My presentation about Magazine front covers and their conventions

2. When creating a magazine the
front covers is arguably the most
important part of the magazine
since it will be the page that
captures the viewers attention
and makes them want to read
the entire magazine as well as
giving them a general idea of
what they can expect from the
magazine. This can be
achieved in various different
ways such as: making it easy to
identify what the type of
magazine is (e.g. A sport’s
magazine would have a famous
sports person, or a magazine
about computing would have
some type of electronics
device), the images used and
colours, what is going to be
featured within the magazine
etc.

3. The majority of magazine front covers have layouts that consist of a
single image of someone (usually someone famous) or something in
front of ether a blank or photo shopped background (the two images
would have been shot separately and then cropped together) with
the magazine heading at the top of the page in a extremely large
font. This is then followed by various sub-headings about certain
sections within the magazine (often the best ones) that would attract
audiences the most, along with coloured text that will contrast with
the background colour of the magazine in order to stand out (e.g.
White background magazines have text that is ether red of black).
Magazine heading
Red and black text
Photo-shopped
background
White background
Sub-headings
Single image of person

4. Back in the late 1920’s when
magazine first started the
front covers started out as
simple painted images with
little more than a title and a
subheading to accompany
the image. This was mainly
due to the fact that
technology was very limited
at the time and even
photography was something
that could be done in five
minutes (the same situation
occurred with film posters).
Because of this there
weren’t many magazine
during that time and
because of this they could
only cover certain topics.

5. Modern day magazine front
covers are much more detailed in
comparison because not only do
they feature a lot more text and
information (as well as a variety of
text fonts and colours), but they
also now have high quality images
of people and objects thanks to
digital cameras and because of
software programs like Photoshop
people can be airbrushed in order
to make them look better and
they can also be cropped into
different backgrounds. Plus it is
now possible to create computer
generated images for both
background and characters.
Also now there are magazine for just about
every type of media topic such as: films,
video games, fashion, cooking, cars, and
even general gossip.

6. Now it’s time to narrow things
down a bit since the type of
magazine front cover my
group and I will be creating
will be for a horror film, so let’s
take a look at film magazine
front covers.
Now the two biggest film
magazine are ‘total film’ and
‘Empire’ and their front covers
often consist of a single image
of the main character in the
film they will be featuring as
their main article (often a big
summer block buster) along
with some sort of background
the corresponds with the film or
characters as well as the
typical magazine conventions
like the large heading and
various subheadings.

7. While both ‘total film’ and ‘Empire’ are the two
biggest film magazine companies ever, they tend
to cover general film viewing rather than focusing
their magazines on a specific genre of film, and
my groups front cover is meant for a magazine
the focuses on horror films. Now let’s look at two
magazine that focus on a particular film genres.

8. The first genre is Sci-fi and the magazine is ‘Sci-
fi Now’. This magazine is about science-fiction
in both film and television and this is shown
through the images used in the front cover.
While admittedly the front cover doesn't look
that much different from the covers used in
‘total film’ and ‘Empire’ I believe the use of
colour and images help to make it stand out
(e.g. the glowing blue colour is used often in
the magazine as well as sci-fi films, plus the
people/characters featured relate heavily to
science-fiction). Also the magazine does a
good job incorporating the imagery into the
text.
The Decepticon logo
being used as the dot
in ‘I’
The image of ‘TRON’ reaching for the
button in order to put emphasis on some
sort of prize or competition
Incorporating imagery
into the text. The planet
Saturn being
used as the dot
in ‘I’

9. The second genre is Horror and the
magazine is ‘HorrorHound’. Now right from
the get go you can see that the front cover
looks different compared most magazine
front covers in terms of both structure and
style. For instance instead of the main
image being a photograph it is instead a
painted image that has a comic
book/graphic novel feel to it (granted it’s
still uses just one person on the cover with a
background). I must admit I really like the
graphic novel style front covers (though I
doubt my group and I could replicate
something like this) I believe there is a
reason why HorrorHound use this type of
front cover and it’s because there is a lot
more you can do with painted images
compared to a photograph in terms of
movement and colour and it works in this
case due to graphic nature of the Horror
Connection?
genre.
Also unlike most magazine
that have sub headings and
buttons in any random
section of the page (often it
depends on the image)
‘HorrorHound’ always have a
left hand column that
features 3 sub-headings as
well as images to go with
them, which is again a
technique often used in
comic book front covers

10. In conclusion I would like to try
and create a magazine front
cover that follows the style of
that used in ‘HorrorHound’ but I
would also like to have the
layout of typical magazine front
cover like ‘SciFiNow’. Now I said
I would ‘like’ to have something
like this because I doubt myself
or the members of my group
could paint an image to make it
look like something of
professional graphic novel
quality, plus the painted image
a long with a traditional layout
may not work since it might be
difficult to find a text colour that
can stand out from all the So in the end, I believe
colours used in the painting with that my group and I will
out it looking out of place (e.g. create something similar
Purple text in a horror magazine)
to that of most magazine
and having too much text on
the front cover might make the front covers, but it would
whole thing seem really be nice to try and make
cramped and messy. my idea work since I think
the end result would be
great.