the attention of the audience.
 Masthead
The name of the magazine is called the masthead and it must be
clear on the cover and impressive.
 House Style/ Graphics
The house style is the colours and fonts that are used throughout
the magazine. Most magazines tend to have a set colour that they
use in all of their issues of the magazines. The graphics are used on
the cover to highlight special news or offers that are in the
magazine.
 Additional Information
On the cover of the magazine there is other stuff found on it
including price, barcode and date of when the magazine was
published. These will be small as they don’t want to take away from
the main image on the cover.
Codes and Conventions of a Movie Magazine

3.  Subheadings
In a movie magazine they use subheadings to advertise the main
features that can be found inside the magazine and important parts
of these headings may be in bold or a different colour so they will
stand out on the page from the rest of the text.
 Famous People
On every issue of the magazine they will feature a famous person
on the cover to attract a wider audience to read the magazine as
they see a actor they like.
 Image
The main image should reflect the audience and the style of the
magazine. The main image is usually a mid-shot or a long shot to
reflect what the film feature is about.
 Buzz words
The magazine will use words such as ‘free’ and ‘exclusive’ to grab
the readers attention to the magazine and want to buy the
magazine.
Codes and Conventions of a Movie Magazine

4.  Banner
On the cover of the movie magazine there is often a
banner along the top of the page which gives the overall
information about the magazine and what will be found
inside of the magazine.
 Anchorage Text
On the cover they use anchorage text that overlaps the
image to tell what the story inside will involve, and they
could have taken a pull quote from the article or the
interview inside the magazine.
Codes and Conventions of a Movie Magazine