I will be designing a film magazine front cover that would be featuring my film. I need to research the typical codes, conventions and techniques used by the graphic designers of well established film magazines. The design and layout itself can connote a variety of different things; the colour scheme can effect the readers perception of the film and even go as far as creating different emotional responses from particular colours together. The position and shot type of the main feature image on the front of a magazine can appear in many different forms, from entire cast shots to single character close ups or perhaps only including the films artwork or name. All of which, just like the colour scheme can create different responses from the reader. Overall the film magazine front cover can be just as an effective tool of marketing as the films theatrical poster or perhaps even the films trailer.
I wanted to research some magazines from opposing ends of the spectrum, perhaps a front cover from a well established, world renowned film magazine compared to a specialist horror film magazine with a much smaller audience, budget and volume of production. I feel that by reviewing these two different pieces I could determine a good mixture of mass-marketable features with a feeling of a specialist horror magazine.
The first front cover I will be researching is from the well known film magazine “Empire”, this front cover was taken from their July 2008 issue which features the film “The Dark Knight”.
I chose this particular poster due to the style of its design and its content. The film featured some aspects of horror film techniques, whilst it is not a horror film it is an action-film with (as the name suggests) dark themes running throughout which do borrow some, if only few of the techniques from horror films. By using a magazine featuring an action film I have an example to compare to another similar cover but with a horror film to show the changes made by the designer to tie-in some of the codes and conventions of the horror genre.
The colour scheme used for this magazine cover is primarily black, white and green. The reason for the designer using these particular colours is obvious, the cover image of the films main villain has bright green hair which is a very similar to the one used by the designer of the cover and the character is also wearing black, white and red makeup (although red is not used and only appears in the feature image). The font of text used stays uniform with the only visible difference between different areas of text being the size, colour and perhaps the use of boldness and extended character spacing to create a larger more bulky attention grabbing title. The font itself is in a slightly art-deco style slightly reminiscent of the title of the magazine itself. The image featured on the cover is a close-up of the films villain. As aforementioned the magazines colour scheme does stem from the colours feature in this image, however the only colour not used by the designer is the red from the red makeup covering the cuts on the face of the villain. The appearance of this vibrant colour in this singular use creates an initial focusing point for the reader, which then leads up the face towards the characters eyes and other facial features. The focus of the image itself is sharper in the bottom end of the face towards the chin with the top of the head and hair slightly out of focus, this together with the use of the colour red in the characters smile first makes the reader concentrate of the bottom section of the cover then move up towards the title of the film and magazine. Cover lines appear to the left and below of the image and are in keeping with the colour scheme and font of the rest of the cover but are small and mostly non-intrusive into the main feature image, these cover lines are definitely a secondary or a tertiary point of focus after the main image and magazine title. The reason for some of the cover lines to appear extremely to the left is due to that area of the magazine being the “Left third”. The left third of the magazine cover is vital for sales in shops where the magazine is not shown full-frontage. The title must be easily recognisable in a display of dozens of competitors. The start of the masthead is important here, as are short cover lines that are easy to read
Overall this magazine cover is a very effective example of what can be achieved with clever, well thought out and effective cover design which utilises colour, font, positioning and manipulation of the reader’s focus. I will be using this particular front cover as a control which I can use to compare the other magazines against.
Another film magazine I have chosen to research is “Fangoria” a film magazine dedicated to the horror genre. This issue is very recent and from October 2009 which features the film “New Moon”. 
This magazine is not as popular as “Empire” and I would imagine it has to work with a much smaller budget. This magazine is known for reviewing and featuring horror of all types, in fact the film “New Moon” is probably responsible for one of the softer and definitely one of the least gory front covers they have released recently.
The colour scheme used by this magazine is much less focused that the smaller more concentrated and perhaps more arty palette that “Empire” used on it’s front cover, a result of this is that the poster immediately is no where near as attention grabbing as it could be and overall seems at first glance very imprecise. The masthead of the magazine is in it’s own signature font embossed with a white border, this helps make the title stand out and not get lost against the main feature image. The font of the cover lines is in a bright vibrant yellow colour with it’s subtext underneath in plain white; all of this text is presented in a simple bold, uppercase block font. The title of the main feature article is the custom font of that particular film, which also happens to be yellow. It seems to me that very little attention has been given to the choice of colour and text, this unfortunately shows very clearly and does make the magazine look cheaper and it doesn’t connote the idea of quality that the “Empire” magazines cover does.
