Magazine Front Covers

For one of my ancillary texts I need to create a film magazine front cover featuring my film. To aid this I am going to research different magazine front covers and point out the key features used, why they are used, and the effect given through using them.

The first magazine I am going to look at is Empire Magazine.

The key features I found were -

• Magazine Title
• Magazine tag line
• Publish Date
• Price
• Bar code
• Website
• Sub Titles
• Main Image
• Sub Images
• Main Article Info
• Sub Article Info

The first feature was the magazine title which is fairly simple to understand, it is the feature that identifies the magazine from other magazines and holds the licensing and ownership of all articles and products sold as a package within the magazine. This is followed by the magazine tag line which is a saying or phrase to back up the title about content or style. Sometimes a website is listed below the main title so that readers can also access other information, videos or exclusive articles on the Internet throughout the month without having to wait for the next magazine issue.

Each magazine needs to list the publish date so its readers can identify when the magazine came out to verify the reliability of the information and also to help stores keep on top of new shipments and which magazines are to be currently sold or shipped back. This information usually corresponds with the bar code which holds the individual product information. When scanned into a system at a store this bar code can then be attached a price or special offers which will then correspond with the tills every time the magazine is scanned in. How ever on magazines this is a feature that remains unused as the prices are usually set by the magazine's company and is then printed upon the magazine. The price will then only be changed if special vouchers or discounts have been cleared and allowed for the current issue. The bar code also sources vital information to the stores main system.

The most visually appealing part of the magazine front cover is usually the main image used. This will most often be an image from the main article the magazine has chosen to feature. This image will usually set the colour scheme for the whole cover as while magazines usually keep the same style for their main title, it is very common to then change the colours to blend in with and match the images and articles used so not to cause an unattractive clash of colour. Along side this main image you find sub titles that will name the featured article or make comment about it. Besides the main image and sub title there are also small bits of information on other articles within the magazine and sometimes pictures to back up the pieces of information.