Magazine research

To get some idea of what my magazine cover should look like. So I decided to some research into current media examples for a film magazine, I chose two examples to analyse, an issue of Total Film and an issue of Empire. The first thing I noticed from these two examples was the colour schemes of both covers. The cover of Total Film uses the colours whites, greys, blacks and yellow. That’s only 4 colours and they all work with each other to make the page work and everything looks like in belongs on the front cover. Similarly, The issue of Empire uses a colour scheme of blues, blacks and whites. This also works very well in giving the issue an electric feel for the promotion of iron man 2. This leads me onto my next analysis, which is the text. On both covers the headers take up the whole of the first third of the page from the top and signal that in is a convention to have the name of the magazine at the top of the page. Both of the headers on each magazine is white and stand out as being the title of the magazine. In addition to this the main article’s heading is the next biggest text on the page and is the next biggest text because it has to catch the attention of the audience but at the same time not take the attention off the actual title of the magazine. ‘Max Payne’ is written in big white lettering and as it works with the colour scheme and is yet the biggest title out of the all titles on the page showing that the focus of this magazine in this issue is Max Payne. Similarly, the same is done with Empire and Iron Man 2. Another convention I spotted was the use of an also inside bar at the bottom of the page. The bar at the bottom of Empire is blue, corresponding with the colour scheme and also includes graphical images of the movies being mentioned as well as the information about what the article is about. In comparison to this Total film uses a simple inside row at the bottom and lists all the films that are being featured inside. All together there are many fonts used on each cover, which show the variations. Both magazines use continuity of their colour schemes and different colours for subheadings and the actual information. For example, in Total film the subheadings are yellow whilst the information underneath is white. This helps distinguish the difference between what is a title and what is the information about the title. Both these magazines share a very conventional, industry standard layout and this is something I am hoping to include in my work.

To conclude my analysis of these covers, I noticed that both the images used on each magazines compliments the layout and colour scheme so well. Max Payne is dressed in black and this helps the white fonts stand out and the iconic image helps to distinguish what the film being featured is. In addition to this, the Iran man 2 issue of Empire also shows the great importance of getting the colour scheme right and how important it is that the magazine looks like it works together holistically.

All these factors I have analysed I am hoping to include in my work and I hoe to reach the standard of these two magazine front covers.