The document provides guidelines for magazine cover design based on conventions used by Empire and Total Film magazines. Both magazines place the magazine name prominently in color at the top, with the barcode at the bottom. The main film image is often in front of the title. Other elements include the price, issue date, references to inside articles, and positioning text around but not over the image. Effective techniques include grabbing attention with headlines, using related images and text, and highlighting new films to attract audiences.
2. CONVENTIONS OF A MAGAZINE COVER
Date line & Price
Name of magazine/Masthead
Selling line
Main cover line
Feature article photo
Menu Strip
Barcode.
3. This is a strapline which This is the masthead of the
attracts the film audience as magazine which tells the buyer
they will interested in what magazine it actually is.
exclusive news. This Empire always use the colour red
therefore makes this which makes it stand out and
magazine more appealing eye-catching amongst the
than other magazines which competition of other magazines.
is very important since there Even though the audience
is a wide variety to choose cannot see the entire
from nowadays, title, Empire is a well established
and popular magazine so the
audience will already know the
full name.
This bold title makes it clear
to the buyer what this issue is Here is a list of the contents of
going to be focused on. This the magazine so the audience
could therefore attract more know what they can expect
buyers if they are particular when buying the product. This
batman fans. Also, this will is up-to-date articles that will
usually be a recent film to attract the audience as they
come out which will also will want to read about the
increase the number of recent news.
buyers.
Each magazine has to include a barcode.
4. This title for Total Film takes up
the whole width of the magazine
‘A ton of exclusives’ and ‘The cover which makes it extremely
worlds best movie reviews’ are eye-catching and therefore is the
used to grab the audiences first thing you see when it is
attention to buy this magazine placed on a shelf.
and not the others which it is
competing against. This is an
effective technique to use since
it makes your magazine stand
This magazine cover includes a row of
out which is important for sales
images which use image text cohesion. This
of the product.
is because the writing underneath the
images relates to the pictures and therefore
The image that is used in the the audience gets a visual aspect which
centre of the cover is extremely makes the cover not just full of writing. This
important since, along side the could put buyers off the magazine if there is
title, this is the first thing the too much text that make it a little boring and
audience sees. Usually a big actor not eye-catching.
that is starring in the film that
this particular issue is focusing on
is chosen for the cover. As seen in
this image, there is big writing
‘superman speaks’ which relates This magazine has placed the
to the man in the image as he's barcode bottom right which is also
wearing a superman top. positioned like this on the Empire
cover.
5. EMPIRE MAGAZINE COVERS
Empire magazine always has their name "Empire" at the top of the magazine cover, and the colour of this font is
always a shade of red.
-The bar code always features somewhere near the bottom of the page.
-The main image of the poster is often in front of the title of the magazine.
-They display the price of the magazine and the issue month in a small typeface.
-The cover includes references to other films and possibly what page they are found on in the magazine.
-Other information displayed on the magazine cover is placed around the image, as no text should be covering
the main feature picture.
-Similar fonts are used throughout the cover but the size of the typeface varies.
6. TOTAL FILM MAGAZINE COVERS
This magazine cover is extremely similar to the Empire magazine.
However, the colour of the title is different as they have chosen white which would make it more visible when placed on a
shelf to buy. Even though these magazines are similar, they are established and well known companies which already have
their own audience due to previous customers. In addition, people may buy one of these magazines because of article on the
front which is why recent and up-to-date information is extremely important.
Considering this, our magazine cover will be promoting the newest films as this will attract a larger audience for us.
Also from this research, we may now include the main image in front of part of the title as this has been shown to work
effectively in both of these magazines.
