magazine research

Magazine Cover Research

Examples of Film featured magazines

Historical ChangesTo show you an example of how magazine covers have evolved throughout the years, in terms of how their layout, design and other general ways in which covers have been modified to keep up with public demands. I used the ‘Empire’’ official website. In there is a magazine cover archive option which really helped me put this timeline together. I thought it would be quite interesting to see the amount of transformations front covers have made from 1981 to our current period of time.

1981-19951996-2000

2001-20062007-2010

2011-Current

As you can see, its evident that through out the year a change in its style has taken place. it seems like each generation has brought something new to the table making it better then the previous one. Some speculate that the modern internet age will in the future take over hard copied items and people will buy or browse through the internet rather than going to local stores and physically paying to buy i.e magazines or albums, but if the quality of magazines carries on improving each month or year then it will most certainly challenge the idea of online stores taking of the traditional way of buying or viewing magazines.

Brief evaluation: There are some consistencies, the masthead has pretty much stayed the same except from 2007 onwards it has become more bolder and more sharper, the colours of the masthead are exactly the same although it does appear to have gone brighter looking more professional. The layout has become more compact and busy giving it a more detailed appearance compared to the first magazines where it was really plain.The enhancements have been helped by the improvement of softwares like photoshop, more developed cameras or higher quality printing material.

Main features of front covers

Leading Article: Usually the second biggest font after the masthead, it shows the audience what the main article is about and because it is the leading article, it will be covered in great depth inside

Barcode: barcode reader included for purchasing reasons, often it includes the ‘release date’ important notice for consumers.

Main image: The main image is really important and a key factor to be considered. The image should be chosen for a reason, it links in with other features such as the ‘pulled quote’,’ leading article and the overall the theme. They should all be relevant and well suited in corespondent to the main image. It also ties in with the ‘star’ featuring the magazine; highlighting their statues, in/off character and possible interviews.

Masthead: The masthead has to be one of the most striking part of any magazine cover, firstly is establishes the Company’s name so consumers begin to recognize the brand and secondly, it instantly places the magazine into a specific category. Alway big and bold, formatted in a way so it is easy to remember i.e ‘Empire’ the font used is really iconic, it once again reiterates on brand identification.

Cover line: Giving a glimpse of what is inside ( mostly material which is most interesting). Images can be included as well as text.

Skyline: referring to some of the other features inside the magazine. Placed on the top. In this case it tells us the genre of the magazine “Action’ .

Pulled Quote: Direct quotes made linked to the main image or the leading article gives it an establishing look.

Advertisement: Key component of any magazine, it gives an opportunity for companies to advertise their products. Front covers of magazines are known to be successful marketing aid because of the number of people who purchase magazines on daily basis. Films who invest in franchising sales also have the chance to display their lineup as it is relevant to the main image and other aspects.

Bottom left third: This is the section visible to costumers whilst browsing through the shelves so it is really important to ensure it is printed

A

B

C

D

EF

G

Here is an original cover of ‘Total Film’ issued January 2012

This is the same magazine but i have lettered seven circles (A-G) to help me explain each sections of the front cover

A - Main Image: is the key focus point of this cover, it shows the two featuring characters from the hit movie ‘Girl with the dragon tattoo’. Considering the size and positioning of the main image, i would say it follows the conventions of traditional magazine covers (Historical changes) because it is placed fairly in the center and is scaled to be larger than any of the other images or texts, plus it is the most striking focal point, of which the audience can instantly identify. Film Featured magazines tend to always use the actors in character rather than the actors being themselves, a style which separates the two types of magazines. Their positing is quite interesting because it can have several meanings. One being that Daniel (male figure) is the more dominant character making him the protagonist or having the more dynamic role in the movie. Another meaning it could be that Rooney (female figure) is purposely behind Daniel because she is the big twist in the storyline. Both of their expressions are perceived to be quite poker-faced meaning it is hard to judge their exact facial expression. They both seem to be standing sharp and erect which works well with their facial expression. Judging them on their clothing Daniel seems like an average man with his grey knitted jumper. The female figure on the other hand comes off as the more sinister character who has could possibly have a dark side about her. Overall I feel the main image is persuading and i like the fact it includes two characters, it has a real serious tone to it maybe it is a reflection of what the movie could be like.

