Beginning My Magazine Cover

Before I begin creating my magazine cover in In Design, I am going to research into what makes a successful film magazine cover. As the genre we are concentrating on is horror, I tried to find magazine covers with horror films on, however the cover is usually a big blockbuster film, which horror films rarely are. Therefore, I had to research into magazine cover conventions, rather than horror film magazine covers.

I am deconstructing 4 different magazines covers, 3 film magazines and 1 entertainment magazine that regularly has film themed covers. I wanted to look at a range to see the common conventions throughout different magazines. I have  also chosen really current issues because I want my magazine to be modern and look as professional and current to rival the competition. These are the four magazines, Total Film (which I will refer to as TF), Entertainment Weekly (EW), Empire, and Sight & Sound (S&S).

Image- All make the image central (why), all full body/ medium shot, eye contact (TF, EW) connects and engages the reader, all actors as character 3/4 not extracted from the film itself. 3/4 images cover part of the mag title, this shows that it's been in the market for a while (gained status?) and is very successful because people still know what mag it is even though letters are missing.

Masthead- From my research I found that all magazines place the masthead in the top third of the page. Also, the majority of magazines make the title central, 3 out of 4 of the above have. The masthead is the most important element of a magazine cover because it is how the reader deciphers which magazine it is. Therefore it has to stand out, so a convention is to make the font in big, bold capital letters to make it impossible to miss. Through research I found red is a very common colour to use for the masthead because it is unisex and a bright colour that stands out and catches the viewers eye. However only 1 of the magazines above uses red, but the similarity is that they all use a colour that contrasts with the background making it clear, obvious and stand out.

Coverlines/font- Around the edges. 3/4 have a main central coverline. Have to be catching and alluring to make you want to read more. For example, two of the above magazines main coverline uses the word 'preview' because this word makes it sound like they have exclusive stuff that you can only read about in that magazine.

Selling Line- TF- The modern guide to movies. EW- The world's biggest movie magazine.
S&S- The international film magazine. All selling lines boast that their magazine is the best, or unique in some way to entice the audience into choosing theirs to read.

Colour Scheme- All the magazines keep to a limited colour scheme of about 3 or 4 different colours so as not to overwhelm the page. The colours are chosen to suit the film and genre of the main film featured. Most magazines use red because it is a power colour and it stands out against anything. Also it has been found that red is the first colour the eye sees. Black and white is also used a lot as they are contrasting and generally work against any background.


Empire, EW and TF share most similarities because they are all mainstream popular magazines, whereas S&S is a smaller film magazine, not found at local newsagents, it's a subscribe only. It doesn't have to use the exact same conventions because it's not trying to catch people's attention in shops and newstands, it's for real fans of films. However they all still share many magazine conventions. My magazine will be mainstream like Empire, EW and TF, therefore I will use and develop the conventions I've mentioned above to try and rival other successful magazines.