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How To Design A Magazine Cover
There are so many magazines available today that good cover design is essential for staying
in business. A good cover needs to compete and attract readers and give them an instant
message about what to expect inside so that it will be the one chosen above all the others.
In this video I am going to show you the basics of designing a cover for your magazine and
introduce you to the terminology used in magazine publishing.
The trick with good magazine design is consistency. This is especially important with the 'Masthead'.
The MASTHEAD is the title of your magazine and runs across the top of your cover. The
font or typeface needs to stay the same, as this is your magazine's logo or BRAND. The
colour can change but the typeface size and font used needs to stay consistent.
A strapline can run under the heading -- this could be a 'hurray' callout such as 'The World's
No. 1 Magazine for Aliens' or a slogan of what your magazine stands for.
The date or season of the magazine usually goes near the heading so readers can instantly
see if the magazine is current. So if you are running a quarterly magazine for instance
you would say 'Winter 2013'. Magazines often have numbers for easy reference, so for example,
'Issue 12 Vol 3' for quick reference. These also appear on the cover.
The main cover pic should catch your eye -- you'll notice on a lot of lifestyle magazines the
image is usually looking directly forward so that they catch the eye of the reader.
A ribbon running across a corner with a feature mentioned helps to attract your eye.
If an image runs off the sides of a page it is said to BLEED off the page.
A complementary solid background colour helps the cover image lift from the page. Colour
co-ordination is very important so use 1--3 colours that are complementary to the Masthead's
colour rather than lots of different colours and tones.
So with the sample magazine cover in the video, it just uses white and one colour for the
text.
The main story is usually listed on the left of the magazine in as few words as possible.
So it might just blast the name of the star on the cover with a short snippet of a jaw-dropping
topic they discussed in the interview inside.
This magazine cover lists lots of the inside stories and uses font cleverly to make each
stand out.
The BARCODE goes on the bottom front of shelf magazines (magazines sold in shops).
If we look at a second magazine sample we will see similar traits to the last -- a consistent
Masthead which is easily identifiable.
The cover image looking directly out at the camera, with a solid background colour and
the image bleeds off the page. The date, issue number, price and barcodes in the same place.
One of the tricks this magazine used was to put the image in front of the Masthead. This
gives it a more 3D effect.
It uses a button to highlight that it is a 'Special' issue. As you can see it uses a
combination of blue, black and white for its cover text.
It also uses an old trick -- it mentions sex and it uses quantities. Quantities and sex
sell!
So this cover screams '99 Sex Questions' and '8 ways to get over a bad day.' These types
of headlines grab
the reader's attention.
So let's look at a third example: TIME Magazine. Again, they have put the front cover image
over the masthead -- established magazines can do this because we instantly recognise
that this is TIME Magazine. It doesn't have an image bleed off the page, instead it has
a red border which along with the typeface of the masthead has stayed consistent throughout
the years, establishing the magazine's brand.
The issue number and the date stay in the same place, too, each issue.
They have used the quantity trick and they have used three font colours -- this is unusual
for TIME Magazine but they can get away with it because the cover image is black and white.
It doesn't have inside features listed, but instead it has people featured inside so that
the reader might spot someone they want to know more about. They have Jay Z's name to
the left and the main heading to the left.
The positioning of the masthead on the top fifth of the magazine and the eye-catching
content on the left side of the magazine cover is vital for sales in shops. The title must
be easily recognisable in a display of dozens of competitors. The start of the masthead is important here. This is
because of the ways magazines are displayed -- they are either stacked with the top showing
or they are layered with the left third, or less, showing. So both these areas need to
be instantly recognisable or eye-catching to get sales.
However, with online magazine publishing these rules can go out the window -- you still want
an eye-catching cover but you don't need so much text on the cover as you will be doing
the promotion of the content on your blog or social media spaces.
Here's one I designed for Life Is Short Magazine -- minimal, but still eye-catching.
Creating your own magazine is free to do and fun. Subscribe to my site http://www.howtocreateanonlinemagazine.com
and I'll share with you the secrets of getting great content, where to get great professional
images, and how to turn your Word docs and Mac pages into awesome flip page magazines.
See you on the website!