B - Masthead: It is in our nature to examine an item starting from top down so the masthead plays a big role in order of what the audience see when taking a first look at a magazine. ‘Total Films’ is the name of the magazine, it is widely recognizable because it is in large, bold letters and has over the years almost formed into a sort of brand for the company, after selling millions of copies. Even though Daniel’s head is blocking the last letter, the audience can still recognize which magazine company it is. This is harder for film featured magazine companies who are beginners starting in the market to use their main image in a way that it covers half of the masthead because their magazine name has not been established yet as a well-known brand. If my group were to come up with a name which is long in terms of wording and is hard to fit into the positioning of the page then we would have to mimic the style of what Total Films have done, they have placed the word ‘Total’ (smaller size) into the first letter of ‘Films’ (F). This alternation with the words is very creative and it just looks more professional, more balanced and also makes them the first magazine company to use such an effect resulting their cover to look more unique. It is placed accordingly to follow the norms of typical film magazines, top third of the cover. Ideally the most noticeable feature of any magazine cover.

C - Leading Article: For me the leading article is somewhat surprising in terms of how they have laid it out. ‘The girl with the dragon tattoo’ text is much smaller than the ‘2012 awards preview’ which I think should be like an extra article because if we were to put the two on a hierarchy scale, the 2012 awards preview should be the least bolder and smaller font out of the two. On the other hand the second part to the leading article is really eye catching, the colour ‘yellow’ seems to be almost over taking the page. it reflects on Daniels character in away because yellow connotes wisdom and intellect and having seen the movie he does incorporates both qualities but this may not have been a direct intention on matching his character with the font. The warmth of the yellow however, does match the background, almost creating a beaming light in the dark affect which is quite stylish. It is no surprise that they have included ‘2012’ in the front cover, being it is a January issued cover, keeping up with the latest events.

D+E - Cover lines: D has obviously taken up the bigger space and is has a larger feature to it making it more detailed (several photos taken from different movie clips) whereas E is mainly about ‘Harry Potter’. however they both are very similar in the way they been created, a framed photo with red background, white and yellow texts above it altogether creating a rectangular box. Red is very common colour to use in film featured magazines because it is suitable to nearly every single genre from Horror to Sci-fi. D is placed in the bottom third of the cover, theoretically the least eye catching position but the use of colours have heightened its aims to deliver to the audience. E is commonly placed on the middle left hand side, much smaller in relation to the main image. both cover lines are for those who are not necessarily persuaded by the main image or the leading article. I should note down that the cover line should always be diverse and try to not make it relevant to the main image but can include the same style in regards to its appearance.

F - Barcode: This feature is included in every magazine cover, their positioning does change but in this case it is just to the right of the main image. Barcodes cannot be considered as a selling features because it is just a requirement to have one which has to be obeyed due to official rules. They have merged a promotional logo ‘Future’ alongside the barcode. We must have a barcode as well because it is a conventional feature.

G - Bottom third: From the name of it, it is clear about its positioning. This cover have gone with a very simple text (white) separated by yellow blocks. Once again this a conventional feature to have in every cover because it is the section which the buyers can see magazine shelves.

Background: I think the background of this cover has to be commented on it because if you actually focus and zoom in, you see the amount of details, layers of different black inked tattoo, designed very artistically to give it a very gothic and edgy tone to the whole cover. It also links in with main image and leading article because of mentioned word ‘tattoo’ it has become a theme to the overall front cover. This is very smart and strategic because not only it looks good but it also portrays Rooney’s character, giving clues as to her link with the title of the movie. If you were to take out all the other feature and only leave the main image and the background, it can almost qualify for a film poster meaning it is real promotion for the movie.