Magazine front cover terminology

1. Magazine Front Cover Terminology

2. Magazine Terms
Masthead: this is the title of the magazine and is the name of the company that is the magazine itself.
Cover lines: this allows the audience to see what sort of contents within the magazine.
Puff: added extra to the magazine as giving away something for free.
Tag Line: this gives description within the magazine.
Barcode: is a number used for scanning the price.
Buzzword: is a word or phrase, new or already existing, that becomes very popular for a period of time.
Skyline: this is additional information at the top of the magazine to catch the eye of the reader.
Anchorage text - usually found underneath the headline and helps the customers understand the headline and the main image.
Pug- to catch the reader's eye, it's placed in the top left and right hand corner; the prices, logo and issue number are placed.
Strip: This is normally across the bottom or top and it contains a list of what is featured within the magazine such as stories, or specific content.
Superimposition: is when one layer overlaps the other.
House Style: refers to the specific usage and editing conventions followed by writers and editors to ensure stylistic consistency

3. Skyline
Masthead
Coverlines
Cover lines:
Tag Line
barcode
Puff
Anchorage
text

4. Barcode- i don't like
where the barcode
is placed. For me it
looks ugly where it
is placed
Masthead
Skyline
Coverline
Main Image- I think this
image looks cool. I like
how there are 4 faces.
They used the eraser
tool to make the faces
transparent and make it
look like it is fading
away.
Anchorage text- I like this
anchorage text. I think it is
very simple and clean.

5. Masthead
Barcode
Main
Image
Website
Anchorage text
Cover line
Cover line

6. Masthead
Skyline
Coverlines
Tag line
Barcode
Main image

7. Comparison
“Total Film” used red, white and black for all the text on the cover. Empire only used green and white. Filmink used gold,
black and white. The background of the Empire magazine is black and the background of the filmink is white. “Film
Maker” used cyan, white and black. So, for the masthead and coverlines the convention is that no more than three
colours are used, for my magazine I’m going to use green and white.
The masthead on all four magazines are all sans-serif, big, chunky fonts, with just one word that fits across the entire
width of the page. Empire magazine use a gradient fill for their masthead, going from white to grey, the others all use
just one solid colour. I like the gradient effect and will try to use it in my cover too.
Most of the magazine covers had a skyline, usually in capital letters, sans-serif and usually containing the names of
actors who were mentioned in the articles in the magazine.
The main image in most of magazines are mid shots usually of just a single person on either a plain or simple
background, also the heads of the people all overlap a small section of the masthead.
Most of the magazines had anchorage text. It’s
usually in capital letters, bold font, sans-serif font
and helps the customers understand what the
main image is about. However, “FilmInk” uses a
sans-serif font for their anchorage text.