Research into magazine covers

Before designing our magazine cover featuring our film, I decided to have a look into existing film magazines. The first magazine which I found interesting was one from ’Total Film’ magazines starring Johnny Depp; who plays one of the leading roles in the newly released film, Alice in Wonderland. The reason for this magazine being interesting to me is because of the bright colourful picture which grabs the viewer’s attention. The bright image contrasts the dark blue/purple and black background image making Johnny Depp drawer the most attention; attracting people to the magazine. The cover consists of a background image, a big photograph of the biggest star involved in the new film, bold fonts used for mast head, the banner headline and the giveaways. It also has a bar code, date of release, and information about other topics included inside the magazine. The font colours (white and yellow) stand out clearly which make them easy to read for any viewers. The target audience is aimed at young adults, movie lovers and adults. We can tell this because there are only a few images included which make them appeal to younger audiences such as young adults, although there is also a fair amount of text which appeals to the adults. If the magazine consisted of only photographs and no text, then it would be targeting children only, also if it only had text then it would appeal to older generations.




I have looked at another magazine released recently from ‘Total Film’. We can automatically see that the company are well known and confident enough to only show parts of their company name as they know that buyers will recognise them. The front cover sticks to a blue/green/ black colour scheme. Although these colours are usually quite dull they have managed to make it look bright and colourful by adding bright white head lights onto the image of the car. The featured film’s name ‘The Green Hornet’ has been made to stand out by the green bold font and capital letters. They have decided to use green because it relates to the name of the film. The magazine also has images of unreleased films to interest the readers, and also give them a preview into what films will be coming out soon. These film names are placed onto a red background to highlight them on the blue image behind. This makes them stand out clearly on the page; drawing the reader in. Again there is a bar code and the date that the magazine was released.


Following these designs, they show key elements which are required to make a magazine look interesting and professional. It needs to have bright big titles for the magazine name and we need a quick and simple company name which is easy for consumers to remember and read. There needs to be a brightly coloured photograph showing an interesting shot from the film which also gives a hint about the plot of the film. However, we cannot have too many images on the page to make it look over crowded and appeal to the wrong audience type. There also needs to be information to do with other interesting, well known films which are being released in the future to interest the readers. We also need to stick to a suitable colour scheme which isn’t too boring or too overpowering, and also appeal more to one gender type as this would reduce sales.