Z Layout vs Left Third layout

These two front covers show the difference between a Z layout and one that uses the Left Third.

Media Studies Music Magazine Cover Analysis

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Hottest Color Combinations in Magazine Covers

I am a big fan of colourlovers.com. It has been a great source of inspiration for me. In fact, I always go to this site when I’m looking for color palettes and color combinations to use in my design projects. Another thing that I love about colourlovers is its “trends” section where they feature different covers of popular magazines. This way, other designers could keep a pulse on what professional designers are doing with colors.

Read more and check out current trends....


And another site for further inspiration is this one:
"Colour of the Top 20 Magazine Covers"......

A useful site for your PRINT project.

As part of your PRINT Magazine Front Cover project you will need to be thinking very carefully about the demographics of your target audience. This site gives lots of very useful information about them...
Check it out here.....

A useful website on the use of LIGHTING.

One of the more difficult aspects of TV and film work to grasp is LIGHTING.This handy website shows you where and how lighting techniques can be used.
Take me there....

Mise-en-scene: A recap

MISE EN SCÈNE

The construction of visual media texts is usually very carefully planned. Everything we see on the movie/TV screen, or printed on paper, has been placed before the camera. The important word here is placed and so we must ask ourselves why and to what effect?

This idea is termed mise en scene; the elements of which are:

• Setting – including scenery, props, furniture and other set dressing.
• Costume and make up
• Lighting – intensity, source, colour and direction
• Figure, expression and movement

Things to watch out for and consider

Setting

• Where/when does the action take place? What details of the setting indicate this?
• How, if at all, does the setting indicate genre?
• Does the setting indicate mood? If so, how?
• What does the setting suggest about the characters? Their status? Culture? Occupation?
• How do props (moveable parts of the setting) contribute to the sense of place? And
genre?

Costume

• Does the costume suggest a certain historical period?
• How does costume indicate genre?
• What does the costume suggest about the characters’ background?
• If the characters significantly change their costumes during the narrative, what does this indicate about their changing feelings/fortunes/status?
• What do the costumes suggest about the way a character feels about themselves? The
impression they want to make on others?

Lighting

• What kind of mood does the lighting create? Are different techniques used to create different moods?
• How does the lighting indicate genre?
• Does the colour of the lighting change for different scenes? If so, to what effect?

Figure expression and movement

• Where are the characters positioned within the frame? Does this reflect their
importance? Feelings? Relationships with each other?
• What thoughts, feelings and emotions are evoked by the actors’ performances?

Magazine cover design: Newsstand VS Subscriber

What happens on the newsstands remains at the newsstands. That should be the motto for the magazine industry as the trend toward producing split covers for the same magazine (one for the newsstands and one for the subscribers) continues to sky-rocket. It is becoming rare to see a magazine with the same cover on both the single copy and the subscription edition of the same issue. I know there is an art for designing magazine covers, and in some cases there are formulas (Just take a look at the last few years of Cosmopolitan). However, dishing a different cover for the single copy buyer than that of the subscriber, is becoming a questionable art of what some call new marketing ways to reach the first time buyer and others refer to as the art of hip hip hypocrisy to trick the first time buyer.

Read more HERE...

Recycled coverlines: Even the pro's do it!

People who memorize every cover of Men’s Health may have noticed something curious about the December issue’s cover, aside from noted dreamboat Taylor Lautner: almost all of the text and layout is identical to a cover from 2007, which featured Jason Statham.
Read more HERE...

Coverlines: 1,027 reasons why magazine coverlines make me chuckle

There I was thinking magazines had lost all sense of humour, when I decided to head to the newsstand the other day and read a random mix of coverlines. Nothing can be as unintentionally funny, especially when shouted aloud in a daft voice — think Sid Vicious sings My Way. Although you can attract some strange looks and, in my case, the attention of the man on the door providing security.

So here in black and white (you can add your own inappropriate voice) are some of the choicest cuts from last week's magazine shelves: all 24-carat coverlines and many of them — I'd bet a skinny cinnamon dusted mocha — already ridiculed in the glamorous offices from whence they came. In brackets is a rough translation of what they really mean.

Read more...

History of Magazine Front Covers

An intriguing look at how magazine front covers have changed throughout history. A particularly interesting look at the use of coverlines- an aspect you will have to consider on your own work.
Check it out HERE...