The main feature image used on this front cover is a close up with the characters face looking out towards the spine of the magazine, this would have been more effective if mirrored to face towards the edge of the page in order to entice the ready to open the magazine a take a brief look inside before buying. This is important as that interaction with the consumer could make the difference between the magazine selling in higher or lower numbers. The image itself is of a vampire, with red eyes that stand out against the characters dark skin. The face of the character is in constant focus and is situated in the very centre of the page, thus this is the first point of focus for the reader with the typical reader focusing on the characters facial features then moving outwards towards the cover lines and the magazines masthead. The left third technique has been used on this front cover with the leading edge of the masthead and the larger, more important cover lines appearing in this space, however less important cover lines appear to the right of the main image almost boxing in the image giving it an illusion of compactness instead of the much more desired sense of size which the cover of “Empire” features.
To summarise this front cover, it seems that the quality of this design is lacking in focus; the reader just doesn’t have the key point of focus to really grab their attention, the text is plain and uninteresting and the layout appears limiting and claustrophobic, all-in-all there’s no feeling of quality and it seems like almost no thought has been given to many different key aspects of magazine front cover design. If both “Fangoria” and “Empire” magazines were placed next to each other on a magazine rack “Empire” would draw far more attention and would in turn be much more successful as it is in reality.
The next front cover that I chose to do is the September 2008 issue of “Total Film” Magazine.
The reason I chose to do this particular magazine is due to it’s content, the film that is the main feature is not a horror film, but I found the techniques used on the front cover to excellent.
The Colour scheme is a simple one featuring White, yellow and black. The image used is mostly dark with a dark cityscape in the background. This magazine has created it’s colour scheme in a similar way to which “Empire” magazine chose it’s colour scheme; most of the colours used on the front cover feature in the main feature image. The standard text used for cover lines is large and easy to read even from a considerable distance. Along the bottom of the page there is a cover line arranged horizontally, it’s text is arranged in alternating bold/regular/bold/regular print, this removes the need for a comma and also makes it easy to read. The feature article title is in a dramatic custom font depicting shattered glass, which features in some of the films other advertisements. The main feature image on the front cover is a mid shot of a character holding a gun in a direction that would be over the shoulder of the photographer, a large amount of attention is directed towards the gun which overlaps the magazines masthead. The shot is well lit with what I would expect to be two lamps. Firstly a lamp around head height directed towards the left (readers perspective) of the characters face then another lamp illuminating the other side of his face but not to such an extent. It’s very obvious that this character has had his photo taken in a studio then digitally rendered on top of another real image or a computer generated image of a cityscape. The cover lines are placed towards the lover half of the cover creating an effect that draws the initially readers eyes towards the face of the character on the cover. The “Left-Third” is used to great effect here, the masthead looks like it was designed with the “Left-Third” in mind as the word “TOTAL” is encased within the top horizontal line of the “F” in “FILM”, from a potential buyers point of view you can see the masthead (at least most of it) of the magazine in just the “Left-Third”.
This, in my opinion is a well thought out front cover, the use of colour is very effective and highly visible, the image used on the front cover is very dramatic which uses a good use of lighting and the layout of the cover line and masthead optimizes the “Left-Third” completely.
To Conclude, from researching and reviewing these 3 different magazine front covers I have determined which techniques create a good quality professional magazine front cover which If implemented properly could rival the big budget film magazines such as “Empire” and “Total Film”. From doing this research I have learnt the importance of Colour, the “Left-Third” and how to make font stand out effectively. I wish to use the successful techniques featured upon these three magazine covers to influence a set of core conventions that I should work with in mind, these form the backbone of my design brief.
Film Magazine Front Cover Design brief
These are the key aspects of design which I want to include whilst designing my film magazine front cover:
· Either a Close-up or a Mid-shot image of a main protagonist of film that is dramatic using Adobe Photoshop to enhance existing colours to connote the desired horror themes.
· Colour scheme that reflects the colours used in the main feature image, with coloured text that stand out from background.
· A Masthead that is well designed, readable and bold.
· A design that makes the most of the Left-third.
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